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Europe

Denmark

Co-matter

Copenhagen and Berlin based

Rather than describing everything we do, I'd rather go simple and say we are a research lab exploring what makes communities thrive.

We just published our annual report on The State of Communities. You can download it for free here: http://co-matter.com/the-state-of-communities-2018-report/

Finland

ISEAS

International Socially Engaged Art Symposium

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The symposium’s structure is short and compact together living and working. In this way, its basic idea differs from artist residences, where communality is not necessarily central, and working mostly takes place individually or in working group. The aim of the symposium is to develop community-based activities and to create networks for an international group of artists. During the symposium week, artists have the opportunity to exchange ideas, skills and information. In social media world, messaging is easy and fast. However, it does not replace the real face-to-face encounter and the time it takes to be able to understand and learn people from different cultures. Symposium mentoring aims to deepen work and promote collective action.

https://iseasfinland.com

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France

Les Têtes de L'Art

Since 1996, our non-profit organisation has been supporting and promoting participatory arts practices through committed action at the crossroads of culture, informal education, and social and solidarity-based economy. We create and nurture projects which illustrate our beliefs such as “Place à l’Art” or “Boulègue”, the participatory television scheme in the 3rd district of Marseille. Building on our large network of independent artists, we co-develop participatory artistic projects in order to meet the requests of our beneficiaries. Finally, we work with our members through coaching, training schemes and equipment loan. Les Têtes de l’Art is located in the PACA region but it is also very much open to the outside. We deal with more and more partners in France, Europe, and the Mediterranean area so as to help spread a fresh and positive outlook.

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http://en.lestetesdelart.fr

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Address: 
Salle 126 - 1er étage 
La Friche La Belle de Mai 
41 rue Jobin 
13003 Marseille 

contact@lestetesdelart.fr
07 85 25 87 53

La Friche

La Friche was born out of the ashes of the Seita tobacco factory and today it is a place of creativity and innovation. La Friche la Belle de Mai is both a work space for the 70 on site organisations (400 artists and creatives who work here every day and cultural dissemination and events (600 public art events per annum, from youth workshops to large-scale festivals).
With over 400 000 visitors a year, la Friche la Belle de Mai is a multi-faceted public space comprising a sports area, restaurant, 5 concert venues, shared gardens, a bookshop, a crèche, 2400 m2 of exhibition space, a 8000 m2 roof terrace, and a training centre (see all the venues here).
On this new cultural, urban site, we imagine, create and work to ensure that every idea can find an outlet. You can find every form of artistic expression here – every trend and people of all ages. Discovery, debate and the unexpected are on each corner of every street of this patch of town.

 

La Friche in numbers:
Surface area: 45 000 m2 floor space – 100 000 m2 surface area
Number of events a year: 600
People who work there: 400 residents, permanent and temporary

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http://www.lafriche.org/en/

Horslits

It is a festival happening across many countries where 4 different performances in apartments are staged in various people's homes. 
Dancer from Argentina Leonardo Montecchia wanted to perform without having to ask an institution or for permissions so he started this festival "Hors Lits" which literally means "outside bed". Over two days with three different performances each night, it brings about 150 turnout participants. 
To get involved one can just send an email to the organiser in each city to ask to perform. They are currently showing in France, Tunisia, Italy, Spain, Italy and Switzerland. 
For more information, here's their website: http://horslits.com/

Germany

School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe

The School of Machines, Making & Make Believe provides one-of-a-kind hands-on learning experiences in the areas of art, technology, design, and human connection. Our philosophy is centered around the idea that we are all lifelong learners. We would love for our students to leave our programs activated; not only equipped with technical and hands-on tools and skill sets, but also critically-minded, more deeply engaged with their surroundings and with themselves.

Artists, designers, technologists, makers, researchers and the like come to us to explore new topics, develop and expand their practice, and wrestle out the courage to begin something new. We support them in these endeavors while encouraging curiosity, confidence, and the enthusiasm to say something with their work.

Our instructors are distinguished artists and technologists working directly with the tools they teach and our programs provide an opportunity for our students to work with them to expand their fields of knowledge and build towards a more interdisciplinary practice. Program sizes are small and students actively engage their new-found skills and collaborators each step of the way, creating individual and group work towards a public exhibition at programs end.


For more information, here's their website: http://schoolofma.org

Ireland

Create is the national development agency for collaborative arts in social and community contexts.

Our mission is to provide advice and support services to artists and arts organisations working collaboratively with communities in social and community contexts.

Create supports artists across all artforms who work collaboratively with communities in different social and community contexts, be they communities of place or those brought together by interest.

Create seeks to foster current and future potential for collaboration between artists and communities, encouraging art projects that reflect the exciting ways in which collaborative arts represent a complex range of ideas and approaches.

Artists and arts organisations working collaboratively with communities of place and /or interest is widely seen as one of the most vibrant and challenging areas of arts practice, requiring skills of negotiation and project management. The exploratory processes and practices of collaborative arts demand different approaches to traditional definitions of art, artists and arts development.

Create responds to these demands by offering a range of services for artists and arts organisations which include Professional Development and Advisory Sessions, Learning Development and Create engages in partnerships on initiatives that support and develop collaborative arts practice across all artforms.

