Peace Kites, a smARTpower Film was selected at Rated SR (Socially Relevant) Film Festival
We're thrilled to announce that Peace Kites, a film RAVA shot, directed and edited as part of the "smARTpower" series was selected at Rated SR (Socially Relevant) Film Festival, to be held at the legendary Quad Cinema on March 14 at 4pm.
In this film, New York-based artist Miguel Luciano travels Kenya to develop a large-scale kite workshops with residents of the Mukuru slum community in which up to hundreds of participants, from children to elders, build handmade kites with life-size photographic self-portraits of themselves. When the kites are flown en masse in a final culminating event, and as the participants see images of themselves flying simultaneously in the air above, the kites symbolize freedom to Mukuru residents and engender a dialogue transcending tribal and generational boundaries.
The "smARTpower" series, a commission from the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs & The Bronx Museum of the Arts, chronicles the stories of 15 U.S. artists who were sent as cultural ambassadors to 15 countries worldwide to develop socially engaged public art projects with local communities. The films trace the contradictions of cultural colonialism while revealing how art can be a force for personal transformation and societal change.