Aaaarte!

Aaaarte! is a series of short educational videos about art for children. Joining information and interviews with professionals, the project will introduce children to different artistic expressions and languages. All episodes will be available on the internet, for free, on the YouTube platform for an indefinite period. The objective is to value the universe of the arts, defend cultural diversity for children and occupy the internet with quality children's content.

As artists in a fragile Brazil, with delicate social contexts and political hate on all sides, we are shocked by common sense about the Arts. Click on Brazilian news related to funding the culture, or artistic projects that escape the mainstream. If you observe the comments (and sometimes the journalistic content itself) you will see a misunderstanding of the importance of the Arts, all being treated as waste of time and money, uselessness, activity of tramps. And questions such as "this is not art", "this is not culture", misinformation, lack of knowledge, etc. Ask professionals how to make art in Brazil and try not to hear that we are living a dark period.
The importance of art is simply not clear. Neither its possibilities, the beauty of its diversity or the wonderful projects around us. What can / should we do for a better future? Clarify!
We see in children the most open public to new information and knowledge, to discover a new world. And to show the diversity of the arts for a child is to provide a future with adults interested in the arts, be supportive spectators of artistic making or even artists who have discovered their potential.

Aaaarte! has the objective of dialoguing with Brazilian children, from 6 to 10 years. The content will be free, available over the internet.

Navigate for a while in the free content for kids on the internet. The amount of poor quality productions, clearly commercial goals, irresponsible speeches, is frightening. With more and more kids spending their free time surfing incessantly through online videos, it's not a good combination.

This project is idealized by Cia. Ruído Rosa. This is a theatrical group that has an experience of more than 10 years in artistic projects for children, especially with live performances.

But, adapting to today's times, we think we should make our presence online. And we realized that we had to talk about art for children. And we had to do it our way, playful, fun, taking advantage of all the contacts with other artists that our experience provided, and especially to do it in a way that was accessible to a much larger number of children than we could achieve with the presentations Live. Thinking about a better future, we decided not to make art, but to talk about art. Aaaarte! was born.

There are a number of channels and videos on YouTube aimed at children with explanations and details about the world of science, but this treatment is not the same with the art universe. How about we show that Art is also interesting?

For this, we will make a series of 10 short episodes, lasting approximately 20 minutes, presenting different artistic languages. The idea is to present, in a playful and dynamic way, the concepts of a certain language, historical context and famous examples, so that the child begins to recognize its importance. We will add this to interviews with guest artists who can talk a little about their experience and tell in an accessible language the details of their work. And we will also add tips and clues on how the child can find out where to see artistic productions, even associating with the information that there is much being distributed there for free through public projects.

We initially thought about the following themes:

- Group theater
- Cinema: documentary
- Independent comics
- Artistic photography
- Opera
- Poetry
- Sculpture
- Contemporary dance
- Punk rock
- Hip hop

The themes were designed in order to define some specificity within a given language, to achieve a more interesting deepening and also to cover some artistic facet that the child does not usually have easy access in the mainstream media. Each theme will be presented in an episode, produced according to the aesthetics of videos on the internet, with simple recordings and editions, agile and fun, suited to our budget and to what the child is already familiar in this environment. And everything available for free.
It is very important to remember the continuity factor of this project. Even after the closing of this first series, the videos will continue to be available indefinitely free of charge, multiplying the chances of children getting in touch with the episodes. And, in our ideal, the goal is that we can attract public interest in the future to find other partnerships and ways to extend and continue the series of episodes in new seasons, as there are many developments to talk about art with children. We have already thought of jazz, musical theater, classical ballet, design, engraving, science fiction ... there is a lot! But for everything to exist, it takes the kickoff. Let's start talking about Aaaarte!

Access to arts education is extremely restricted in Brazil, where the majority of the population lives under fragile socioeconomic conditions. This is added to a current moment when art is directly attacked by the new federal government. Artistic activities that escape from the mainstream and the commercial axis, are always on the verge of extinction, with very little proximity to the public. But how can we say that a people does not care about art when the doors of this universe are always closed?

Internet access, however, is growing in Brazil. Providing free of charge that more children, from all social segments, have the chance to know the world of art, is an innovation in Brazil. It may not seem like an economic innovation, but this type of action in our territory is an educational and cultural innovation.
Now, let's take a look at YouTube. We do not know in Brazil channels of videos for this purpose. The vast majority of children's productions have an obvious commercial stamp, selling toys, etc. The educational ones are notably science-oriented. Our innovation is precisely to take advantage of what already exists to show a universe that already exists - but that remains unknown.

