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My city of concrete

2020-3-IT03-KA105-0198912020Youth mobilityfinalized
Countries: IT|RS|MK|PT · Grant: €25,032
Social dialogueCreativity and cultureCivic engagement / responsible citizenship

Objectives

The project "My city of concrete" has emerged as the product of reflection after Potenza was proclaimed a city of art. However the city has a lot of barriers to the development. The critical issues that most affect the development are those related to culture and tourism, sustainable mobility, digital transformation, research and innovation. There is a lack of programming of activities and integration of the city's cultural system and therefore also of its cultural containers. Whith this project Amnesiac Arts had an intention to rethink the Lucanian territory, that doesn't qualify so much for the emergence of certain monuments, but rather for being an intact fabric with many widespread cultural heritage. There is another aspect to think about - social justice art, a means to generate awareness and a catalyst to engage community members to take action around a social issue, that like a concrete is hard to break. It encompasses the visual and performing art that aim to raise critical consciousness, build community, and motivate individuals to promote social change. Indeed, we have underlined the need to explore and raise awareness of hidden or overlooked issues and aspects of the communities of the partners included in the project. We conducted the non-formal education program in which we applied the combination of different methods of socially engaged art (painting, photography, theatre, storytelling). Social practice artists aim to affect their community and environment in a real, rather than symbolic way that enables social and political change focusing on engagement through human interaction and social discourse. Social artists in this project addressed the problems by helping people to express themselves and find their voice, or by bringing people together and using art to help them to foster understanding of each other. The accent of this project was collaboration with individuals, communities, and institutions in the creation of participatory art where the artists had participatory role in the work and they were equal with the audience, collaboration with the public becomes the exhibition. While a painter uses pigment and canvas, and a sculptor wood or metal, the social practice artist often creates a scenario in which the audience is invited to participate, the artwork is really the interactions that emerge from the audience's engagement with the artist and the situation. Process is determined by method; thus as social practitioners and artists we gave more attention to the methodology rather than to the aesthetic of work. The aesthetic represents an aesthetic of human interaction and development that is based not on spectatorship but on participation. The end products of works were not commodities, but rather processes for constructive social change. The participants experienced the methodology of socially engaged art that refers to the set of practices used throughout the process and production of a project. The method is no longer a means to an end, but an end within itself: the experience of creation and experimentation is a central element of social practice. The project met the following objectives: -Promote understanding about the messages that art can convey both regarding social issues and expressing the emotions of young people -Give youth a chance to experiment with different forms of contemporary art alongside the professional artists and to discover its power to revive the cities and use it to valorize existing cultural offer in order to give young people competences for the sector of creative industries -Increase awareness and sensitivity regarding social injustice by understanding how inequalities impact youth and raising awareness of current challenges facing people experiencing poverty -Use of art as a mechanism to engage with social issues, community building, and social activism and as demonstration of the power of creativity in creating hope and a bright vision for the future -Promote dialogue and participation for the creation of a civic engagement -Strengthen intercultural communication skills as well as language skills -Increase the self-esteem and independence of young people.

Project partners (4)