Virtual Social Art Stage Erasmus Project

Project Title

Virtual Social Art Stage

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: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

Against the background of the Covid pandemic, which is intensifying social and economic challenges in Europe even further, the question of possibilities and ways to activate the next generation arises. In the ViSAS project, European partners from 4 countries have therefore set themselves the goal of transferring the positive effects of artistic methods in youth work to the digital space and through this transfer to contribute to the sustainability and innovation of European youth work.

To this end, the project will create a virtual space which, together with ideas and concepts for its use in youth work and scientifically proven effects, will enable an innovative approach to hybrid artistic youth work. The approach should strengthen the creativity and creative abilities of the target group, promote social inclusion and enable a new continuity in European youth work. Across national borders, it actively keeps young people in touch, promotes democratic awareness, intercultural competence and encourages them to take on responsibility and self-determination. The European dimension and effectiveness of the educational approach “Social Art” that we advocate can thus grow and involve both young people and professionals in a development process.

In order to achieve this goal and to disseminate the results in activities that build on each other, the consortium brings together about 50 experts from the youth education and art/culture sectors, researchers and e-learning developers and the target group of partially disadvantaged young people (about 40). 4 transnational project meetings enable an intensive and concentrated form of European cooperation during the course of the project. 2 thematically sequential short-term training courses for professionals create the joint development of the necessary competencies with regard to the hybrid form of youth work to be developed, which will be tested in the Blended Mobilities. Principles of artistic youth work and digital competence are trained and prepare the employees directly for the implementation of the 2 Blended Mobilities with the target group. In these, the young people work transnationally in the digital space and in real meetings on the performative realization of a play. The two Blended Mobilities thus serve simultaneously as a means of involving the young people in the development of intellectual outputs and as a test of a hybrid format of youth work in which virtual and analog activities are combined in an enriching way. In the course of creating the 3 different Intellectual Outputs, the results of transnational project meetings, further training and blended mobilities are repeatedly looked at in order to exploit the feedback from practical work.

The Intellectual Outputs are 1. a “Playbook”, which is intended to serve other institutions and practitioners as a guideline for their own creation of a virtual space to be used artistically, by providing ideas for the implementation of hybrid artistic youth work and by clearly communicating our concept for it. 2. a digital platform in the form of a virtual space, in which young people can be artistically active, present their results and get in touch with each other, which will be released for use as a prototype tested in practice and 3. a scientific paper, which empirically proves the effects of hybrid youth work and thus discusses the question of the digitizability of artistic work and brings it closer to a broad professional audience from research and teaching.

The partner institutions will integrate the approach into their daily work with young people and it will be freely available to interested parties. In order to disseminate the results, we will identify key people and involve them in the project, as well as organize a series of multiplier events. At these events, in addition to the presentation of the products by the partners, the virtual space will be demonstrated by the young people and can be tried out practically by the guests.

With the help of ViSAS, the intrinsic potential of young people will be awakened on a broad scale, taking into account European thoughts and values such as networking, solidarity and transnational cultural exchange, while at the same time the urgently needed transformation of artistic methods into digital space will be promoted. By implementing ViSAS in a broad circle of users and multipliers, it can serve to strongly counteract the most current challenges in European youth work arising from the ongoing Covid19 pandemic, societal developments and the digital transformation in order to master them together.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 275519 Eur

Project Coordinator

Projektfabrik gGmbH & Country: DE

Project Partners

• signal interrupt GmbH
• La tête de l’emploi
• Avanzarte
• VIVAIO PER L’INTRAPRENDENZA Associazione Promozione Sociale
• Patchanka Società Cooperativa Sociale
• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT DORTMUND