The ideal of romantic love is one of the causes of violence within the couple. It frequently creates unrealistic expectations, can damage the relationship and normalize dangerous behaviours. Identify the myths created around this love, is essential to prevent toxic relationships based on inequality. Concepts such as jealousy or the “better half” are historically and socially linked to the fact of being in a relationship, and they are huge and unconsciously internalized concepts, something that affects the whole society and the youth in particular, whom receive from the different media, quite present in their lives (social networks, internet, cinema and music ...), multiple messages where the myths of romantic love are promoted. Working with young people in the myths of romantic love helps foster healthy relationships, creating foundations for equality and prevention of gender violence. This project understands that art is capable of proposing new methodologies of action and relation with the environment and that culture defines the identity of communities and defines not only what we were but also what we will be. The commitment to social transformation and art in this project gives us the opportunity to make society sensitive about specific problems, like the myth of romantic love, and to approach it from divergent points of view. Aim: this project aims to create a joint action to work the topics associated with romantic love through art in a critical and conscious way. In this project, different artistic disciplines are used as tools for social transformation, inviting reflection from a transdisciplinary place, opening up new forms of action beyond the paradigms of formal education and the usual artistic circuits Objectives ● Generate connections between the field of art and youth work, opening new circuits for artists and youth workers in these fields. ● To take the representations of artistic practices from their usual circuits, such as galleries and museums, towards daily life and citizen space. ● Use different artistic tools and expressions to communicate and transform personal and societal attitudes and behaviours about myths of romantic love. ● Use art to transform reality, not just to represent it. ● Approach the international art and youth work with a gender perspective. ● Design and provide youth work with resources to prevent gender violence. ● Create a safe space for the exchange of ideas and opinions on issues of concern for young people, such as sex-affective relationships. ● Enabled young people to get their voices heard and get their messages across thought arts. ● Promote healthy sex-affective relationships through art, games and creativity. ● Explore new spaces and creative formulas as a model of youth work. ● Open, through art, new forms of action beyond the traditional paradigms of formal education. The participating group will have a great diversity, always related to the field of youth work and art. More than 50 people will participate in the project through learning or dissemination activities. To achieve these objectives, different activities will be carried out with participants from the world of art and youth work, who are agents of change and are interested in transforming society towards gender equality. An investigation will be carried out on the current vision of romantic love between youth, youth workers and the artis in Spain, Portugal and Poland, countries of the partner organizations of the project. With the results of this research and with the participation of activist artists, a learning activity will be carried out whose objective will be to exchange ideas and receive inspiration from the groups involved in the project. Taking this inspiration into account, a seminar will be held where artists and professionals or youth work volunteers meet to learn about and discover different artistic techniques to use in the performance of their work. After this seminar, the partner organizations will collect all the works created during the project, as well as ideas to put them in a CreARTive Diary. A tool that allows the field of youth work and the artistic field to develop activities and ideas to focus romantic love in a more egalitarian way with young people. An exhibition of works related to the reconstruction of romantic love resulting from the project will be created in the participating countries.
The main objective of this project has been to create a joint action between youth workers and artists to dismantle the clichés associated with romantic love through art in a critical and conscious way. Different artistic disciplines are used as tools for social transformation, inviting reflection from a transdisciplinary perspective, opening up new forms of action beyond the paradigms of formal education and the usual artistic circuits. To share the experiences around the myth of romantic love. To go deeper into violence against women. To use different artistic tools. To promote youth work with a gender perspective, providing resources to demystify harmful romantic ideas. To take artistic practice out of its usual circuits. Use art to transform reality. Raise awareness through creativity, inspiring young people. To foster critical citizenship with a focus on empowering communities, their participation in the public sphere. Encourage healthy sexual and emotional relationships through art, play and creativity. Addressing this project at a transnational level gives the possibility to know, compare and investigate a greater diversity of realities around the myths of romantic love in the field of youth.
The ideal of romantic love is one of the causes of intimate partner violence. It often creates unrealistic expectations, can damage the relationship and can normalise dangerous behaviour or petty violence. Identifying the myths created around this love is essential to prevent toxic relationships based on inequality. Concepts such as jealousy or the better half are historically and socially linked to the meaning of being in a couple, concepts that are enormously and unconsciously internalised. It has been detected that these toxic relationships in couples arise from youth and are carried out throughout our love life. It was identified as a need to work on this aspect through co-education in young people in order to demystify the pre-established in terms of romantic love, so that young people can develop a critical conscience and be able to live healthy relationships that do not affect their emotional, mental and/or physical stability.