Carin Steen

Carin Steen is an artist from Amsterdam, Holland. Besides studying (art college and Latin-American literature), she worked in interior-, fashion- and graphic- design. She visited Honduras in 1997 where she fell in love with the small, mountainous town of Copán Ruinas, close to the Guatemalan border. Unable to leave this magic place, she found a job as a kindergarten teacher at the local bilingual school. Although she had no previous experience in education, she loved working with children.

In 1999 she founded the Cultural Centre Copán Pinta, an art school for children and adolescents of Copán. The program was a success and soon spread out into the surrounding villages where Carin taught art classes in Maya Chortí communities.

In order to expand the program, in June of 2005, Copán Pinta fused with the Cultural Association Arte Acción which has its base inTegucigalpa, the capital of the country. From that moment on, Carin has been the director of the branch Arte Acción Copán Ruinas for which she continues teaching art to children of the municipality. Arte Acción Copán Ruinas has now four staff members and has included in its program photo-, video-, drama- and circus- projects.

Besides her work for Arte Acción Copán Ruinas, Carin works as an artist and designer. She has changed the look of the town of Copán Ruinas through hundreds of colourful signs and logos designed for local businesses and NGO’s. In her personal work, she’s inspired by nature and both ancient and contemporary Mayan culture. She tries to express this culture not through romantic and traditional images, but through new, critical visions while using a variety of techniques and materials.