The aim is to demonstrate that mediatisation of this Oral Heritage (spoken words, songs, folk tales linked to a « Sense of Place ») by young people can be a new resource for fragile rural mountain areas. One of the main objectives of the project is to formalize in a teaching module the mediation tools experienced during the project, thus facilitating their transmission to any young European wanting to become a mediator of their own heritage. The project seeks to improve the articulation of four stages necessary for mediation: the surveying and geographical reading of the territories, the work of collecting from the inhabitants, the artistic reinterpretation in the form of unusual artistic performances dedicated to the arts of speech, the valorization to residents and tourists alike of these new objects of cultural heritage and tourist attractions to discover. The project is the result of a meeting between three protagonists who, in addition to their trades, seek to pass on their skills to young people. The first strategic partner, pilot of the project is a French cultural actor - the Compagnie des Théatre des Chemins – This Company will play the role of coordinator and booster of innovation. The second partner is a Bulgarian association active in the field of eco-tourism - BAAT (Bulgarian Association for Alternative Tourism's) – BAAT will guarantee the concrete transformations induced by the project in social and economic realities. Finally, the third partner is specialized in the field of training and research on Heritage – CERMOSEM. It is a branch of the University of Grenoble Alpes, located in Ardèche – CERMOSEM will play a role of in-appraiser, that is to say, to have a reflexive look on all the actions undertaken in course of the project. The project meets different needs. Its goal is to develop new Heritage and Cultural mediation methods based on the meeting with the inhabitants of these territories (inter-generational and citizen meetings); to keep young people in rural areas by strengthening their ties of attachment to their territory and especially by encouraging them to be entrepreneurs in the territories through the development of their Cultural Heritage. It is also a question of accompanying a transition of tourism practices to make them less consumer-based and more contributing to the structuring of territories and their social and cultural fabric. The mediation of Oral Heritage, worked and seized by young people is one of the ways to overcome these various needs. In order to work with the formal and informal skills of each and everyone, two intellectual productions mobilizing each of the partners are planned: The establishment of a corpus of spoken words of inhabitants, stories, songs, folk tales and the creation of an intercultural trading platform. The aim is togathering actors : young mediators, local authorities, artist, touristic actors, who could mobilize this corpus in order to increase the value of their region : “oral heritage collection and intercultural trading platform” (n°1). The second intellectual production is the creation of a training module for young people enrolled in formal and informal education (No. 2). Those training module will be created upon the training provided during the project which have a part of experimental way. The originality is that the young can immerge themselves in the process of a shared creation with professional artists and take part of the final artistic performance with an audience. Thus, two international trainings workshops are planned in France and Bulgaria 32 young French and Bulgarians. These mixed groups will mix young people from university-level education and more self-taught young people with more entrepreneurial profiles, however, with the same interest: to become mediators of the European Cultural Heritage. The bi-national dimension of the project is indispensable: whether it is collections of words spoken by French people in Bulgarian territories, or conversely collections of Bulgarian words in French territories, this is a way of experiencing the mediations that the project itself seeks to implement and validate between tourists and inhabitants. The partnership has chosen to restrict itself to a bi-national dimension given the exploratory nature and the complexity induced by the theme of orality (stakes on larger translations). However, to ensure the transferability of the module and tools to European territories, not necessarily located in the Mediterranean hinterland (case of the first 2 territories of experimentation), a third training workshop based on a shared creation will be prepared in a new territory (in Savoie or Northern Italy) with young people from a third country, Italy. This last experiment will accompany an international and inter-generational seminar where the crossed results of the different intellectual productions will be presented.
The objectives of the project were to : - To design and implement a training course for young people to give them techniques for mediating oral heritage through artistic and live performance. - To participate in the development of tourism in the Mediterranean hinterland and more generally in rural areas by exploring the cultural and heritage trail. - To understand how the processes of mediation of oral heritage contribute to the recomposition of territories and to the creation of social links. - To participate in the design, experimentation and development of new mediation mechanisms for oral heritage in these territories through artistic performance. - To encourage young people to become attached to rural areas, by helping them discover the rural environment and by encouraging them to encage themself in entrepreneurial activities in thoses areas by promoting their heritage. - To create links between inhabitants, tourists and young mediators.
The project appears in a context of change regarding the dynamics of Europe's Mediterranean hinterlands. With difficult climates and environments, those area present important challenges in terms of development. The cooperation aimed to prove that the mobilisation of the heritage resources of these territories could help the reconstruction of territorial identities and to create new resources, in particular for tourism. It aimed to highlight the role of young people in the structuring - particularly economic and/or cultural - of these territories. For that, the project gave them some tools to take this role. This project therefore sought to meet several needs: - To fill a lack of cultural mediation tools for young people who wants to work in the field of tourism or in the process of setting up in rural areas. - A need to keep young people in rural areas by developping their knowledge of the rural environment and giving them ideas in terms of activities and entrepreneurship. - Find new tourist resources that are more sustainable : conducive to social links thanks exploring the oral heritage.