ESTE ARTIGO FOI APRESENTADO NO IOSTE
FOZ DO IGUAÇÚ, 2002
IS IT POSIBLE TO TALK ABOUT FERNANDO PESSOA, NIETZSCHE, CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE AND OTHER LIGHTED WRITERS WITH CHILDREN OF EVERY AGE AND BE COMPREHENSIBLE?
AN INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE IN MUSEU DA VIDA – COC / FIOCRUZ DURING THE EVENT “PAIXÃO DE LER” ( PASSION OF READING) IN THREE DIFFERENT TIMES OF THE PLAY “I READ BECAUSE I WANT TO.”
Maria do Rosário (Duaia ) de Assumpção Braga (Museu da Vida – COC/FIOCRUZ,
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, ou )
Requested to join the activities of “Paixão de Ler”(wich means something like “Passion of Reading”) in Museu da Vida – COC/FIOCRUZ, the author researched about some writers who published his thoughts about the relationship between reading, writing and the way they were mixed with this. It looked like a vertical cut into a very special moment in life: the moment someone choose to open a book and pay attention in the meaning of what is inside. This moment, in our belief, is a turning point to people who will develop interest in any kind of research. So, it is possible to say that if children are stimulated and feel free to open a book by themselves, probably we are going to watch the developing of a generation with more sense of concentration, observation, criticism and imagination. These qualities can improve the capacity of processing information and create a point of view of their own, researchers or not, acting in public and private life as citizens and healthy people in the largest sense of the word health.
The activity had to integrate both the objectives of the event “Paixão de Ler” and the objectives of FIOCRUZ (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation Institute) an institution with the focus on Public Health by researching, developing products, attending on people, informing and educating. FIOCRUZ has an unity called Casa de Oswaldo Cruz – COC (Oswaldo Cruz House) focused in History , and the cultural promotion. The COC includes the “Museu da Vida” (Museum of Life) an interactive science museum that contains among his spaces the Ciência em Cena (that means Science on the Stage or Science on Scene).This is the place in Museu da Vida (Museum of Life) where are researched some relationships between Art and Science by an approach that includes the impact of sensorial perception and the Culture in the developing of knowledge
This work tries to appoint the steps that formed the structure of the resultant activity: a play called “Leio porque Quero” (I read because I want to), respecting various specificities and limits. We believe that thinking about a way of integrate the conceptual steps to the operational steps may be useful to educators, scientists and artists. Also, we guess that prejudices about some authors can be questioned by the reaction of the audience, that not only attends on the play but also plays a role by contesting a letter in the middle of the spectacle.
INTRODUCTION
CONCEPTS THAT LEAD EVERY ACTION IN MUSEU DA VIDA
At first, it is interesting to know a little about the way this museum in particular is organized, in order to understand some of the specificities and limits we have already mentioned.
Museu da Vida is a space of no-formal Education and the focus in Health, Science and Technology Information is shared with the visitors by expositions, activities and attitudes that considers the freedom to discover and to make questions, the basis for future researchers or citizens interested in the decisions that makes our planet be a good place to live or not, and it is closed relationed to the ways that Health, Sciences in general, Technology, intend to go through. At same time, we understand this visitor is a subject that may connect hands, feelings and brain, as parts of the same hole, each one as necessary as the other. This subject owns and is “owned” by a community, and the notion of space and time and the relationship among local and global cultures are the basis to develop a point of view and a critical thought about matters like bioethics, chemical weapons, the possibilities of development of technology, transgenics, it’s sponsorships and supports, and whatever that can act over him and the community. We guess that this attitude may develop respect by human being and change or improve the conditions of life of the majority of the people around the Earth. So, every time this belief will be underlining the main actions proposed by the Museum. As Hannah Arendt notice in her book, “The Human Condition” at page 201:
“…the political recent history is full of examples that the expression human material is not just a inoffensive metaphor. The same can be said about innumerous scientific modern experiences in the fields of social engineering, biochemistry, brain surgery, etc., all of them looking for manipulate and modify the human material as it was any other material. This mecanicist attitude is typical of the Modern Time. When looking objectives like these, the Antiquity disposed to conceive man as a savage animal that should be tamed and civilized. In any case, the only possible result is the death of men, not necessarily as an alive organism, but as man.”
