European Outdoor Arts Academy: School of Participation
European Outdoor Arts Academy: School of Participation
Project Leader: WALK THE PLANK, United Kingdom
Coventry City of Culture Trust, United Kingdom
Fondacija Novi Sad 2021 – ECoC, Republic of Serbia
Kaunas 2022 – ECoC, Lithuania
Obshtinska fondatsia Plovdiv 2019, Bulgaria
UniT – Verein für Kultur an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria
Maximum Grant Awarded: 195.000,00 €
European Outdoor Arts Academy will deliver five ‘School of Participation’ 8 day training into production schools, presented in five partner cities between 2019 and 2020. Each school will bring together 26 creative practitioners together from the 10 partner cities in 9 European countries, to gain new skills and experience in co-creating an outdoor participatory arts event.
All schools will be delivered by a team of outdoor arts experts drawn from across the core partnership. Each school will result in the creative practitioners collaborating with each other and 20 local community participants in each school hosting city to deliver an “end of school “outdoor participatory arts event to the public.
The programme will underpin the development of a transnational talent pool in European participatory creative practice and contribute to the strengthening of participants’ creative careers. It provides a practical opportunity to build capacity and create a programme of “action learning” for cultural organisations and practitioners in cities who have, plan to apply or are building to the delivery of European Capital of Culture or similar major cultural programmes.
The project will be led by Walk the Plank (UK) in partnership with small to medium sized European Capitals of Culture, candidate cities and UK City of Culture; Fondacija Novi Sad 2021 (Serbia), uniT – Verein für Kultur an der Karl-Franzens- Universität Graz (Austria), Municipal Foundation Plovdiv 2019 (Bulgaria), Kaunas 2022 (Lithuania), Limerick City and County Council (Ireland), Institute for Contemporary Art: ARé Festival (Armenia), Tartu 2024 (Estonia), Municipality of Town Veszprém 2023 (Hungry). It will serve to grow sustainable outdoor participatory arts capacity in small to medium sized, culturally engaged European cities. It will also exchange models of audience engagement through participatory practice in public space. Learning will be shared across the European Capitals of Culture network and beyond.
