The workshop is based on being part of a creative process, changing the perception of common spaces and experimenting through art.
Different classroom activities show the process behind the realization of a mural artwork, leading a group of vulnarable young people to the definition of their own expressive shape.
The aim is to make accessible the artistic process through participation and active experience: a methodology which draws from relational art to involve both students and teachers.
Local
Italy
Genoa
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
Yes
ESF : European Social Fund
Asse 2 “inclusione sociale e lotta alla povertà” del Programma Operativo Fondo Sociale Europeo Liguria 2014-2020 - DGR n. 779 del 05/08/2016
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Linkinart Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Giulia Last name of representative: Giglio Gender: Female Nationality: Italy Function: Member - Curator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via di Pré 34/4 Town: Genoa Postal code: 16126 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 339 684 8257 E-mail:linkinart@gmail.com Website:https://linkinart.wordpress.com/
The workshop “My mural, my city” has been realized from April to July 2022 and it involved the students of a training course for unemployed young people with fragilities or disabilities. It was based on being part of a creative process, changing the perception of common spaces and experimenting through art.
The workshop activities varied from frontal lectures about public art and street art to experimentations with different artistic techniques: ink graphic, painting and collage; until the production of patterns for the development of a real mural artwork.
A multitude of contributions and personal visions from which the artist Fargo was able to draw on the final sketch. The project focuses on his artistic approach that is based on a participatory methodology, linked with relational art, involving kids, guys and adults into the active realization of a wall painting.
In this workshop the mural was double: the first one was produced at the school entrance, while the twin was made on a pillar of the Genoa’s elevated highway in the city centre, the so called “Sopraelevata”, as a piece of a larger project that aims to redevelop the infrastructure through art.
A single work, made in two different places of the city, which become a direct link between the school and the community and that aspire to transmit the formative reality outside the canonical places assigned to it. So, it triggers the students' pride and sense of belonging and it cuts down the distance between them, with their personal and social weaknesses, and the society.
As final act, the exhibition "Expecto patronum" showed the entire workshop process and the students’ works into an art gallery in the city centre.
It represented the final step of this first edition of the project: the narration of an experimental, inclusive, and shared journey that contributes to disseminate the formative reality at the community.
participation
relational art
active experience
empowerment
inclusion
In everyday usage sustainability focuses on the environmental aspects, although its meaning includes the connection with other social concepts such as resilience, adaptive capacity and vulnerability. In this sense the project “My mural, my city” is sustainable in an essential way.
It provides to fragile young people a device to express themselves, to dialogue with the society and to empower their ideas.
The realization of the murals is also linked to the idea of taking care of the common places, in this case the school entrance, and to the renovation of abandoned or disused areas of our cities. Indeed the main goal of wall painting on the pillars of the Sopraelevata, a controversial infrastructure built in the 1960’s in the heart of the city of Genoa, is to change the perception of the space between the elevated highway and the urban soil.
It aims to add new values and meanings to the downgraded environment of a central piece of the city through art and colours.
The experience moves within the practice of relational art and it aims to undermine the traditional relationships between artist and public.
It develops a communicative context in which all the people involved - artist, students, teachers and curators - have placed themselves available to each other through the artistic practice: the creative process becomes a real tool of communication and a strong connection, not only on a dialectical level but above all on an emotional level.
Most of all the active realization of the murals, at the end of the process, creates a dimension of empathy, wellness and positive feelings. As a magic spell, the energy sprung by participation and sharing led to the production of powerful artworks.
Inclusion is a pillar of the project. It aims indeed to make accessible the artistic process through co-participation and active involvement.
Artist and students continuously exchanging roles in a fine game, where all the people involved become authors, developing a common creativity.
Through the different classroom activities – the design and production of their personal tags, collages, paintings and patterns - students define their own expressive shape and they developed tools to tell themselves, to dialogue with the society and to empower their ideas.
