“Art Bridge“ project engages organizations working in the field of culture, including libraries, from four countries: Poland, Italy, Spain and Turkey. It is a direct answer to a consequences of a covid-19 pandemic, which caused a significant rise of mental and emotional problems among seniors and adults 50+ from a group of high risk health issues. Spreading of the virus brought fear and anxiety in many people from this group across the world. Our project aims to create a set of creative international meetings during which we will exchange ideas and knowledge about art therapy working with different media such as painting, ceramics and sculpture. We will create the common platform to exchange good practices, synthetize new methods of working to implement them in our local community. Various activities and workshops are directed at exchange of a good practices and developing creativity and cultural expressiveness among participants, using art therapy as a way to deal with difficult and unexpected situations like COVID-19 pandemic. Project is focused towards implementation of joint initiatives promoting cooperation, peer learning and exchanges of experience at European level, creating an awareness about the problem of social exclusion, especially among seniors as a high risk group, during difficult times of a social isolation during pandemic. We planned activities such as painting workshops, the talk about art therapy methods and problem of anxiety and how to deal with it in a creative way, creative workshops concentrated on a themes of local heritage painting styles, sculpture workshops developing sensory skills, multimedia workshops aiming at the multicultural exchange between adults and seniors, developing showing how to use different platforms to connect online and discuss issues, play interesting games, learn new skills and develop passions through internet, workshops about healthy and colorful eating and how it affects mental and emotional state of being. We planned also talk about social exclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic, quarantine of the people that are sick and how they cannot feel left out. In result of those activities and exchange of a good practices we expecting to develop a new competences and skills to work with people in difficult emotional situations, socially excluded and left out during the pandemic of COVID-19 and therefore mostly affected through alienation. We will be creating a safe and comfortable culturally open environment for this target group, and bring them back to a social life, creating a bridge that they can walk on and connect with other people, engaging in a creative activities and sharing their knowledge, feeling and developing new talents and skills, enjoying the senior years of their life. We will create a publication with a know how about art therapy and its influence on health post-pandemic human, as well as short essays on creative thinking, social inclusion and cultural awareness all based on the ideas and information that we will develop throughout the project duration. The publication will be provided under the terms of CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
In response to the alienation based on fear, discouragement and loneliness spreading among people over 50, including seniors, we created an art therapy project that would help fight mental and emotional problems. Through creative and cultural activities, access to culture and integration with society, it supported the reconstruction of social and personal ties between people. Activities such as meetings, discussions, visits to cultural facilities, workshops, trainings were aimed at exchanging good practices and developing creativity and cultural expression among participants, using art therapy as a way to deal with difficult and unexpected situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in early 2020 was an unexpected event that shook countries around the world, creating chaos and high levels of stress among people. The spread of the virus at a very rapid pace has led to increased fear in the societies of many countries affected by this new disease. The persistent state of uncertainty and anxiety about people's lives has led to mental and emotional health problems. These factors were the direct inspiration for the "Bridge of Art" project, which we saw as a remedy for mental and emotional health problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which could be observed among people over 50, including seniors, who constitute a group people at high health risk.