Community-based art projects at the service of an European citizen transition

"<< Background >>The word transition is used here to describe changes in societies towards more sustainability, resilience and social justice. The partners wanted to deepen their collaboration and to build a youth exchange programme together, supporting Community based Art Projects, inspired and led by engaged youngsters, concerned by both social and environmental issues.We need radical transformations in our human systems and institutions, especially in our mindsets and behaviours. The younger generations are becoming more aware of the environmental and social issues and the risks we could face if we let business go as usual. However, a few of us are really ready to undertake concrete changes. It nurtures a «cognitive dissonance » between the information we receive and the way we live. Community-based art makes transformative processes visible and desirable. It connects people, regardless of their age, cultural, social or educational background. It offers spaces and moments where people can reconnect with their sensitivity, the others and the nature, meet and discuss together and imagine how to make their living environments more beautiful, welcoming, supportive and healthy. << Objectives >>Our source of inspiration is the Transition Towns movement initiated by Rob Hopkins in the UK and the principles of permaculture design applied to project development. Based on the concept of neighborhood, the art projects we support aim to raise awareness of the problems associated with the transition and to seek solutions based on collective intelligence, citizen involvement and the sharing of experience. Our aim is to bring together a community of young « artivists » who combine art and activism to initiate positive changes in their living environment. Contributing to a collective art project helps understand the challenges in a sensitive way and motivate people to get more concretely involved. We want to reach youngsters who are interested in mixing cultural activities and transition, either as volunteers in community service or as project promoters. The purpose is to create an online community that connects these young Europeans and offer them the opportunity to be supported in the development of their projects, but also to meet and exchange with other engaged people. This is the concept of just transition, a system change that doesn't leave anyone behind and offers the possibility to everyone to participate. << Implementation >>We provided guided project production management through the organization of a series of webinars. The webinars were used to to analyze their needs as focus groups, network the participants and to offer online creative sessions. We organized two onsite youth exchanges to help them experiment and develop their projects. As we got also the financial support of the DFJW, we were able to organize two weeks of training sessions with workshops and support of professionals to implement the projects cocreated with the youngsters. Participants to the training weeks in Berlin and Thessaloniki were organized in mixed creative groups.They were introduced to the creation and production of intercultural and transdisciplinary artistic projects and learned methods for developing their own projects in multidisciplinary workshops (theatre, creative writing, recycling, video). Their ideas were put into practice with concrete examples and showcased. Our pedagogy was based on methods of non formal education that relied on the knowledge of the participants and emphasized collective experience and personal achievement. Participatory methods aimed at making people aware of the issues and supported the peer-to-peer exchanges and sharing of information<< Results >>This project created a dynamic, transdisciplinary creative process that produced both artistic projects to be shared with the participants to the programme and a community of practice that can serve as a source of inspiration and reference. The young participants acquired social skills and project management abilities and were able to carry out their own projects with the support of trainers and professionals. The participation was made possible by a continuous collaborative process and formed the basis for critical reflections on contexts and social involvement. We applied an user oriented method and developed a prototype for a collaborative platform with an open source software . It allows visitors to explore inspiring resources and discover the creations of the ""artivists for transition"" community, but also provides connected users with spaces to share ideas and projects, express themselves and debate online. The platform is now tested with the community and will grow with the next steps that are already planned."