Goethe Institute for boosting cultural ties with Syrian partners
Syria-Germany, Culture, 11/20/2000

"The philosophy of the Goethe Institute in Damascus is to plan and organize its activities when ever possible together with the Syrian partners, being the faculties of universities, or the different ministries " said the director of the Goethe Institute in Damascus.

Bjorr Luley, in a statement to Arabic News, added that one of the institute's best partners is the higher Institute of Music in Damascus which is a very important and reliable partner. He also cited other partners for joint work ventures especially the "Arab States Broadcasting Union ASBU, Damascus center and the Institutions like the Friends of Damascus " with whom we have a lecture next week about the first German ambassador to Syria in the 19th century ".

On the Institute 's busy artistic activities Mr. Luley said that in the last three weeks we had a sculpture exhibition by a German artist Tina Sackrmann. He added that what was very interesting for the Syrian public that in her sculptures the artist used materials she had collected in Syria during a previous visit in 1999 including woods and stones, noting that her works also reflected the experience she had in Syria during her last visit, showing her creativity.

Mr. Luley noted a second activity. Something which is a grass-root work. We have invited a German potter ( ceramic artist ) Jochen Brandt , who is a specialist in Islamic ceramics, because he studied in Iran Islamic glaze techniques. An old technique which was only rediscovered during the last 10 years as the oldest glazing techniques in the world. Mr Luley added that this German artist who had studied the recipe of potters has very recently ended a workshop for the students of the Higher Institute for Applied Arts at Damascus citadel. He is teaching the Syrian students this old technique which is totally new to them.

Mr. Luley said that last December " we had an exhibition by a young Syrian ceramic artist, Nida Tannous, who introduced us to the Institute at the citadel. On this promising experience he said: " I saw that the Syrian students in the ceramic class used only ready-made imported glazed. And when I saw that I proposed to organize a workshop with the aim to show the students how to improve glaze techniques by using only locally available material " as well as to awake the awareness for experimental work to awake personal creativity of the artist", noting that the result is that the students have totally changed as they know by making experiments and tests different materials by firing in different temperatures. He added the ultimate goal of this new introduced technique is also to give life into the Syrian ceramic art.

He went on saying that what we are regularly doing is not only presenting German artists in our galleries but also bringing young Syrian artists like Mousa Malke from al-Qamishli with prints under the title " Echoes of Assyrian melodies" and organizing an exhibition for a very brilliant Syrian photographer Manar Wakim whose works will be on display at the Institute on November 20 till December 3rd, 2000 .

On cooperation in education between the two sides, Mr. Luley said: " We are planning together with the ministry of education a one week workshop with Syrian teachers for natural science in secondary schools." He said that this workshop will be conducted in Damascus by German specialists. The aim of this workshop is to teach the Syrian teachers how to build material to make natural science teaching more interesting for the students. He explained that there are many alternative instructional materials developed by teachers and teacher  trainers worldwide and tested successfully in the classroom which can be produced at low-cost in small scale in the country. There are economic and educational alternatives to high cost imported products, which have sometimes high prices, but low educational value. He added that the Syrian ministry of education tried very hard to support the teachers with modern equipment, but still those teachers working in remote areas are in need of technical or the subject- matter needed for natural sciences teaching, adding that in this workshop the teachers will learn how to make this teaching aids of very cheap materials and how to produce materials for teaching by themselves in order to make the students more interested in learning about natural sciences as well as to awake their creativity.

Another very important activity that Mr. Luley highlighted is a lecture delivered on November 14 by an active German member of Parliament. he explained: " We have invited the German publicist Dr. Anke Martiny, to deliver a lecture entitled " Developments- hampering factors in economies and societies and possible strategies to overcome them ". Dr. Anke Martiny has been a member of the Economic Committee of the German Bundestag for 13 years. Since 1998 she is an executive director of the NGO Transparency International Deutschalnd in Munich. He said that this NGO is collaborating with many countries in the Arab states to fight corruption , noting that: " we are collaborating with the Economic Science Society of Syria to inform them how we in Germany tried to get rid off this social phenomenon".

With this lecture, he explained, "we want to support the ongoing process of reform and re-organization by the new President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, by just giving information how we did it in our country. It is not to show that we did it a right way, but to show one way of fighting corruption and also to introduce a legal framework to control it and eventually to eradicate it in a long run.

Mr. Luley added that with these few examples I want to demonstrate that Goethe Institute cultural cooperation is not only focusing on literatures, film and fine arts but that we tried to understand culture in a more wider way like working in the field of education, economic reforms and even partly in working sociologists and peoples in the ministries of irrigation and agriculture.

On how the Institute demonstrates its activities in Syria, Mr. Luley said " First of all I think that to support young artists in Syria it needs to give hem the opportunity to expose themselves and present their work to a wider public and since many galleries only want to present well- known artists , we give promising artists who try something new and are very creative, the chance to exhibit in our Institute's gallery." He added, we have for example, show film series, and we offer this as an opportunity for film enthusiasts to learn about the international film industry. He cited another example adding " we collaborate with Syrian younger theatre directors, especially with Raula al-Fattal, one of the promising theatre directors in Syria ". He added :"we give those young directors the chance to go to Germany to develop their career and to eventually stage German plays in Arabic adoption to a Syrian audience.

Previous Stories:
  Six British artists display in Damascus for the first time in 40 years   (11/8/2000)
  A Canadian Photography exhibition: 'Palestine, El Salvador, Home'   (11/3/2000)
  Aleppo hosts the 4th international photography gathering   (11/3/2000)

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