Social Innovation Lab +Think Tank

ABSTRACT

Firstly, this project focuses on the emotional aspects of the participants in a creative and informal atmosphere. Following this work, a paper is discussed in an academic setting (which addresses the public policies and concrete actions that we can undertake to fight intolerance and abuse upon religious minorities, immigrants and women).
The emotional work is achieved by participating in an artistic performance (completely in English language) featuring a graphic arts exhibition, meditation activities, a theatrical play, and a music concert. The rationale behind this preliminary activity is that, after this emotional experience, the participants find themselves more open minded, better prepared to join the academic discussion, and more inspired to generate new and concrete ideas to fight intolerance. This project is based on the premise that theoretical topics related to the awareness and respect for the “other” (nowadays a crucial issue worldwide) require working on a spiritual and emotional level and openness, which is not typically promoted in academic environments, where traditionally rationality prevails over emotions.
In other words, the emotional experience will strengthen the academic activity; and the academic activity will connect the effects of the preliminary artistic experience with the material surrounding world, through transforming projects.

Author's Background

Ignacio Mazzocco is a lawyer who graduated from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella School of Law and obtained his master's degree at Louisiana State University. He was a professor and director at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella School of Law. Ignacio is a legal practitioner and professor at Universidad de San Andrés.
He was a consultant for the United Nations, wrote articles for some of our country's major newspapers, and participated in radio and television shows. In 2005, he published a book on a legal technical topic in the United States. Ignacio is a black-belt Kung Fu practitioner and has a long-standing meditation experience.
In 2014, he published a book in Argentina which decodes and translates the Argentine legal system so that uneducated people can understand the laws protecting their rights, empowering them to enforce such laws without the intervention of an attorney (“La Noble Igualdad”, Penguin - Random House - Mondadori). For more information about this social project, please visit www.lanobleigualdad.org. Currently, he is finishing his next book, which is based on a series of interviews with a Holocaust survivor, and a research trip to extermination camps throughout Poland. The thesis of this book is that the Holocaust is not over yet, and that the only way to evolve as a species is connecting with what happened back then, together with the three types of people who took part:
(i) criminals; (ii) victims; (iii) and bystanders.
Ignacio believes that within this last group is the key to understanding the past... and the future.

He has recently been awarded a scholarship from LABA NY (New York Laboratory for Jewish Art & Culture), that will enable him to perform the show in a NY theatre.

The Work on Emotions

Experimental Show: “The Bystander”
It features three parts: a graphic arts exhibition, a theatrical play, and a music concert. The play was inspired by the Talmud, the interview to a Holocaust survivor, a research trip to Nazi extermination camps, and meditations performed inside gas chambers and common graves, where millions of Jews died. The purpose of the play is to show that this nightmare is global, since it does not belong to a single nation; and that it is not past history, since it continues to manifest in different ways in our country and around the world.
This comprehensive show is the result of the author's introspective work after returning from his trip. Back from his research trip, he designed and wrote the show and composed a 7-song concert; he is currently finishing his next book. In Poland, he also recovered violins that were presumably played by Jews in the ghettos and that are exhibited on the show. His goal is to use this comprehensive play as a platform to power a Social Innovation Lab with the purpose of implementing concrete actions for everyday life and improving the way in which we currently live.
The concept behind all of this is to trigger ideas in order to transform our reality.

This project is sponsored by the NGO “Generaciones de la Shoá en Argentina”, Sherit Hapleitá, Campaña Unida Judeo Argentina (CUJA) and the Museo del Holocausto de Buenos Aires Foundation.

The Academic Work

It involves discussing the draft of his next book. Its chapters cover the interviews with Adela Wachter de Weiss (Z’’L), reflections on otherness, legal debates on discrimination and intolerance, the legal protection of minorities, and the application of concrete projects in the form of public policies with the aim of directly impacting our environment.
Alternatively, the play’s script can be discussed since it is, in essence, an academic paper about discrimination and the role we all play around it.