With the slogan: ”All together it’s waste – separated it’s a resource”, Mendoza born Gabriela Seijo wants to get porteños into the habit of recycling their household waste by producing easy-to-use recycling bags.

(Photo courtsey of Reciclario)

Seijo has been a legislator for the city of Buenos Aires for more than ten years. A member of various commissions and boards, her special focuses are environmental questions and sustainability. It was the crisis in 2001 that encouraged her to step up her participation in politics and effect change for the people of the city. Since then she has served as an advisor in the Cabinet of Ministers and as general director of the CGP in the barrio of Palermo.

Seijo has created and been involved in many projects that aim to make the city more pleasant and sustainable for its citizens. Recent suggestions include: “A global smoke free day”, the support for “Earth Hour” in Buenos Aires, and a “Green Film Festival”. The festival idea was realised in August with 14 ‘green-themed’ movies, with the aim of spreading environmental consciousness.

With her current Ideame project, “Reciclario”, she wants households to start separating their recyclables. The central part of her project involves producing 1,000 sets of bags made of a hyper-resistant, sustainable, washable and, of course, 100% recyclable material, designed specifically for people to be able to separate these residuals in their houses in a way that makes it easier to recycle.

Each set of bags contains two bags: one green bag for mixed recyclables (plastic, glass, metal) and a blue bag for paper and card. They are designed to make it easy to carry them to the collection points.

The goal is to start a chain reaction. The first step is to encourage people to start recycling more regularly in their homes. 1,000 families will receive a free recycling bag to use in their homes. Seijo explains further: “We then hope that these 1,000 families that have been given the bags start influencing their friends and other families to do the same.”

To make it easier for families to adopt this new habit, Seijo has created a website where people, in a clear and fun way, can learn about what they can recycle and which kind of recycling bag it goes into. The website also contains information about collection points in the city, and fun and creative ideas on how to re-use and make the most of your waste.

Since “more than 50% of what households put in their waste bin could be recycled”, Seijo hopes to improve the statistics. “If we recycle this 50% instead,” she suggests, “we would reduce the waste we throw away and we could use it as resource material back into the production chain. We would both save the city money and give it a longer life.”

“As times are changing, we need to change with it,” Seijo concludes. Her intentions are to create a new relationship between politics and civil society to solve problems jointly. This method is especially important for environmental problems where it’s also up to the people to help solve the issue. “Together we, the citizens, can make a difference.” And it all starts with the first 1,000 bags.

For more project information visit Reciclario’s Ideame page:

IdeaMe is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. The Indy features and promotes one project every week with the aim of helping the creators achieve their dreams.

Manu Pozzi is a porteño student and musician with big aspirations: to release his first album, titled “Me Voy”, producing his CD boxes entirely using recycled paper. Manu and his production team (himself and two friends) plan to collect more than a tonne of paper, saving 20 trees and 15 thousand litres of water, greatly reducing their ecological footprint and raising awareness about living in a more eco-friendly way. Manu says that deciding to take on this challenge was “not an isolated decision, but part of a way of life; you have to feel part of the world and a sense of unity with all living things.”

As for his music, Manu takes inspiration from artists such as Tallest Man On Earth, Fran Espeche, and Xoel Lopez as well as from “interacting with the world and other people, and the shared experiences that come from this interaction”. His musical talent was clear from a young age: Manu attended a specialist music school from the age of 12 and composed his first song at the age of 16, “a song that only myself and a drunk guy that I met on the street in Buenos Aires know.” His genre? Manu says, “If a native Hawaiian and Cat Power had a son, he would probably create the same music as me.” It is clear that Manu is a quirky and fresh new face on the Argentine music scene, and his YouTube videos confirm his great talent and potential as an artist.

“Me Voy” is the result of an ongoing four-year process and Manu describes it as “a summary of my feelings over this time, my feelings about myself, what I do, the people I meet, what I have and what I’m looking for in life”. On raising the funds needed to release the album, Manu says, “if people like it I will be satisfied, whether it’s two people or 1,000 people. I would like to go on tour throughout Latin America and the world.”

For those who do help Manu to achieve his goal via IdeaMe, he offers a range of rewards, from “A thank-you text and a mention if I ever play in Madison Square Garden” with a $14 donation, to a copy of ‘Me Voy’, a painted ukulele or guitar and a private show with a donation of $2,000. Manu’s website shows photographs of artistic designs that he has painted onto instruments, a pastime that he says “helps me to express my ideas and emotions; along with making music there is nothing in the world that makes me feel so free and at the same time gives me so much satisfaction.”