We will not look innovative in this field, because we will take advantage of YouTube technology - the most famous video platform in the world. This is because our focus is on spreading the content in a broad and free way, which YouTube provides us with ease. In addition, the children's audience is accustomed to this platform, being much easier to use it to bring the children closer to new content than to use a technology that would be strange for this audience.

To believe that we can work together to solve this problem, we must first rely on our professional experience. This project is designed by Cia. Ruído Rosa, a team that for more than 10 years has created artistic works for children, with a history of many projects, partners and recognition. Technically, we are able to produce good content for this audience. On the other hand, we do not think we are going to completely solve the problem. We will not. But we will, yes, collaborate to improve the situation. We believe that this will happen, firstly, by the gratuity and easy access to our content. To make it possible for any child to access the internet, it is - symbolically - a success. In order for people to discover our initiative, we will use the partners we have accumulated during our years of work: schools, libraries, public institutions, artists - that will make our arms much longer to embrace this public.

The project will still run for the first time, so there are still no viewers.

From its launch, in this first year, we have the modest ambition to reach 5,000 spectators (children from 6 to 10 years old).

We expect to increase this number to 50,000 over 5 years.

We believe that our project will have a much greater impact than just the direct viewers of the videos. We are talking about a citizenship education project, which seeks to spread understanding and a taste for the arts. Children teaching their classmates, attending arts activities, encouraging their own parents and, especially, continuing this movement when they become adults. Our focus is educational. It requires patience, but the transformation thus can be profound in our society.

The barriers to the project are that this is an almost solitary struggle in Brazil today. For at least the next four years we have a federal government that is not showing itself to be an appropriate friend of the arts and artists. But beyond that, we are in a country with many social urgencies, and in the midst of it, the thought that art is a luxury still persists.

We will not be able to directly change the larger instances. But overcoming these barriers is precisely the reason for the project's existence - otherwise, the project would not have to exist. The strategy is to use partners who are also interested in artistic and children's audiences, with the potential to influence people - specialized media, educational institutions and other artists.

Cia. Ruído Rosa has a permanent team of 2 artists-creators.

Depending on the project, other artists and technicians collaborate with our work.
This project will hire staff to provide video recording and editing services, as well as guest artists for each video.

Some of the artists-creators of this project:

Vítor Freire: Master in Cultural Studies from the University of São Paulo, Specialist in Cultural Management from Senac, Bachelor of Performing Arts from the University of São Paulo. Professor of creation of cultural projects and artistic entrepreneurship. Producer, director and actor of several theatrical shows for children. Recently he was hired as Cultural Consultant by UNESCO.
Anna Carolina Longano: Master in Social Change and Political Participation from the University of São Paulo, Bachelor of Performing Arts from the University of São Paulo. Professor of theater for more than 10 years. Producer, playwright and actress of various theatrical shows for children. Recently, she was awarded twice in a row for her plays for children.

The team of Cia. Ruído Rosa has already conquered great partners in Brazil, such as: SESC, state government, municipal governments, Virada Cultural, Museum of Image and Sound, Paulista Association of Friends of Art, Unified Educational Centers, publishers Cia. Das Letras , FTD and Brinque Book, libraries network Saraiva, Mauricio de Sousa Productions, Association Education Partners and colleges, in addition to winning selections of the government of the state of São Paulo and the federal government.

In general, the work of Cia. Ruído Rosa is offered free of charge to the public. The costs of the projects are paid by our partners, so that we can offer the artistic activity in a democratic way to the widest possible audience.

The funders of our projects are institutions focused on education and art, such as public and private schools, public and private libraries, publishers and non-governmental organizations, as well as funding programs promoted by public secretariats of culture.

We hope that Solve brings us what is difficult to achieve directly in our country: - Financing to kick start the project. From it ready, it is much easier to get sponsorship for its continuity. - Attention to a project without commercial purposes, which sees the culture for its symbolic dimension and as citizens' right. - Visibility and international recognition of our proposal, impelling that later we will get more Brazilian partners and collaborators for the future of the initiative.

Considering the Brazilian context, after the recognition of Solve (and only after), the most appropriate way of financing will be by sponsorship of private companies through tax incentive laws.