Senior lecturer in Creative Arts Jerry Wong will spend three weeks in America under the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP).
This program is the US Department of State’s premier professional exchange program which provides first-hand knowledge about the US society, culture, and politics, while cultivating lasting relationships.
Mr Wong will be involved in the Multi-Regional Project ‘Promoting Social Good Through The Arts’ from April 13th to May 2nd, 2015.
During his trip he will visit Washington DC, Kansas City (Missouri), New York, Santa Fe (New Mexico) and San Francisco (California).
This project will examine how the arts in the United States are used as vehicles for promoting positive social values and change in communities.
Participants will visit established art centers as well as smaller, community-supported arts programs to learn about the various ways in which the arts can convey identity, counter discrimination, build self-esteem, include the disabled or marginalized, promote education and health, and encourage tolerance and dialogue.
The project will focus on the innovative use of the graphic arts (including painting and outdoor art such as murals), theater and performing arts (including performance artists who use narrative and music to convey their messages in unorthodox venues), and video art made accessible via social media.
Wong said he hopes to learn a lot from the American experience which he would use to help develop greater interest in Art and Culture in Fiji and also look at emerging forms of Art which could be incorporated into traditional forms of Art.
“I would like to engage on the many ways in which the arts-sector could convey identity, counter discrimination, build self-esteem, include the disabled or marginalized, promote education and health, and encourage tolerance and dialogue. And to use that to foster education as well as bring about economic benefits to the underprivileged, the disabled and the rural communities,” he said.
“My passion in arts preservation, evolving artistic genres, arts-fusion and arts education disseminated through technology will bring a unique perspective and transfer a distinctive standpoint in my participation at the International Visitor Leadership Program.”
Mr Wong is a Creative Arts Senior Lecturer based at Raiwai in the Department of Graphic Arts & Design of the College of Humanities and Education.
Mr Wong left the country on Thursday, April 9th 2015.
For more information, please contact Communications Office on 3393110.
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