be artsy is a non-profit organisation developing creativity projects with the aim of providing different experiences and training oportunities to communities which would otherwise not be able to access them. We do not aim to only teach art just for the sake of art itself, but we also intend to provide communities with the tools to improve communication and effect the changes within they deem necessary.
In a nutshell, we wish to empower local communities through art with a special emphasis on women. Hence, our current emphasis on the topic of menstruation and hygienic care through the Chhaupadi project in Nepal.
In 2014, before be artsy existed, Clara Garcia i Ortés — one of the association’s future founders — launched the Creativity Photo Project, an independent participatory photography initiative developed in several Asian countries. That experience was the seed of what would later become be artsy, but the Creativity Photo Project was not part of be artsy: the association did not yet exist.
be artsy was legally constituted on 4 October 2016. After two years of experience, Clara and the other founders created the association to provide a stable legal framework for new cooperation projects using artistic expression, with a particular focus on women and communities at risk of exclusion.
In a nutshell, this is what be artsy is: a group of people with different artistic backgrounds, who have come together to create cooperation projects aimed at minorities and communities at risk of exclusion.