If Arendt wrote the book in 1958, the danger that the expression “human material” is absolutely comtemporary. It become necessary to comprehend the human being as a hole, as “the distinction, that he shares with everything that lives, become singularity, and the human plurality is the paradoxal plurality of singular beings.” (Arendt, 189). With this perspective, Museu da Vida opted to be multidisciplinary, adding to the patterns that the institution Museum contains the patterns of Health, Science and Technology Education in a transforming point of view. Is important to notice, as we are at a health’s research institute, that we work by the definition of the Ottawa’s Letter –1986, when the First International Conference of Health Promotion concept health as “the process of capacitation of the community to act in the develop of it’s quality of life and health, including a major participation in the control of this process. To reach a state of complete well-being of body, mental and social, the subjects and groups must know how to identify aspirations, satisfy needings and modify favorably his environment.(…) The responsibility of health promotion is not only of this sector, but also, points to a global well-being.”
By this thought it was necessary not only inform about health, but act more deeply. So, we look for the matters that impacts the human being through the times. We are going to look to the past, in order to imagine and plan the future; to what we are doing with the life in this planet, in order to understand the possibilities of balance we have; to the way that energy and information are processed in different levels, in order to understand that everything is connected; to the process of making Art, in order to recognize what we may do with that energy and information and also, the needing of transcendence we still have. Every activity is develop under research, presented, modified after the answer of the public and continuously analyzed, by the people that conceive them and the science education center of the museum.
THE OPERATION OF MUSEU DA VIDA
The Museum, opened since 1999, is specially careful with the school visits, that occur during the week, and since a year ago, when began to open at weekends, noticed that it was necessary to be careful about the families a new public who makes the visits in those days. It is common that the student that comes with the school, turn back with the family in the weekend. Many times, the student, who may live in low rent’s communities, have more education than their parents. This is a specificity of this museum, located in the area of Avenida Brasil in Rio de Janeiro. The entrance in the Museum is tax-free, attracting a part of the population that usually doesn’t have many available cultural options, but not only them. As a result, we can see that it became a democratic space of social acquaintanceship. The Museu da Vida has a Science Education Center that proposes a constructivist point of view to each of the spaces. The spaces are: Parque da Ciência that works on concepts about energy and information; Biodescoberta, that shows many aspects of the phenomena of life, the Passado and Presente, that reflects about the History, the past and the present by a charming footing by the Mourisc Castle, a historic patrimony, and last but not least, the Ciência em Cena, that tries to reveal connections of the meanings above and the process of making science and art, in a critical and expressive way. During the week the visits are organized in a manner that the visitors can know two different spaces, staying at about one hour and twenty minutes in each one. It is going to spend a morning or an afternoon. It is necessary to make an appointment at about a month before the visit and the teacher is invited to know the Museum a little for making a better choice according to his (hers) interests. In the weekends it is not necessary to make an appointment, but not everything is open, specially in Ciência em Cena, the activities changes each day in a week and on Saturdays when there is a play or a show or a video, it is necessary to arrive at about a half of hour before in order to get a ticket. So, in the weekends it is possible to visit more than two spaces, knowing that it is a different visit of that made in the week. Not only schools, but groups in general can make an appointment and visit during the week. The museum is open from Tuesdays to Fridays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m..
CIÊNCIA EM CENA
APPLYING CONCEPTS – TENSIONS, INTERSECTIONS AND RELATIONS AMONG ART, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION IN A VERY SPECIAL MUSEUM
Until now is possible to notice some reaction in a “scientific” public when they know that Museu da Vida promotes a space dedicated to art and science, and it is mainly done by one of the most ephemeral of the arts: the theater. In general, people justifies the existence of these activities with an utilitarian principle: the arts may talk about a matter without the obligation of the school, but being informative, and very charming. It isn’t wrong, but at Ciência em Cena we look for something deeper. We intend to investigate the needing of the Art and the Science, observing the aspects they have in common (such as their process, both of them, use perception, observation, abstraction, research and imagination) as well as the aspects they are different one from another (such as the possibility of being measured and the primary finalities of application). We observe also the way one dialogues with the other, or by the technological advances that makes art uses new tools, or by the way art may uncover some new reality that is arriving, or may expresses dreams of the society, every time showing the fight of human being between survival and transcendence. Not accidentally, someone already said that Art is the dream of the world. To concretize these ideals, we call other knowledge fields, such as Education and Communication, and all the time we must take a look at History and Philosophy, in other to find that complete human being we already mentioned in the part of the concepts of this particular museum. So, it is possible to notice that besides the mainly concepts, in Ciência em Cena we act and reflect, in at least three different times: when we concept the activities, when we attend on our public, and at this moment it is done altogether, and after the activities, integrating what objectives were or not reached, the surprises of the process and the changes we intend to do.
