The Studio Erasmus Project

Project Title

The Studio

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Creativity

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Recognition (non-formal and informal learning/credits); Research and innovation; Social/environmental responsibility of educational institutions

Project Summary

Our work centers around creating collective visions and finding actionable solutions through creating processes of participation and activating local potential. To help implement ideas we involve designers, architects, artists, builders, social scientists, volunteers, and professionals who share our passion. By including people from beginning to completion, we aim to inspire creativity, collaboration, and ownership.

Whether it’s about designing your own clothes, fixing your bike or building a bench for your neighborhood, learning brings a great sense of accomplishment and joy. Design is driven by process, and requires an approach where a critical mindset and the ability for reflection is essential. Creating is a natural human instinct and necessity and one doesn’t have to be a designer or an artist to understand and make use of creative methods. Through this project we would like to work with an approach to link creativity towards youth work where participation and design are part of the main ingredients. In a world where we constantly remove ourselves from the physical and the tactile, the goal is to claim back the creative space. We intend to use traditional crafts and materials to develop and propose new solutions and inspiration for anyone working with youth.

Further, we will explore and develop our knowledge of the participatory as a method. Today participation and co-creation are mandatory and expected parts of youth work – yet some barriers remain to fully implement them into this type of labor. Participation is often viewed rather as an injunction instead of a possibility to generate involvement and a sense of ownership for those who work with youth. The overarching goal is to try out and expand new methods for participation, that can be later put to use by a wide span of actors in the field of youth work.
For this project, we assembled an interdisciplinary team consisting of three design studios from Norway, France, and Germany. Every one of us is working with creative subjects where design, creative exploration, innovation, and youth are our main focus. The project group consists of 7 people, but we will also intertwine other internal and external resources.

The focus of this project will be placed in an interdisciplinary and transnational collaboration where the execution method will be process-driven and will revolve around five phases. The first phase encompasses exploration and research. Here we will gather inspiration from best practices in design, art, and dissemination. The plan is to meet to share thoughts, discuss discoveries and ideas during the duration of the project. We will compare the tendencies bound to different cultures in the three countries and determine what the key essentials are regarding youth. In the next phase, we will work with ideas and concept-development of the product. This line of work is very important in terms of making a holistic and approachable product, and also to make a unique and attractive concept.

When our final concept is ready and most of the content is in order, we will invite youth from the three participating countries to join a 5-day workshop. During this workshop, we will do research, interviews, and last but not least, test the product and produce feedback.

The aim is to create a publication that will inspire youth workers, spread ideas and ways to work with youth through design and creative methods. The publication will be made for digital download and will be free and easily accessible for everyone, targeted especially towards those who work with and are invested in youth and youth work.

Lastly, we will make a plan for how we can reach a wide range of youth workers and youth as an end-user. Our ambition and anticipation are that the final product will reach a wide audience and be an inspiration and an important tool for many in the years to come. When releasing the publication we want to put young people’s need for creativity on the agenda.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 124515 Eur

Project Coordinator

Byverkstedet & Country: NO

Project Partners

• forty-five degrees
• Collectif Premices