Are Human Rights Depending on Human Wrongs II
Start date: Jan 1, 2015,
End date: Jul 31, 2015
PROJECT
FINISHED
To increase the awareness and involvement of human rights and at the same time encourage young people to be creative, and to involve in intercultural collaborations, we (KulturUngdom and Loesje) developed the project "Are Human Rights Depending on Human Wrongs". The organisations KulturUngdom and Loesje has not previously worked together but each organisation has for many years pursued other projects with the aim to inspire young people to be creative and to discuss human rights. In this cooperation, we have been able to strengthen each other by sharing our experiences and knowledge about working with young people.
Our goal for the project was to allow young people from Sweden and Germany to meet and together create an exhibition on human rights. This exhibition is later to tour in both Sweden and Germany.
We started by advertising for art lovers between 18 and 23 years who were interested in participating in the exchange. A selection was then made based on the applications received, and nine participants were selected in each country. We tried to make the group as divergent as possible and succeeded quite well. The group in total then consisted of 18 youngsters and 4 leaders.
After a few preparatory meetings in which we decided on schedule and practical details, the Swedish participants in March went to Berlin to meet the German participants. During one week the group was inspired by guided city tours, visits to Holocaust Memorial, a visit to the Swedish Embassy, lectures and workshops with artists from Berlin and discussion exercises around the theme. They also began creating images, videos and texts that would be included in the exhibition.
In June, the German participants came to Sweden for a second project week. We visited the Museum of World Culture and got a guided tour with a focus on what to consider when building an exhibition. Subsequently, we continued to prepare the artwork that started in Berlin. Many of the works were about walls and boundaries, perhaps as a result of our week in Berlin that focused a lot on the Berlin Wall and European contemporary walls and boundaries. Several works were also clearly inspired by the Holocaust Memorial. Mainly the leaders Erik Lundin and Carola Stahl tutored the work of these artworks, and the participants created both in groups and individually. A large part of the project week was devoted to discussions on art works and how best they should be exhibited. Several motivators participated in the work, including a Refugee Guide, an exhibition curator from Gothenburg and a representative from Amnesty International.
We worked at Litteraturhuset?s facilities in Gothenburg, a place we later used as exhibition space for our opening at the end of the week. To this opening the youngsters had created 16 artworks with related information signs in English, Swedish and German. There were over 100 visitors at the opening, and we received several requests from the exhibition to display the exhibition in various locations in West Bengal. This we will continue to work with during 2015/2016, and in April 2016 the exhibition will move to Germany and displayed on including the Swedish Embassy.
We believe the project was very successful and see that our goals were achieved. Meeting and collaboration between the participants worked very well and the cultural exchange was as rewarding as one could hope. Many of the participants have become friends and several have said they developed a lot in our project.
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