The international project “Res Publica Reloaded – European Public Spaces as Source of Empowerment” is starting. Its coordinator is the German organization Arbeit und Leben. The Polish partner of the project is the Villa Decius Association. The first meeting of the participants will be held in Düsseldorf.
During this project we would like to focus on the connections between political and cultural education as well as between informal forms of learning and areas of non-formal and formal learning. Especially, we will emphasize questions of political discourse through street arts and arts in public space; parts of the internet are considered as one form of public space. We will focus on politics as content of cultural productions and on culture as expression of political views: One main topic will be common European political contents, visions and identities.
One of the results shall be a set of methods which transfers contents, tools and learning strategies from the field of street arts and popular cultures as well as digital social networks to more “formalised” institutions of cultural and political education.
To develop, test and analyse these practices, we will organise four workshops for learners and staff and two monitoring/planning meetings in different cities. Besides, we will create a digital platform containing the opportunity for discussion and the exchange of documents, works of art, pictures, videos etc. This platform will serve as a way of disseminating and documenting our results and it is meant to outlive the period of our project. Furthermore, we will create a documentation including a “case” of practical and transferable methods that shall be available to multiplicators of cultural and political education and the Life Long Learning community in Europe.
Partners of the project:
- Imagine IC pioneers the heritage of contemporary living together. Based in the Bijlmer, in the super-diverse Amsterdam Southeast area, the institute documents the present-day of the urban young adults. Together with them, we organise (travelling) exhibitions and discussions on the subjects they put on our agenda. With its activities and the resulting collection of image and sound items, Imagine IC aims towards a democratic heritage concept and practice, and a subsequent inclusive understanding of Amsterdam, resp. Dutch collective identity. In the learning partnership Imagine IC will especially be responsible of maintaining our digital platform and Imagine will also host one workshop with learners and partners in Amsterdam.
- Arbeit und Leben is an institution for continuing education in maintenance of the German federation of trade unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund – DGB) and the adult education centers (Volkshochschule – VHS) in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Arbeit und Leben has a long experience concerning learning processes in the cultural, political and social field and has undertaken several large-scale European projects. Our general target groups are emigrants, elderly people, young adult learners and woman etc.
- Villa Decius Association
Website of the project: www.respublicareloaded.eu
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.