Designers of the Future:

 A GROUP THAT WANTS TO PUT FEET IN THE LAND TO THE UTOPIA

To improve the world, there should be a change from the reason and also from the heart. Maybe we should put feet on the earth to utopias in ecological, political and economic matters and encourage artists to contribute to the expansion of consciousness.

And perhaps we should do many more things. But to think about it, to reflect on what is happening to us and build better present and future scenarios, many people would have to join. As a contribution to achieve these objectives, the Meeting of Future Designers was held recently in Santandercito, Cundinamarca.

Men and women of different races and different generations were present there: an indigenous poet who sings to the earth – Fredy Chicangana – and confesses that he looks for the future backwards, in the greatness of the grandparents; a country woman – Concepción Matabanchoy – who invents every day the way to live better, through work in the Association for the Peasant Development; a creative teacher – León Octavio Osorno – who teaches to read nature;

Felipe Merizalde, a young man who invites the internal ecology, to consume less beef and thus reduce the deforestation of the planet, to which Colombia contributes mainly by cutting down forests to allocate pastures to livestock and a writer – Arturo Guerrero – that recommends not to worry about the fate of dying, just as we do not worry about being born.

This meeting was attended by prominent people in different areas of creativity, politics, economics and in general representatives of different areas of knowledge and the arts, such as William Ospina who read an advance of his next book, “The summer afternoon that never arrived “, in reference to the climatic phenomenon happened in July of 1816.

Darío Sendoya-D.J attended from Berlin. Kid Watusi, to delight with their mixes of musical sounds. Aldo Brando gave a beautiful show showing some photographic prints of his travels in America. Álvaro Moreno Hoffman showed graphic testimonies of his proposal of Cyclogeography and the young literata María Paz Guerrero unveiled some of her resources to approach poetry.

Mauricio Beltrán highlighted the importance of communication for Planet Water and announced the birth of a television channel with these objectives. Andrés Calle made a disquisition about who is walking around the edges and who is “on the way”.

Also present were well-known personalities in the country, such as Aleida, alter-ego of Vladdo, who reflected on dis-couple life.

The civic leader Ana Teresa Bernal gave testimony of her passage through the National Commission of Reconciliation, from where she is proposing a process of collective reparations for the victims of the conflict.

Martha Ruíz became, thanks to her contemporary dance, an officiant of rice and provoked the participation of the people who attended the event, with the intervention of Fredy Chikangana in the flute and the dulzaina.

Gustavo Wilches-Chaux presents some photographs where it is evident that in the Andes there are landscapes that look like delicacies to be eaten.

And finally Francisco de Roux, who currently heads the Jesuit community in Colombia, closed the meeting by narrating his experience in consolidating new life projects in Magdalena Medio, although he revealed that it has also been crossed by painful experiences, such as the murder of 31 people from this region for daring to defend their rights.

We are preparing the memories to stimulate the debate and it is good to trigger dialogues among the people who attended this Meeting of Disoñadores about the concerns that this caused them.

And, we would also like to share with more people this set of ideas that emerged in the Meeting, as you read this message.

MARIA CRISTINA ALVARADO