AFFILIATIONS/ INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS
Over the years, Iris Arts has worked independently and with other organizations to promote socially relevant projects and productions. Often, the collaboration includes participating in projects with non-governmental agencies, consulting and teaching skills on specific projects in other countries, and sharing resources.
International projects Iris Arts has participated in:
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Traveled to Kosova, in conjunction with Peaceworkers International, during the break up of the former Yugoslavia to document what was happening to children of war,
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Traveled to Italy with a film crew to make a trailer for a film about children of war, using the pictures, poems, and stories of children caught in the ethnic wars of Yugoslavia. Provided editing suite once we returned to the US.
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I traveled to South Africa as a faculty member for a Crabgrass project. We took 25 youth leaders from all the different ethnic regions of the former Yugoslavia to the U.N. Conference on Racism and then traveled for three weeks throughout South Africa studying the Truth and Reconciliation Process. Our intention was to form a network of youth leaders across the ethnic divide that was creating ongoing conflict in this region.
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Worked in Panama with interns from Georgetown University working with a non-profit teaching digital media skills.
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I was part of a film crew in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador, filming the World Wheel project to develop a school for the Schuar Indians. We were also filming the Huarmi project in the Andes.
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Worked in Cuba for a month each in the winter of 2019, 20 teaching digital media skills to the local artists in Havana and developing the animation project "An Afro-Cuban Yoruba Creation Myth: Spiritual Persistence in the Face of Enslavement" with collaborators Jose Gonzales Perez (Habana) and Victor Mora (Habana) whose artwork I deconstructed for the visuals. The animation, in both English and Spanish, was completed in the winter of 2020-21 and is published on this site. In the winter of 2021, Iris Arts was the fiscal sponsor of the fashion show "Post Identity" in Havana, featuring the dress designs of Rafa Suar with fabric for each design created by local and international artists.