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http://www.create-ireland.ie

Lithuania

Šilainiai Project is an initiative oriented to the local community of various generations and in this way is part of other Lithuanian and foreign practices seen in micro-districts – open creative social platforms, community and participatory arts and others. International artist residency is one of the many activities led by Evelina ŠimkutÄ— in Šilainiai, which help and start to reveal the cultural identity of the last developed micro-district in Kaunas in Soviet times. The project conducts an artistic, also historical and social research of Šilainiai, communicating with the people who created it and examining the collected archival material."

https://silainiaiproject.com/about/

Netherlands

Castrum Peregrini is a unique cultural centre, combining a rich and multi-layered past with pressing social issues of today. Castrum Peregrini has an unequivocal belief in a society where nobody is excluded and that embraces diversity and equality as conditions for progress. Our core values FREEDOM, FRIENDSHIP and CULTURE reflect this believe. Firmly rooted in Amsterdam its outlook is international.

Castrum Peregrini is a place of (artistic-) research and encounter. It offers a protected environment for artists, thinkers, opinion leader and activists, to work in the context of the organisation and in exchange with its network and audience.  

The historic environment and the complex history of Castrum Peregrini form a laboratory for the researching artist and the interdisciplinary researcher. The public programme offers a moment of peer review for new ideas and participatory- or co-creation.

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http://castrumperegrini.org

Portugal

PELE is an artistic structure of Porto, established in 2007, since its creation work in the affirmation of theater as a privileged space for dialogue and collective creation, guiding the work processes by the principle of placing individuals and communities at the center of the artistic creation, enhancing individual and collective processes of "empowerment" and seeking a balance between ethics, aesthetics and efficiency, assuming the artistic creation as a tool for community, social and economic development, contributing to social and territorial cohesion.

MISSION

 

- Promotion of artistic projects that enable individual development, integration and affirmation of citizenship;

- Foster the creation, experimentation and artistic innovation;

- Increase training activities among the population in general, artists and technicians;

- Increasing the external consultancy to artistic and social structures in the areas of education and health;

- Creation of a network at national level between the artistic sector entities;

- Combat cultural centralization, taking art to the bosom of naturally excluded contexts: Social Neighbourhoods, Prisons...

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https://www.apele.org/a-pele-en

MEXE_International Arts and Community Meeting has become over its three editions (2011, 2013 and 2015), nationally and internationally, one of the compelling and nescapable spaces for the crossing and deepening of community artistic practices.

METO A COLHER

Instalação / Performance sobre Violência Doméstica / Disponível para itinerância

MAPA

Grupo de Teatro Comunitário EMCOMUM

de Lordelo do Ouro / Projetos com Comunidades

PASSEIOS AO POR DO SOL

Grupo de Teatro Comunitário do Centro Histórico

ECOAR

Empregabilidade Competências e Arte

 

MEXE is organized on the basis of four pillars: Presentation - Shows | Installations | Performances Thought - International Meeting of Reflection on Community Artistic Practices - EIRPAC Training - Workshops Documentation - Documentaries Exhibition

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https://www.facebook.com/encontro.mexe/

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Romania

Arhipera - participatory and emergency architecture in contexts of extreme poverty

ArhiPera aims to improve the living conditions of vulnerable groups in communities in extreme poverty through an integrated approach. ArhiPera has developed a methodology, model and intervention policy in vulnerable communities that can be extended at national level. The integrated approach includes employment, housing, social assistance, health care and community development through culture. ArhiPera promotes the principles of the strategic axis of the inclusive society that advocates change social systems, fighting segregation and marginalization of vulnerable groups.

 

(http://www.arhipera.ro/despre-noi/) / arch. Lorin Niculae /lorin@arhipera.ro

Studio Basar - co-design, co-production, participative practices for the activation of public spaces

studioBASAR is a Bucharest based architectural studio and a public space practice founded in 2006 by Alex Axinte and Cristi Borcan. Preoccupied with the dynamics of urban culture and the disappearing importance of public spaces, studioBASAR initiates and develops actions and projects within public space. Ranging from temporary to permanent, these processes include practice based research, participatory action research, community activation, co-production and co-design, urban design, live education and civic pedagogy.

studioBASAR’s projects range from art installations, urban research, educational formats, public space interventions and community projects, to competitions and different typologies of residential and public buildings.

(http://www.studiobasar.ro/?page_id=3&lang=en) / Arch. Alex Axinte / alex.axinte@studiobasar.ro

Street Delivery - urban event of art and architecture, experience and a manifesto for a more liveable city

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Street Delivery, which opens the street for people and closes it for cars, reaches its thirteenth edition in Bucharest between June 15 and 17 and proposes an honest conversation on Smart Cities to the capital's inhabitants. What is, in fact, a "smart city"? A technology-dominated city or one where people apply new developments for a more enjoyable life? A buzzword of marketing or an inevitable direction of large urban agglomerations? Are new technologies approaching or moving away further, destroying the community? A "smart" city wipes out its past for everything new or knows how to take care of its own memory and identity?

(http://street.delivery) / Cristian Neagoe / cristineagoe@gmail.com

Zeppelin - placemaking, urban revitalization through temporary interventions, cultural events and creative content (projects: Connected, PUCK, Be a mayor for 10 minutes, Magic Blocks, Lays, Carol Factory etc. 

 

… a magazine for architecture and urban culture, now an online one as well, but also a platform for reflection and urban intervention, a design studio, several published books, dozens of exhibits, hundreds of conferences and many other events.

In fact, Zeppelin appeared long before it was called so. In the late 90s, many very young architects began to work together on print or online publications. The current team was founded in 2000 by Cosmina Goagea, Constantin Goagea and Stefan Ghenciulescu. Architectural critique was later accompanied by research projects, organizing events and urban interventions (see Cultural Programs section) and an architecture and design studio.

https://e-zeppelin.ro/category/programeculturale/proiecte-complexe/www.citiesandpeople.eu) / arch. Cosmina Goagea / cosmina.zepp14@gmail.com

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