If you would like to help support Manu Pozzi by making a donation please visit his IdeaMe website.

IdeaMe is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. Each week, the Indy features and promotes one project every week, with the aim of helping the creators finance and achieve their dreams. This week: Latinoamerica Te Amo.

“Not only does the world scarcely know who the Latin American man is, the world has barely cared.” US journalist Georgie Anne Geyers may have written this in 1970, but almost half a century on, the sentiment remains one of the key inspirations for a new independent documentary project called ‘Latinoamerica Te Amo’.

Fed up with the trials and tribulations of the corporate television and film industry, four young filmmaking enthusiasts quit their prestigious jobs at Argentine television channels and set up their own independent film company Como Se Llama Cine. Their latest project, ‘Latinoamerica Te Amo’, will document a road trip they are undertaking throughout Latin America. The journey began in Rosario, Argentina on 5th September and will end in Mexico.

If all goes to plan, an old battered black van will be their home for the next two years. The vehicle has five passengers; the four filmmakers,Agustin Lagos, Luis Piccinali, German Oural y Maria Fernandez,and a mechanic, ‘Chicharito’, to ensure the mobile home stays mobile.

Their aims are simple: to prove that quality audiovisual content can be created without corporate or governmental funding, to voice the stories of people who otherwise may not be heard, and to unify Latin America through their work.

“We don’t want to earn money, we want to tell stories,” explains the group’s promotional video. Their footage takes the form of short documentary episodes, video diary entries and clips which are posted online at regular intervals during their journey. In an interview with Cordoba’s La Voz, one of the filmmakers said, “the idea is to experiment with classic documentary, interviews and fictional documentary”. The first three entries in their video diary are already available on Youtube and provide examples of the unique characters and inevitable car-related logistical issues that the group will come across along the way.

“We want to hear and tell the stories of all our brother countries”, the groups explains on their blog. In a region so often plagued by conflict, a documentary like ‘Latinoamerica Te Amo’ seeks to explore the common roots and appreciate the differences of its people and towns and seems like an excellent concept.

“Latin America is huge and our desire to cross it is too” reads the group’s facebook slogan. However, a trip of this nature is impossible without money, and the collective are appealing to the public for donations. “We need help from anyone who is able and interested” says Maria, the sole female member of the group. For the project to be a successful one and remain independent, we at the Indy encourage anyone who can to support ‘Latinoamerica te Amo’. Even if it is just to offer them somewhere to park their van along the way! Visit their Ideame page to learn more.

IdeaMe: is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. Each week, the Indy features and promotes one project every week, with the aim of helping the creators finance and achieve their dreams. This week: Images of Argentina by Madeleine Pacheco

The mists of Iguazu Falls (Photo: Madeline Pacheco)

Madeline Pacheco is a freelance photographer from Buenos Aires. She studied Audiovisual Design in the University of Buenos Aires, but her real passion is nature and the experiencing the landscapes of Argentina.

Through her project, Images of Argentina, Pacheco has combined her talent for photography and her passion for nature.

Images of Argentina is a project which intends to make an exhibition from Pacheco’s photographs of three very different areas of Argentina: the south of Patagonia (mainly Santa Cruz province), the “Impenetrable” in El Chaco province and the area of the Iguazú Falls in Misiones.

“I think photography is my way of being able to be in these places and capturing them in my camera is kind of absorbing these places myself,” says Pacheco.

The photographs – all taken with and old analogic reflex camera – are focused on portraying the amazing landscapes and the unique characteristics that nature holds in each area. The money from Idea Me will be used mainly for prints in the best quality paper possible and to making each frame.

“I’ve always wanted to show my photos and be able to print them in paper and not just look at them in small photos or through a computer,” says Pacheco. “So the aim of this project is exactly that. I hope I can manage to get the funding and do an exhibition!”

Last year, Pacheco spent three months working with Banco de Bosques. Through her work she was able to travel to Misiones and El Chaco. In the future she plans to continue working with Banco de Bosques and developing a humanitarian edge to her artisitic passion.

To support Pacheco’s Images of Argentina project, click here.

Bandalos Chinos (courtesy of Bandalos Chinos)

IdeaMe is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. Each week, the Indy features and promotes one project every week, with the aim of helping the creators finance and achieve their dreams. This week: Bandalos Chinos.

Since 2009, Bandalos Chinos has come to define the word “fusion.”

Paying tribute to the classic sounds of Argentine rock bands — the guys peg Luis Alberto Spinetta, founder of Almendra, as a tremendous musical influence — Bandalos Chinos incorporate a solid rock n’ roll beat. The gritty grunge glam of British indie rock gives Bandalos Chinos a bit of spunk, while a particularly fun and energetic pop vibe and a catchy funkadelic beat transform the band’s tunes into something truly unique.

