The principal objective of the project « Art Against » is to facilitate the access of vulnerable people to the cultural sector in all its components and artistic, technical or managerial professions. This transnational cooperation between Caisa (Fi), Piranha Arts (DE) and Samba Résille (FR) was created from a shared diagnostic of singular and specific experiences of each partner regarding the creative field, led among the vulnerable audiences, and from different researches and studies on the subject of social inclusion through arts. This diagnostic showed the similarity of the partner's contexts, rich in terms of cultural diversity and intense in terms of creative emulation, and stimulated the common desire to deal with the artistic mediation in social work and with the social mediation in artistic work as central theme of this exchange project of good practices. Fitting the « Equity and Inclusion » European strategy and the social part of the New European Agenda for Culture proposing to « harness the power of culture and cultural diversity for social cohesion and wellbeing », this project aims at deconstructing the usual approaches on securities / vulnerabilities and on inclusion / equity by organizing joint events of staff training and wants the participants to live a positive experience favorable to disseminate good practices and results to the direct targeted audience of 458 people among the staff of partners, and to the indirect targeted audience of 19 302 people among the learners and institutional, cultural and social networks. This program of activities leans on an educational approach, giving space to creativity and adapted to the needs of the participants, around 3 subjects: « Art and social mediation », « Securities VS vulnerabilities » and « The mobility of vulnerable artists and their works ». It targets the acquisition of transferable competences allowing a better knowledge of vulnerable situations of the targeted audiences, an increase of empathic listening, a bigger creativity in the adaptation of resources, a better organization of mediation approaches and a better evaluation of efficiency. It plans 15 days of learning activities for 12 participants per organization, more 3 transnational meetings for management and follow up of the project's activities. The profiles of the participants (skills, and social and creative expertise) are favorable to the circulation of multiple knowledge on the securities (creative, managerial, legal, material, economic, educational, emotional and philosophical) in agreement with the different vulnerabilities of the targeted audiences (disability, educational difficulties, economic obstacles, cultural differences, health problems, social or geographical obstacles). The implementation to reach the objectives and results of the projects is done under the supervision of a transnational steering committee which aims at spreading the visibility of the project beyond its limits, towards the external stakeholders and the targeted audiences, supporting all the participants to commit in an active process of dissemination and promotion of the productions and results of the project, allowing them to measure the quality of their works and the created value at all levels. The evaluation of the program of work observes a longitudinal, appreciative and participative approach so it can send back a « mirror perception » allowing the participants to continue to question outside the specific actions of evaluation. The measure of the impact will lean on qualitative and quantitative data related to the dissemination of the project's results, the documentation gathered by the participants, the evaluative activities of the products and results of the actions, the evaluation of formal and non formal skills developed by each beneficiary, the transmission of new learnings, the narrations of experiences lived by the participants, the moments of interviews and individual and collective face-to-face analysis, times of observation and application of acquired skills (technical, managerial and civic). Thanks to this high-quality learning ecosystem, the participants will strengthen their cultural and social intermediation process to the most vulnerable, by accompanying them to harness fully their own capabilities and orientate their existence. The partners will increase their skills to assume their key role in the promotion of a bigger social inclusion through arts.
This project pursued the overall goal of facilitating access to the cultural sector in all its components (creation, production, dissemination) and in all artistic, technical, or managerial professions for individuals with physical, sensory, and/or mental disabilities, and/or those facing social, economic, geographical obstacles, or differences in culture, which were the target groups of the project. To achieve this, the project implementation sought to: - Assist the Consortium's staff in going beyond the art and social mediation dichotomy in their processes of welcoming and supporting vulnerable individuals by increasing their emotional resources, relational skills, and procedural know-how to build responses adapted to the specific needs of the supported audiences. - Strengthen the inclusive capacities of organizations regarding the diversity of cultural expression forms by questioning their ethics, social responsibility, motivation, and determination to establish creative, managerial, legal, material, economic, pedagogical, emotional, and philosophical safeguards in favor of individuals in vulnerable situations.
This project was born in 2020 in a devastating context for cultural employment and the inclusion of the most vulnerable, characterized by: - Anxiety-inducing climate linked to a rise in fundamentalist expressions and identity retreats, more relevant than ever, which create invisible boundaries of ghettoization between social groups, penalizing the most vulnerable. - Economic fragility in the cultural sector due to increased security budgets at the expense of artistic budgets due to the risk of terrorist attacks. - And a cascading cancellation of events due to the Coronavirus. The three partner organizations then conceived this project to gain a broader perspective on their national practices and contexts and collectively devise responses to the jointly diagnosed needs of their salaried and volunteer personnel, namely: - Renewing their thinking. - Analyzing their practices of intermediation. - Questioning their social role with the most vulnerable. - Deepening their knowledge of ethics and the values to uphold in mediation. - Creating spaces for criticism of their role as "regulators of social peace." - Confronting themselves with other creative practices and inclusive expertise.