What is Refresh+?
Refresh Plus. Young art (ist)s refreshing heritage sites and legends” is a European project funded under the Creative Europe Culture Programme and coordinated by the Association of Historic Towns of Slovenia with the support of partners from Romania, Spain, Finland and Croatia.
The main aim of this project is to foster capacities of the Cultural and Creative sector. The focus of the project is to contribute guidance for the new generations of European artists in strengthening their capacities to get “....an independent international artistic career and market positioning”. This purpose is going to be reached within a European context in which Cultural heritage is put into value as well as the multicultural cooperation in the artistic creation.
Description of the project
The project partners decided to take part in the celebration of the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage through a joint initiative aiming at bringing the selected heritage sites closer to the people through artistic creation and intercultural dialogue.
Our main idea is to explore the cultural heritage in new ways that would at the same time build closer relationships with the existing audiences and to reach out to other community groups which have so far been more difficult to engage in exploring the cultural heritage, and to support interaction between cultural heritage organisations, artists and audience from different cultural backgrounds.
The REFRESH unites partners from four different cultural backgrounds and institutions who are brave enough to release potentials of ‘young crazy talented artists’ to sweep the dust from the walls of towns and palaces and create, perform and play with the locals during the REFRESH Heritage Weeks (RHW).
Challenges of the project
The aim of the ReFresh Plus project (shortly ReFresh+) is to contribute to promotion of the European cultural heritage and economic development of the culture and creative sectors.
The project specific objectives are:
1) PROMOTING CULTURAL HERITAGE of the cooperating countries and exploiting its creativity, artistic, innovation and development potentials. Europe's rich and diverse cultural heritage is a powerful resource that can strengthen European identity and create a sense of belonging. With this project we intend to build on tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the cooperating partner cities and regions and explore possibilities of how heritage and performing, visual and other types of arts can be combined in an innovative way to help raise visibility and attractiveness of the heritage to different audiences. Concretely, young artists from five countries and of different cultural backgrounds will come together to learn, share and reflect on intangible heritage, in particular legends, masks and traditions and get inspired by them. Throgh a facilitated process, two multi-cultural teams of young artists will elaborate co-creation strategies and produce new artworks/performances linking cultural heritage and different forms of art expressions: theatre, music, dance, digital arts, film, video. In their work, the artists will build on these traditions and link them with contemporary societal challenges as they perceive them.
Operational objectives are:
- provide space for the young artists to bring together the heritage and audience through production being organised at two heritage sites
- to produce and present to audience two artworks/performances and evaluate its results
- to engage audience in different phases of the process and improve visibility of the local heritage
2) TAKING ADVANTAGE OF TRANSNATIONAL COOPERATION for strengthening capacities of the YOUNG ARTIST for an independent international ARTISTIC CAREER and market positioning. Culture and creative industries have the power to generate jobs and transform communities. The project intends to explore ways of how international mobility of artists can help strengthen skills and capacities for the young artists to work internationally, to strengthen their networks and improve their position in the international art market scene.Capacity building activities aimed at young artists will focus on the development of skills to work in multicultural teams, to effectively engage in co-production processes, to assess the market potential and develop and test strategies for increasing the economic potentials of their art and creative activities.
Operational objectives:
- to select a transnational team of young committed artists to engage in capacity building processes and co-production
- to develop and implement a series of capacity building and creativity events linked with networking activities (ReFresh+ boot-camp, ReFresh+ Production Week, ReFresh+ Art Marketing Training)
- to facilitate the development of highly creative and connected teams
- to develop tools to support promotion of young artists in the art community.
3) To STRENGTHEN INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION between CULTURE and EDUCATIONAL SECTOR ACTORS in providing quality support to the young artists for their growth This objective provides the link between the previous two. In order to ensure opportunities for the young artists to get international experience and to better position themselves, they need a favourable support environment. The project thus provides an opportunity for joint activities of different types of partner organisations and wider stakeholders.
Operational objectives:
- to pool knowledge and resources of the partners in developing training materials through the entire creativity and capacity building process
- to provide mentoring and coaching support and to engage arts and other students in support activities
- to set in place the necessary tools to promote the artists and their work.
The project's cultural and artistic values are linked with the selection of the site and intangible heritage, which will be addressed and piloted though project activities:
- ReFresh+ Bootcamp will take place in Split, Croatia in the area of the UNESCO protected Diocletian's palace; ReFresh Production weeks will be organised in the Moldova Musem Complex of Iasi, RO, and in one of the historical towns in Slovenia.
- Themes of artistic creations will be inspired by intangible heritage - legends (Slovenia) and masks (Romania). They will be linked to the existing cultural events, which will be enriched with new art products created in co-production of artists representing different art forms.
The piloting of ReFresh+ shall be documented and presented in a from of ReFresh+ Business Model - cultural multi- disciplinary and transnational approach in promoting young artists career, business development and market breakthougth.