Gualala Arts Promoting public interest and participation in the arts since 1961
Call Gualala Arts at 707-884-1138 to register.
Photo by Anne Menne.
The word “game” derives from Proto-German and Proto-Indo-European roots meaning “participation, communion, people together;” and “to think, have in mind.” German, Swedish and Icelandic derivative meanings include “joy, amusement, pleasure, mirth, rejoicing, merriment, and fun.” From these original joyous communal meanings for play, the definition of game has changed to “an active interest or pursuit, especially involving competitive engagement or adherence to rules; a scheme or art with a purpose, a plan or a project.” Have we lost the rejoicing in being together known to our ancestors?
This workshop reverts to the original meaning of games. It is not about board games nor competition, but about participation with others in play that provides cognitive and effective enjoyments that teach you more about yourself. These classes bring art and anthropology together in new ways and make it personal. To enjoy these activities, the only experience you need is Life! Through different art forms—drawing, painting, collage, writing, and theater—you will discover more about yourself and your value as a cultural member while you acquire new skills, learn to see your daily activities in a new way, and play as you did when you were a child, both alone and with others.
Students should bring writing utensils, journals, paper, and a yoga mat (dates to be specified).
About Anne Menne
“As a scholar, I have worked with Anne in planning a community art project here in Mill Valley, as an expansion of her work in Peru. In this undertaking, I have been enormously impressed by her originality of thought and her broad, multi-disciplinary understanding of her subject… I work with many talented people at the Community Center; Anne is extraordinary in the enthusiasm, excitement, and thoroughness…” — Candra Day Executive Director, Mill Valley Community Center
Anne is a founding partner in the Cultural Medicine Institute, which focuses on research and education about anthropology, arts, human development, medicine, and anthropology as medicine. Her current focus is research and writing about American society. She has worked as a project and exhibition designer, director, and writer to initiate, develop and produce research and educational programs for urban and rural, multi-ethnic and international audiences and products for exhibition, instruction, entertainment and public media, including extensive studies in Peru.
Her experience includes:
Executive Director, Heart of Anthropology, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation dedicated to anthropological research and education.
Sponsored projects have included Project Peru, described below, and a research and community education program about the Iodine Deficiency Disorder Program in Peru co-sponsored by the United Nations and Kiwanis International. Fifty of the one hundred children participating in Project Per were located and interviewed over twenty years later, and results presented in paper and video formats at international conferences. A comparative program in urban and country schools in Oaxaca, Mexico, was undertaken in 2006.
Project Peru Director and Foundation Fellow, Inter-American Foundation.
Developed a multi-media ethnographic research project on child individuation and socialization in Peru. The purpose of this project was to gather data on Latin American culture in order to reality test educational materials being developed by the University of California. Worked as anthropologist and teacher in wealthy, middle class, poor and migrant neighborhoods in and around Lima, Peru, to research and document the project in photographs, tape and film. Returned to the United States to develop the second phase of the project, assembled an especially equipped van to serve as mobile research station and artmobile, and drove from Vancouver, Canada, to Peru and Bolivia to conduct the second phase of the project. Results of the project included photographs, tapes and films and approximately eight hundred paintings with written descriptions by Peruvian children.
Guest Curator, Being Ten Years Old in Peru: Children Paint Their World, Junior Arts Center, Cultural Affairs Department, City of Los Angeles.
Preparation and planning included visiting exhibitions; selecting material from the Peru collection and from photographs, tape and film documentation for exhibition; designing, scripting and story-boarding presentation; choosing appropriate forms of audio-visual media; preparing educational and publicity material to involve observers as participants; training staff; and speaking to audiences and media.
Project Initiator, Designer, Director and Curator, Children Paint Their World: Being Ten Years Old in Mill Valley, California and Lima, Peru, California Council for the Humanities & the National Endowment for the Humanities and Mill Valley Community Center.
Conducted an ethnographic research, exhibition, and community self-review project in Mill Valley, California, funded by the California Council for the Humanities & the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mill Valley Community Center. Researched, documented, evaluated and presented results in a series of community programs.
Anne holds a Master of Arts in Creative Arts Interdisciplinary Studies; a Master of Arts in Latin American Studies, Anthropology, Folklore, Education; and a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities. She has also produced films and exhibited fiber art and poetry.