Today I met with Tony, the director of Casa Tres Patios, which is a foundation that runs art projects for social change. It also serves as a University of Antioquia art program outreach and an artists residence. Some of the interesting projects they’ve done: host an art space for art professors to create art while their students graded their work, which is the space you see in the photo. This was to subvert expectations around authority and promote true creativity, because he said he had identified a gap in the creative process. His wife runs an art class in the prison where inmates are asked to draw their childhood dreams, so that they can remember and observe how their hopes and desires have changed over time.
It was extraordinary to get in touch with a community that not only combines art and social change, but does this in a strategic, thoughtful and measured manner. One of the interesting thoughts I took away from this was learning that there is an entire discipline to measure the impact of your work, and also to have an intention for each art piece while creating it.
Tony is retiring soon and has been reading about Karl Marx’s dialectic of social change, and what he has seen work in Medellin during his career. As he speaks of his future and the unknown future of the foundation, and of higher reasoning, he stokes his bald head like a caucasian buddha. His piercing yet calm, ocean blue eyes sparkle behind a stark black frame of glasses as he reminisces that his greatest achievement was an art project after a wave of violence in 2012, how after 5 years of iteration, they found an art project that allowed the local community to create and take charge of their own art installation. This was to add water bowls for dogs in the neighbourhood, and they called it the ‘democratic federation of florets’. The project was successful and continued on its own for 4 more years.
SUBLIME COURAGE 
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