The Creative Agora: empowerment and education through participatory and community arts.
We are delighted to present our new Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnerships in Adult Education.
Creative Agora promotes the European dimension in non-formal, participatory arts education for adults for Europe’s disadvantaged and diverse communities. Focused upon the unique, intrinsic ability of community, participatory arts and creative expression to engage adults in learning that are alienated or excluded by traditional adult education offers.
This project addresses the Erasmus+ priority focusing on educators, by developing ‘artists as educators’ as being critical to fostering educational and social inclusion for all.
The project partnership is formed by 7 partners from 7 countries. Folkuniversitetet, Lund (Sweden) is the overall coordinator of the project, then we have Urbani Separe (Croatia), ARTeria (Poland), UNI’SONS (France), Rinova Malaga (Spain), Dimitra (Greece), Pro Progressione (Hungary).
The overall goal of Creative Agora is to support the professional development of artist’s educators who engage with adults from disadvantaged communities in participatory and community arts-based non-formal learning, through:
– Creation of innovative new learning materials
– Developing a European learning “Community of Practice”
– Design and transfer of learning and practice between fields of community education, the arts and technology.
On the 29th and 30th of March 2022 we held our First Transnational Meeting (kick-off) in Malaga, Spain. During those two days the goal was the overview of the project objectives, discussion of the objectives and implementation, as well as agreement on next steps. We had really productive days and we are already looking forward to our Second Transnational Project Meeting!
During the First Transnational Meeting in Malaga, we discussed about the challenges artists have been facing in the last 2 years and how to support them. Artists have been strongly affected by the consequences of the pandemic. These challenges of isolation, lack of resources, loss of work in the arts and creative industries, not being able to reach and work interpersonally and interactively with their learners through culture and arts, have increased considerably since 2020. This crisis has urged the need of digital communications for delivery of online education, creating potential to extend access to learners and practitioners across borders internationally.
Visit the project website more information, meet the partnership and follow up our progress!