| 2010 Credere Recipients
The Birth of New Culture
This year, The Credere Fund of Think OutWord is honored to award a total of $6000 to five individuals of tremendous vision and initiative. In each case, the grant recipients demonstrate a capacity to perceive where and how new cultural impulses are needed in their respective contexts, and offer their ingenuity and commitment to realizing their ideals in concrete projects relating to Art & Anthroposophy, Social Change & Anthroposophy, and Goethean Phenomenology. |
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Art + Anthroposophy
Sampsa Pirtola ~ "The Birth of the Transmodern", Immanuel International Tour
Awarded $2,000
 Sampsa Pirtola is a young man from Finland who has worked quite extensively in the arts, as well as management and organization. His path led him to investigate social sculpture, acting, singing, film production, and the relationship that these mediums have to social life. With a deep relationship to Social Threefolding and the need for social renewal, and a dedicated quest to uncover a living, transformative art form, he discovered a character in himself named Immanuel. Through this character he engages with both the serious and the lighthearted phenomena in the world, and by reliving and retelling life through his modern jester quality, he provides for others both entertainment and, more importantly, another layer to our thinking process and another avenue of perspective. His project is a tour of public performances through many countries in the world, and in the spirit of great social actions, half of his trip will be planned, the other half improvised. In his performances he will share both his art form and his quest for social transformation with others, and through film documentation he will be able to share the fruits of this journey long into the future. |
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Karen Bailey ~ Little Friends Puppet Theater
Awarded $1,000  Karen Bailey has recently moved to Boulder, CO, to be part of the first circle of students at Sound Circle Eurythmy Training. Out of her extensive background with visual arts, crafts, dance, puppetry, and early childhood Waldorf education, she will start a silk marionette puppet troupe that will perform twelve classic Grimm's fairy tales to children and their families in Waldorf schools, private homes, public schools, libraries, day care centers around Boulder over the course of four years. The students of Sound Circle Eurythmy will in turns participate as puppeteers and all proceeds from the performances will support the participants to fund two educational trips to Europe as part of their 4-year training. The goal of Little Friends Puppet Theater is to reach as many children as possible and touch their lives with beauty and imagination to nurture and support their development. |
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Social Change + Anthroposophy
Cleide Dos Santos Coutinho ~ Inspiring Social Change by Re-enlivening Culture
Awarded $2,000  Over the next twelve months, Cleide Dos Santos Coutinho will organize cultural spaces and events out of which real social change and initiative can manifest in one of the poorest areas of São Paulo, Brazil. She intends to create open cultural spaces and activities in this community, including music, theater, dance, conversation, lectures, and the creation of stories and visual art, as well as festivals and parades that honor local heritage. During the organizing and realization of this work she will simultaneously mentor another local young person in developing relevant organizational and leadership skills. She is a member of the Association of Monte Azul, a collective of individuals who have been working in various ways to bring healthy alternatives to the difficult and severe conditions in which people of some of the poorest neighborhoods in São Paolo find themselves. Cleide sees part of her work as clarifying the different roles of the three spheres of society, and suggests one helpful solution to the social ills in São Paolo is to enliven the cultural life of the community and provide a safe and constructive space for its young people. |
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Goethean Phenomology
Joao Felipe Toni ~ Goethean Phenomenology as Environmental Education in the Brazilian 'Restinga' Biome.
Awarded $1,000  This study will investigate and elaborate activities for students utilizing the Goethean phenomenological method in botanical research of the native species and the landscape of a biome of Brazil called Restinga. The Flora of Restinga has about 142 families and over 1500 species. During his month-long fieldwork, Joao Felipe will engage in rigorous observation, data collection, artistic exercises and contemplative judgment of the plant life on the Morro das Almas´s Trail in Cardoso Island State Park in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. This project is a case study to demonstrate the relevance of the history and the philosophy of biology and the Goethean phenomenological method to teaching science to high school students, and exploring different aspects of the nature of science. |
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THE CREDERE FUND, a program of Think OutWord, encourages the community to direct its excess capital (usually in the form of small gifts) to cultural initiatives, empowering individuals to freely manifest their visions for the future. Credere awards grants to individuals with creative projects in art, social change, and Goethean science. These initiatives nourish the cultural life of the whole community, awakening an ethic of mutual support.
Photo Credits in Order of Appearance: Karen Bailey, Sampsa Pirtola, Karen Bailey, Tatiane Andrade (2008 Credere Recipient), Joao Felipe Toni. |
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