The Cabildo of Lanzarote strongly supports the initiative of the General Directorate of Historical Heritage of the regional Executive to ensure that the silbo gomero is declared by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral Heritage of Humanity.
Both public administrations, which signed a collaboration agreement this Thursday to promote the ancestral means of communication, have organized in Lanzarote, from October 17 to 21, the 1st Meeting of Young Artists of Macaronesia Silboarte 2005, with the aim of collecting material to support the candidacy before UNESCO, which will finally be presented by the Kingdom of Spain in 2007.
Atlantic Digital Art Project
The young artists awarded in the Macaronesian contest held by the Atlantic Digital Art project will participate in the 1st Meeting, within the categories of short film making, documentaries, video creation, short film scripts, photography, graphic design, sculpture, comics, short story, folk music, electronic music and poetry.
During the 1st Meeting, which will have a second phase in La Gomera in April 2006, the artists will have to develop the script, the realization and the post-production of a short film, as well as the realization of photographic series and graphic design, whose theme to be developed will be the silbo gomero. The work resulting from this meeting may be used in the project to proclaim the candidacy "El silbo gomero" as a Masterpiece of the Oral Heritage of Humanity, which the General Directorate of Historical Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands is promoting within the framework of UNESCO.
Workshops
The 1st Meeting to be held in Lanzarote consists of two parts. Thus, on October 17 and 18, young artists will discover, through conferences, screenings and talks, the essence of the island of La Gomera, its primordial characteristics and the idiosyncrasy of its inhabitants. In a second part, to be developed between October 19 and 21, three important workshops will be established.
The first, entitled "Silbo gomero: cinematographic motif" will be taught by the Cuban screenwriter and film director Rolando Díaz. The participants of this workshop must make a script for a short film, which they will send to the General Directorate of Historical Heritage, before January 13, 2006. A jury composed of film professionals will choose the script that will be produced in La Gomera in April 2006.
Second workshop
The second workshop is called "The artistic image of the silbo gomero" and will be led by the sculptor José Darias. Its purpose is to bring the workshop participants closer to the plastic and artistic image of La Gomera and specifically of the silbo gomero, so that in the meeting to be held next year on that Island, the participants can develop photographic series and the graphic image that will accompany the presentation of the works that are made.
The last workshop programmed, "The silbo gomero as a musical discourse", moderated by the composer Enrique Mateu, aims for the participants to make a musical composition inspired by the silbo gomero, which they will send to the Government of the Canary Islands before January 13. An expert jury will choose the person or group selected to carry out the soundtrack of the short film.
Looking towards UNESCO
The Director of Heritage of the Executive, Moisés Plasencia, explained that the process to declare the silbo gomero as a World Heritage Site began in 1999. That year the Canarian Government issued a decree requiring the teaching of the silbo gomero in the educational centers of La Gomera, which before was relegated to the rural environment and was even shameful for some to whistle. In 2003 a congress of the whistling language is held, practically unprecedented worldwide.
Afterwards, in 2005, the government presented the didactic unit of the silbo gomero to be transmitted to the schools of La Gomera and other islands that expressed their willingness to learn about the tradition in depth. Next Wednesday at 20:00 hours in the Castle of San José there will be an exhibition of silbo gomero.
