Faced with economic downturns, low literacy rates, and a lack of publication opportunities for Latin American authors, Javier Barilaro and Milagros Saldarriaga did what many artists would do; they decided to put their talents to work for social change. But instead of painting or sculpture, they chose a less orthodox medium: cardboard.

In a week-long series of events in the Center for Government and International Studies sponsored by the Cultural Agents Initiative, a Harvard-based group promoting social change through art in developing countries, Barilaro and Saldarriaga discussed how they turned trash into publishing houses, and how their projects can be replicated.

“Buenos Aires had an enormous economic crisis towards the end of 2001. The way the city survived was that everybody became creative,” Cultural Agents Initiative Director and Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Doris Sommer said. “The economy was replaced by barter. People cooked together, played music together.”

Barilaro began his project, Eloisa Cartonera, in Buenos Aires in 2003 by combining his artistic talent, the works of leading South American authors, and cardboard collected by garbage pickers. From these raw materials, he produced a series of uniquely decorated novels.

The garbage pickers were also hired to decorate the covers, as one of Barilaro’s main concerns was the equality of all participants.

“We are not separated between the art and the worker,” he said.

Barilaro’s success encouraged Saldarriaga to begin a similar publishing house, Sarita Cartonera, in Lima in February 2004. The effort followed Barilaro’s formula but added an emphasis on educational methodology. According to Saldarriaga, this was an obvious step.

“When we started publishing, we came to the question that we need readers. What is the point of publishing these books if you have no readers?” she said through a translator.

From this question came their educational project “Libros, un modelo para armar.” The project, a partnership between Sarita Cartonera and the Museo de Arte de San Marcos in Lima, involved seminars meant to educate high school teachers on how to present literature as a personally relevant art form.

In the context of this project, the cardboard covers took on a new purpose: to eliminate student apprehension about reading by presenting books as a simple object and an essential part of life. While the covers are still artistically decorated reused pieces of cardboard, the project goes a step further in asking students to reinvent the stories they read. Teenagers are challenged to rewrite tales under the assumption that the narrator lied or from the perspective of a single character.

“Every time you read you are reinterpreting as a reader,” Saldarriaga said. “Reading is already interpretation.”

At Friday’s book-creation workshop, educators and program leaders from Harvard and local public schools aimed to import Barilaro and Saldarriaga’s techniques to use with their own projects. Said Natasha Labaze, an English teacher at Cambridge Ringe and Latin High School, “I’m having a wonderful time and trying to think of ways to apply it to the classroom.”

Angela Richardson of the Arts Literacy Project at Brown University said of her program, “We make arts-based curriculums for students, so I’m always looking for new ways to engage students in the reading and writing experience.”

While Barilaro and Saldarriaga initially employed cardboard for economic and symbolic reasons, some attendees saw the project as an opportunity for environmental action as well.

Resource Efficiency Program Captain Hayley J. Fink ’08 compared Barilaro and Saldarriaga’s efforts to her own group’s goals.

“We’ve applied for an ArtsFirst grant to remake things using trash and recyclables, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to see how a professional does it,” Fink said.