Communautés d'Accueil dans les Sites Artistiques
Communautés d'Acceuil dans les Sites Artistiques (CASA) is an originally French organization whose aim is to volunteer to accompany visitors to places of art-historical interest on their way through the building, to help them discover and to keep eyes open for beauty to open the message and the background of the artwork.
history
The organization arose from the initiative of a group of young people who, with the support of the Catholic clergyman Alain Ponsar, founder of CASA, gained their first experience of individual tours through the Romanesque church in Brançion ( Burgundy ) in the summer of 1967 . The members of CASA now look after around twenty churches as places of sacred art in France . They spend two to three weeks in a community there in the summer and take care of welcoming visitors during this time. The places are churches from different epochs ( Romanesque , Gothic , modern ). CASA is financed from membership fees and donations and is a member of the international association Ars et Fides .
Projects
Every summer, around three to seven members between the ages of 18 and 35 come together in communities (communautés) at each location supervised by CASA . They familiarize themselves with the building under supervision, share experiences and impressions with each other and pass them on to the visitors. The aim is to take the time for a small group of visitors, to stand by them as they get to know the work of art, to talk to them about it, to bring them closer to the historical, art-historical and spiritual background - and from them too to learn. The communautés usually take place from mid-July to mid-August, in Conques , Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire and Vézelay usually until the end of August.
Requirements for participating in CASA are:
- good French language skills
- the interest in the art-historical significance and the Christian tradition of the buildings
- the willingness to guide visitors in German, English or French for two weeks, generally daily between 10:00 and 12:00 and from 14:30 to 18:00
- the joy of meeting new people and living with them, cooking, and doing something.
Offers and activities
Other activities are geared towards the summer. Each region hosts training weekends to better understand the riches of its own area and to provide its members with historical, art-historical and spiritual knowledge regarding the communities in the summer. The members themselves are responsible for the preparation and organization of the regional and national training weekends: They familiarize themselves with the works of art in their region and then show them to others.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ CASA (Communautés d'accueil dans les sites artistiques): Une intuition du Père Ponsar. Retrieved October 27, 2017 (French).