The need for this project derives from the current social and economic situation in Europe, where youth unemployment rates are high. Youth, therefore, face many difficulties in finding a job, and even more so if they are looking for a job in art. Artists are generally self-employed and face an unpredictable future. This is why we want our students to extend their knowledge from just one field of artistic creation to various ones. We believe that all around artists with a strong entrepreneurial awareness will have better chances of employment. The project involves three secondary art schools from Slovenia, Bulgaria and Italy. Our starting point was the realization that for a successful career in art our graduate students need much more than just expertise in one specific area of artistic creation, for example fine arts. This project gives them the opportunity to perfect the basic skills needed to become successful all around artists, to use their skills in other field of artistic creation, and become confident in areas such as story building, script writing, filming, animation, product designing and advertising to mention just a few. All with the aim to give our students the chance to expand their knowledge from a single field of interest to various ones, and help them with employability. The three schools all share very similar programmes but on the other hand each school has its unique advantages. The school from Bulgaria has already successfully integrated entrepreneurship into their curriculum; the Italian school can offer a specific insight into marketing of the Italian cultural heritage. All three schools feel the need to prepare our students for the future. But we also know that our history and culture offers us a rich source of inspiration and a sense of uniqueness. That’s why the Italian school will organize classes on Renaissance art and the Slovenian school will prepare an excursion to the region of Prekmurje, where the students can learn from the local craftsmen about an almost extinguished art of black clay baking. We have planned two types of activities: the ones that will be carried out in each of our schools in the same time (e.g. creation of presentation materials for each school, turning students' hobbies into business ideas) and the ones that will be carried out abroad during three transnational learning and teaching activities. For the transnational learning and teaching activities we planned workshops where the students will pass through all the stages of designing a product- from the idea till packaging, logo and advertising it. During this time they will be working in small groups in a non-formal environment, some workshops will be carried out in situ alongside traditional craftsmen and mentors. Students will get involved in areas of artistic creation, like visual communication and animation, which demand an extended knowledge in digital technology. Students and teachers alike will learn about successful business practices, they will also produce OER materials, such as videos, application for a creation of a digital portfolio and brochures. With this project we also want to improve our students’ linguistic competence, English proficiency in particular, their digital competence, and raise their cultural awareness. The world of art is beautiful but also extremely competitive. That's why our students need to learn that it takes constant, lifelong learning to stay on top.
What does it really take to become a successful artist? Is it enough just to be talented and creative? Persistence, hard work, good communication skills, life-long learning and team work are just some of the important factors that can make a difference between an unemployed artist and the one that can live from his work. Young artists often struggle and face an unpredictable future. This is why we wanted our students to extend their knowledge from just one field of artistic creation to various ones. We believe that all around artists with a strong entrepreneurial awareness will have better chances of employment. This project gave the students and teachers of three secondary art schools from Slovenia, Italy and Bulgaria an opportunity to take part in a rich variety of diverse activities, such as graphic design, textile design, filming, glass, pottery and porcelain design, advertising to mention just a few. The main objectives of the project were: • to enhance students' creativity and to stimulate their innovative ideas in the fields of fine arts, graphic design, product design, • to expand the knowledge of our students from a single field of interest to various ones, and help them with employability. • to raise the entrepreneurial awareness of our students in order to increase their employability. • to give the teachers and the headmasters of the three schools an opportunity to exchange good teaching practices and learn from each other • to improve our students' and teachers' linguistic competence, English in particular and their cultural awareness. We carried out two types of activities: • the activities that were carried out in each of our schools in the same time : - creating logos for the project - turning students' hobbies into business ideas (logos, promotional material, postcards, leaflets) - »An Eye to the Future« in this activity the students through about what defined them most as artists and human beings and expressed the ideas through drawings, paintings, short-stories, videos and other techniques, - creating digital portfolios of students' art works, - getting to know the Europass platform. • the activities that were carried out abroad during three transnational learning and teaching activities: - creation of digital artistic portfolios, - stop-motion animation workshop, - t-shirt designing and felting workshops, - glass, porcelain, pottery workshops, - getting to know the rich cultural heritage of the three countries, During this time they were working in small groups in a non-formal environment, some workshops were carried out in situ alongside traditional craftsmen and mentors. Students got involved in areas of artistic creation, like visual communication and animation, which demand an extended knowledge in digital technology. Students and teachers alike learned about successful business practices, they also produced OER materials, such as videos, application for a creation of a digital portfolio and brochures. The teachers from the three partner schools also had an opportunity to exchange experiences and through lectures and class observation broadened their professional horizon. During the learning/teaching activities the guest teachers carried our workshops, presented good teaching practices to their colleagues, held classes for students in hosting schools and took part in the interesting workshops alongside students. The world of art is beautiful but also extremely competitive. That's why our students need to learn that it takes constant, lifelong learning to stay on top.