Three years in the making, Bandalos Chinos admits to a simple beginning marked by acoustic arrangements. Over time, however, the group has explored and developed their sound into what it is today.

Five musicians make up Bandalos Chinos: Matia Verduga on drums, Palo Travaglini on bass guitar, Iñaki Colombo on guitar, Tomas Verduga on guitar and vocals, and Goyo Degano on keyboard and voice.

Degano’s voice is effortlessly smooth and rich, while the guitars’ wah-wah pedal effect projects the band’s inner classic rock.

Bandalos Chinos are in the process of recording and releasing their first album. They started recording on 11th November of last year, with Mariano Oliva. After finishing recording this past May, they are currently in the editing and mixing stages, along with the help of Sergei Grosny. But, because they lack the funds to produce the master disc and copies, they are reaching out for potential donations with IdeaMe.

In return, Bandalos Chinos are thanking donors with digital copies of their CD, tickets to live performances, and meet & greets with band members.

Subway simulation part of Project Reversión (courtesy of Project Reversión)

Imagine that you find yourself on the famous and familiar corner of the obelisco, smack-dab in the middle of downtown Buenos Aires. But something is not right – instead of the bustling streets of the center, the city is completely desolate. So opens “The Meeting”, the second chapter of Reversión, an interactive story-game set in an apocalyptic Buenos Aires. The first chapter of the story, entitled “The Escape,” begins when its protagonist, who leads you through the various puzzles and broken-down landscapes of this graphic adventure game, wakes up in the Garrahan Hospital in the year 2035 in a seemingly war-torn city with no memory of what has happened in the last 20 years.

In “The Meeting,” as programmers Fernando Niwes and Francisco Sáenz told the Indy, the player must solve the puzzles presented in the game in order to learn more about what happened to the city and how the characters arrived there.

If you haven’t guessed already, this is not your typical shooting or war-like computer game. It’s inspired by the graphic adventure games that saw their heyday in the early 90s, a genre exemplified by the cinematic-quality, large-production games developed by LucasArts and kept alive today by companies like Telltale Game. Following in this tradition, the developers of Reversión sought to create a puzzle-based, interactive adventure that takes place in a fictionalised future Buenos Aires.

Niwes and Sáenz met at the University of Buenos Aires while studying computer science and decided to go into business together. While they originally wanted to develop games together, they acquired different software consultancy and development jobs and worked out of their homes until they were able to get more clients and formally establish Soluciones 3f. Today, the company has 12 employees and an office in the neighborhood of Chacarita, Buenos Aires.

Reversión on your iPhone (courtesy of Project Reversión)

“We always had the idea of developing games, but could never find a way to fund it,” explains Sáenz. Last year, however, they won funding through the Buenos Aires Innova program, a grant provided by the city of Buenos Aires for technology companies. This grant allowed them to hire additional staff (including illustrators and sound specialists) and produce the first chapter of the game, “The Escape”, which is available as a free download on their website. Now, the 3f team has launched an IdeaMe campaign in order to collect the rest of the funds they’ll need in order to finish the second chapter.

The second episode of Reversión will be released online at a low price, in order to maintain developing costs for future episodes. Developers at 3f are also in the process of launching a strategy game for Facebook, and possibly a version of Reversión for the iPhone.

It’s certainly hard for independent developers like Niwes and Sáenz, who don’t work for a large company, to find the means to produce games – particularly interactive stories and other genres that aren’t as popular and that don’t involve, as Niwes puts it, “shooting everything on the screen.”

These developers have, however, come a long way, establishing their own software company and searching for funds on platforms like Ideame and through government grants to work on projects they love. If you want to contribute to the project, just look up their IdeaMe campaign, and if you want to get lost in the interactive story of an apocalyptic Buenos Aires, download the first chapter for free!

Children at the ‘Taller de Cine Rodante’ (Photo: La Grifa)

Cinema is a part of our cultural fabric. It combines visual, verbal and musical components to tell a story (our story, everyone’s story). Outside the city, going to the cinema is more difficult and in a country that prides itself on film, this seems confounding. Some of the country roads are difficult to handle and those who have ventured Ruta 40 through Patagonia can attest to it. The terrain and lack of media infrastructure make it difficult to connect people and interweave the people’s stories. Even though the city life may seem more familiar, the rural Argentine identity is fascinating and still remains to be explored.

