The project invites around twenty Icelandic and French youth (10 youth per country) and a team of education, integration, and cultural professionals to share a hiking and camping experience in the Icelandic highlands and in the forest in Brittany. The goal is to provide them with tools for development, engagement, and artistic creation that will support them in developing their own projects. To exchange knowledge and practices between young people from different social, cultural, and educational backgrounds, and marginalized youth, through the creation of logbooks kept throughout the program process.
In 2019, we organized an exchange project between France and Iceland, which outlined the founding principles of the UTI project. We applied for 2023, with the aim of enabling exchanges and meetings between participants, a key condition for the project's realization. As well as the implementation of all phases of the project (preparation, awareness-raising, travel, bivouac, walk), creation of the experience's memory/trace materials: a collective paper book, radio podcasts, documentary film, and photography exhibition. The project was born from a long research process. We have been working for 20 years with a wide variety of audiences, particularly young people. Our social values have always led us to prioritize creative autonomy, which for us is one of the levers for civil, social, and civic autonomy. Creation combined with training is a tool. We understand the potential that creativity can develop in our societies. We work with a wide variety of audiences, and by applying this diversity, we verify the impact on each individual. This collaboration between French and Icelandic artists promotes environmental awareness.