PERCEPTIONS ON: CIÊNCIA EM CENA WORKING
The multidisciplinary staff of Ciência em Cena (Science on Scene): is composed by actors, art educators, physics, a neuroscientist, journalists, technicians and producers. There are universitarian trainees as well as trainees of a course developed inside of the museum specialized in the formation of personal for center and museums of Science. These people are usually divided in more than one of the projects, and is the same staff that works during the week and in the weekend, following a schedule system. There are three areas to perform the activities: the theatre, called Tenda, with a hundred and twenty chairs, and structure of light and sound; the external area, a big garden exposed to the weather and the center of activities, also called Epidaurinho, a small stage with at about sixty places, a lab of Optic, a lab of Acustic, and two edition rooms.
There are three main projects developed by Ciência em Cena (Science on Scene): the Perception Laboratory, the Video Club of the Future and the Theatre.
The Perception Laboratory integrates activities around the theme playing improvisations, thinking about the way that brain process information and noticing the optical illusions we are exposed. It is offered in four sessions, one day a week, to groups of until forty visitors. Other activities came from the original activity: “Noticing Sound and Light”, “The Art and the Science of Perception” and “Hands on Brain!”.
The Video Club of Future works on the critical reading of image and information by stimulating the visitors, generally students, to create and realize a short video during the visit. In order to this occur, the teacher comes first and makes a workshop with the staff, then, she (he) comes back to school, prepares the script and the pre-production with the students, coming back with them to record, edit and evaluate the process. The idea is also stimulate the creation of Video Clubs in the schools as part of the process of developing critic, observation and expression while the students get in touch with technological process of audiovisual and media .
The Theatre is the oldest project of the three, idealized by Virginia Schall, PhD. At first, it was presented “The Messenger of the Stars”, a play by Ronaldo Nogueira da Gama about Galileu Galilei’s life. After the play, there was a debate about the subjects that interested the public: the holes of the moon, the moons of Jupiter, curiosities about Galileu and his family, doubts about Inquisition, the process of making a play about it all. It had been performed to twenty six thousand visitors of different ages, mainly children of public school, from 1997 until 2000. In 2001 began a new play, “The Mistery of the Barber” inspired in “The Night Barber” by Antonio Carlos Soares and directed by Jacyan Castilho. This play performs the discovery of the “Chagas Disease”, made in Lassance, Minas Gerais, by Carlos Chagas, one of the most important cientists of this institution. After the play there is also a debate where the public asks about the cure of the disease, the role of the prevention, the importance of environmental care and also, the making of a play about it all. The spectacle is on stage nowadays and if depending on the audience, it will be for a long time, and so we hope. Until December 2001, at about seven thousand visitors could cheer with us for theatre and science. The practice of these debates leads us to what our usual public rejects in general (as a distant posture with difficult words or in the time of explanation) and what attract them , as the posture of no prejudice about questions or about who is making the questions, that we try to maintain and the ability to give short and interesting answers, as well as they like to get other questions as answers, something that make everybody think in a different point of view. The affective dimension of the activity can’t be denied, and is common to us have notices of the continuity of the theme at school.
PAIXÃO DE LER
Paixão de Ler (Passion of Reading) is an annual event promoted by the Culture Secretary of Municipal District of Rio de Janeiro. The objective is to develop the pleasure of reading and improve the access to books, specially with children.
Some institutions are invited to join the event. Museu da Vida participates since its opening in 1999, under the coordination of Laíse de Carvalho, our librarian. And it was her request the incentive to develop an special activity for the event.
STRATEGIES AND DATA
Now we consider that the specificities are exposed. Also it is possible to notice the conceptual and operational state of movement that defines the museum. The limits were also clear: no budget, little time for rehearsal (since the theatre is busy almost every hour), the needing of making something very movable, little personal in order to don’t create troubles for the schedule. We could count on some resources: the video, that could help us to create an atmosphere since it was not possible to make an scenery, the capacity of research, some fonts and time for it – this was the biggest phase, spent at about three months.