The NGOs Fundacion Ruta 40 and La Grifa have taken on the challenge of artistically integrating the different stories of rural life. They have also taken on a different angle: the child’s perspective. Together, the organisations hope to teach children how to make short films and share them with other children of the country. They believe this will create a better understanding of one’s identity as an Argentine in Latin America. By helping develop this awareness, the organisations hope it will also provide a better sense of their roles as community actors.

The people at Fundacion Ruta 40 have driven throughout Argentina’s interior, specifically around Ruta 40. Through their travels, they encountered people who taught them a lot of what rural life was like in Argentina. It inspired them to give back by donating money and time to provide the kids an opportunity at learning about their own country through film. So far, they have worked with 23 schools.

Ruta 40 Organisation

La Grifa travels around Argentina offering workshops on creating short-films and collecting these small stories in, what they refer to as, their “backpack”. This organisation started in 2009 with Colectivo Salpicón, but are now working on their own. So far, the trio of Ailén, Josefina y Delfina have been helping build children’s creativity through learning how to create three animation-shorts, audiovisual games and flip-books. When La Grifa leaves, they take the small films to other schools to show other children the kinds of projects have been created by other kids in the country.

“Taller de Cine Rodante” as a project is to keep travelling to various provinces in the nation teaching and working with children to realise their creativity. Their current project hopes to reach three rural schools in Salta in August. The creations will be versions of stop motion film with the children telling their own story, combining elements of their history, expressions of their personality, designing the script, as well as making the titles, credits and the poster.

The project is looking for financing for their August trip to Salta, specifically targeting El Trigal and two other rural schools close to Cachi and La Poma. The funds raised will also help the group get materials and a camera that will stay at El Trigal school so that the children can continue to create stop-motion animation.

So far, they have 65% of their funds raised. You can learn more about the project or help fund it through their idea.me campaign.

IdeaMe  is  an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. The Indy features and promotes one project every week with the aim of helping the creators achieve their dreams.

What is a woman? What does it mean to be a mother? A daughter? A wife? These aren’t easy questions to answer, but they are the issues ‘Cuarto Oscuro’ want to get us thinking and more importantly, talking about, with their new film.

‘Entrevistas Feminismo’ is a new documentary project aiming to re-ignite the conversation about gender roles in Argentine society. This is no bra burning monologue, it is an important and crucially inclusive look at a topic which should be on everyone’s lips – men included!

The film takes the form of four interviews and is shot through with snippets of vintage film and playful graphics. From the deadpan humour of a middle-aged man to the viewpoint of a self assured career woman, ‘Entrevistas Feminismo’ introduces the undeniably thorny issue of gender relations in a way that is at once enlightening and moving.

The film traces each interviewee as their perspectives change. It shows that we are all affected by our social backgrounds, personal histories and locations and leaves open the potential for finding similarities between each other rather than focusing on our differences.

The film will be launched at the end of July and the group are looking for funding to start a web platform. The website is key to the reflexive and inclusive attitude of the project.

As well as giving viewers the chance to watch the film for free, the website will act as a forum for the free exchange of ideas. Through it, related groups can meet and collaborate, stimulating democratic debate around the issues of feminism, gender imbalance and human rights.

Director Nuria Becu knows that today, political and social activism is as much about online as on the ground. She founded ‘Cuarto Oscuro’ as a way of engaging and encouraging political activism across disciplines and groups in society. This project was motivated by Becu’s desire to support groups working for gender equality in Argentina and fits with Cuarto Oscuro’s original vision of boosting the potential of political activism in society.

Becu herself is no stranger to political activism, having worked in the field of human rights for many years. Now she wants to highlight the debate on feminism and human rights, using this documentary as the starting point.

The project hopes to raise $17,290 and has 34 days remaining. For more information, click here.

IdeaMe is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. The Indy features and promotes one project every week with the aim of helping the creators achieve their dreams.

The clash between the conventional culture of an office and the quirky world of art seems clear. An office is comprised of desks and runs on computers. It demands a tactful social sense, a white-collared dress code and it offers security in its predictability. In contrast, an artist´s world is bohemian and less certain. The artist defies etiquette in the name of creation and often produces projects without any semblance of routine.

A series of collages entitled ¨Office Work¨ by Lucas Mussu, however, show that artistic creativity and workplace responsibility are not necessarily at odds.

During the dull moments of his call centre shift, the artist cut images from business catalogues and Sunday newspaper supplements and eventually created twenty-two works that will go on display at a Buenos Aires art gallery in August.

According to Mussu, his original frustration with the tedium of the job became a means for an end and the office actually served as the springboard that launched the development of the project. The artist began using tools within his reach—namely Scotch tape and scissors— to create his artwork and find significance in his cubicle.

