It’s often challenging for cultural organizations to build up relationships with audiences that truly reflect our contemporary society’s hyper-diversity. Invisible social and geographical barriers make it difficult for certain groups of individuals to feel connected to contemporary art, design or creative practices our cultural institutions offer.
We – a partnership of Belgian, Dutch, British and Macedonian cultural organisations – joined forces to address this socio-cultural challenge. In a two-year programme co-funded by Creative Europe, we will recruit and travel with an international network of young creatives. In each of our four cities (Bruges, Rotterdam, Brighton and Skopje), the creatives will artistically work on challenges formulated by each guest city. In everything we do, we keep our goal in mind: to break down barriers that hinder certain groups of people to participate in current arts and cultural initiatives. We seek to co-create and set up a structural exchange with these under-represented groups of young people.
Our learnings from the trajectory will not only benefit the creatives involved in the process, they will be of great importance to contemporary cultural organisations as well. We seek to pave the road to a more inclusive, socially and culturally more diverse cultural offering.
MAMA, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Het Entrepot, Brugge, Belgium
Fabrica Gallery, Brighton, United Kingdom
Public Room, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
On the point WORKSHOP 14th -16th November, Public Room, Skopje, Macedonia.
Idea behind the OTP workshop in Skopje is to work in mixed groups in design and production of mobile gardens that can be used by people with Down Syndrome disability to plant and grow herbs, vegetables etc. in a very urban areas of Skopje. Within three days of intensive work in miscellanies groups of characters, nationalities and professional backgrounds, it is expected to have at least 5 functional designs of mobile / portable gardens that will be produced in a period of 5 to 7 days after the workshop period by a professional carpenter. The produced mobile gardens will be filled in with soil, plants and herbs by the kids with Down syndrome and will be displayed on the festival Skopje Design Week 2019.
In order to come up with the right designs the organizers have engaged different profiles of professionals (defectologists, designers, carpenters, etc.) who will provide valuable information throughout the workshop to all groups so that the final results suit the needs of the project target group.