Tibor Uhrín
Escuela de Artes y Oficios, Santo Domingo was founded in Bogota, capital of Colombia, in 1995. It offers informal study to help protect the cultural art and craft heritage. It offers study programmes in four departments: processing textiles, silver, leather and wood. Wood processing is the dominant part of the studying. Students also learn the rules and administrative aspects of entrepreneurship in the field of arts and crafts. The school also invites designers and craftsmen from Europe (France, Portugal…) and other parts of the world (Mexico, Philippines…). I spent one month at the Santo Domingo school in October 2002. I taught courses for creating wooden toys. People of various ages, schoolteachers and craftsmen who have never had experience in creating these objects participated in this course. Another course was focused on creating objects from wood, mainly for students of industrial design at the University. I tried to design and implement a simple toy in such a way that they could see the result and understand what I required. In a craft they have already mastered, they discovered a whole new dimension.