Throughout the year that Mussu worked on the project, he found that the office space did not impede his artwork, but actually inspired it. ¨I ended up getting my best art done at the office and many times I couldn´t be inventive if I was somewhere else,¨ he says.

Discovering meaning in the banalities of everyday life also became the resounding anecdote behind the project.

¨You have to look for the good in situations that overwhelm you or don´t give you a sense of purpose,¨ Mussu explains. ¨The key is overcoming the obstacle and finding an alternative way to be happy.¨

In each collage, unconventional objects are superimposed on human figures creating a composition of fantastical elements that challenge the parameters of reality. In one work, for example, a salad bowl replaces an ear while in another, a six-headed deer covers a man´s face.

Asked whether his boss complained about the project, Mussu says that ¨just so long as the art did not interfere with my work, I had free reign over my desk.¨ When each creation kept growing in size though, he ultimately completed the series at home.

Upon raising money to mount and frame the series through his Ideame campaign, Mussu will begin a new project. If ¨Office Work¨ is any indication, the call centre may once again become an art studio.

IdeaMe is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. Each week, the Indy features and promotes one project every week, with the aim of helping the creators finance and achieve their dreams. This week: Teatro Ciego.

Teatro Ciego is located in Abasto (Photo courtesty of Teatro Ciego)

Theatre is, without a doubt, a visual experience. While sound is not absent, the emphasis is laid on what you see. The audience looking in one direction, collectively watching on stage action. They watch actors’ movements and facial expressions, while cleverly placed lighting visually heightens tension, drama and emotion.

As such, ‘blind theatre’, in which the entire concept of visuality is removed from your theatre experience and replaced by absolute darkness, may seem like a bizarre idea.

Yet, El Teatro Ciego has been plunging theatre audiences into disconcerting darkness for the last ten years. With a wealth of experience, the group has established themselves as the only blind theatre group in the world, offering a highly unique and alternative theatrical experience.

This week’s IdeaMe project sees one of Buenos Aires’ most innovative theatre groups hoping to raise funds to put on their next play. This time round, the actors are presenting their own interpretation of the contemporary Argentine comic, Inodoro Pereyra, in total darkness.

Written by writer and cartoonist Roberto Fontanorrosa in 1976, the work follows the life of Inodoro Pereyra, a solitary gaucho. The character parodies traditional gaucho figures of Argentine literature, not least Argentina’s most famous gaucho, Martin Fierro. The use of incessantly repeated phrases and Pereyra’s bizarre characteristics allows the author to poke fun at accepted and tired notions of gaucho tradition.

In preparation, the group are studying the entire work, comprising of more than 20 chapters. Through a selection of the best and most important parts of the comic, the group are creating their own play, offering a unique interpretation of a popular story, well-known to many Argentines.

The idea for blind theatre originally arose in 1991, and El Teatro Ciego was born after founder Ricardo Sued became inspired by the Tibetan notion of “Zen”, seeking to create a unique theatrical experience, in which theatre-goers were rendered blind.

By placing audience members in the dark, El Teatro Ciego forces audience members to ‘see’ by using other senses.

Comparable to how the blind or partially sighted find alternative ways to visualise the world around them, members are encouraged to focus on hearing and feeling, as well as trusting and working with others in the audience in order to understand and ‘watch’ the plays being presented.

The theatre group then not only upturns theatrical norms, but also radically changes the notion of visuality: the emphasis is not laid on seeing things exactly how they are, but instead on visualising plays in an imaginative and personal way. As the group so aptly puts it: “The darkness excites the senses and works to destroy the preconceived notions of how we see things and replace it with them with how we imagine them.”

While the group is quick to note that “this is not a theatre of blind actors nor is it for the blind,” El Teatro Ciego also allows blind and partially sighted actors, as well as those with disabilities, to work in an environment that would usually present obstacles to them. One actress in the group, Julia Francisquez, says “theatre in the dark gave me the chance to work and prove what I’m capable of.”

The experience of theatre in the dark also aims at social inclusion, and to give members an understanding of what it is like to be blind, allowing them to discover how it is possible to see even when the physical ability to do so has been lost, partially or altogether.

While El Teatro Ciego remains the only blind theatre worldwide, the group needs help with funding, in order to uphold the highly innovative and unique theatrical experience offered equally to audience members as well as blind and partially sighted actors.

“We want to generate a deep impact with this show, we want to share it with a wider audience,” says Martin Bondone, director of the group. “We know that theatre in the dark is good for people, and it has a positive effect on the people that experience it.”