The relationship with citizens, and their benefits, is double.
The first one is the cutting down of the distance between vulnerable people and society: working outside the “box” of the school building in a public space, it allows to create a contact between the community and people who often are considered too weak to be exposed to the society in everyday life. Hence it aspires to transmit the formative process outside the canonical places assigned to it – both during the production of the mural in the public space and also with the exhibition into the art gallery - and it develops the empowerment of a fragile category.
On the other hand, the project concurs on the redevelopment of a downgraded public area, the Sopraelevata, changing the perception of the space between the elevated highway and the urban soil.
The project engaged different local stakeholders to design and to realize the experience:
- First of all the visual artist and art-mediator Emanuel Carfora, alias Fargo
- The members of Linkinart, as curators and workshop drivers.
- ISFORCOOP - the training structure which is responsible for qualifying and specializing professionally workers, with particular regard to young people with fragilities and disabilities – is involved, as partner of the project, into the organizational aspects and its teachers also took an active role during the workshop steps.
- The Municipality of Genoa promoted the realization of a mural on a pillar of Sopraelevata.
- The art gallery took part in the dissemination of the project.
The project considers different areas: public art and relational art as pillars of the experience; discussion on urban space, regeneration, community-building and sociological aspects; accessibility, social inclusion and empowerment of vulnerable group of people.
It draws from active learning pedagogy and fluid intelligence psychology, putting first the active role of the student/participant.
It is also linked with the tactical urbanism and its characters of participation, temporality and cheapness. With a few tools and limited resources, it creates “social islands” for meeting and communicating and it transforms the relationship between the citizens and the city.
The innovative character of this artistic workshop is linked with the methodology that is based on relational practice: the classroom activities are single steps of a process which is finalized at the realization of a choral artworks. The active participation to the production of the murals, both inside and outside the school building, increase the strengths of this experience.
The students are led to reveal to the society their own expressive shape, going outside their “safe place”: it triggers a sense of belonging and pride for the works and the neighbourhood.
The whole structure of the project could be replicated or transferred to other places, engaging other schools or associations. It’s adaptable to different audiences, moreover the classroom activities, keeping the aim to make accessible the artistic process and to lead the participants to the definition of their own expressive shape.
It is a modular project which considers different activities and levels of engagement: the partner’s goals is the starting point for constructing the workshop, putting emphasis on the needs of people who are most vulnerable or addressing the project on the regeneration of a specific common space.
Fundamental and permanent elements are the choral construction of the project’s different parts and the connection between inside (schools, associations… ) and outside (society).
The approach is based on a participatory methodology, linked with relational art, involving kids, guys and adults into the active realization of a choral artworks.
The workshop activities develop, step by step, the artistic process and it lead people to define their expressive shape through:
- frontal lecture about public and street art, urban regeneration and social participation
- graphic production of personal tags
- realization of abstract collage, using forms and colours as an expressive way of communication
- development of patterns and sketches of the wall painting
- co-production of paintings both on paper and wall
All the people involved become authors, developing a common creativity, and the energy sprung by participation leads to the production of the artworks.
So the creative process becomes a real tool of communication and a powerful connection, not only on a dialectical level but above all on an emotional level.
The scope of the project works on a local level: it involves school and municipality which act on a neighbourhood dimension.
Nevertheless it responds to global accessibility issues, working on inclusion of fragile people and participation of the community for redeveloping a downgraded public area.
The artistic experience becomes just a tool to cut down the distance between the participants, with their personal and social weaknesses, and the society.
The workshop has been realized from April to July 2022 and it engaged 1 artist, 2 curators, 12 students, 3 teachers, 1 film-maker and a variety of curious citizens who got in touch with participants during the production of wall painting and/or the exhibition.
After an initial mistrust, the realization of periodical and active laboratories has encouraged involvement in the project. At last the production of the murals, both inside the school entrance and on the pillar of Sopraelevata, created a dimension of empathy, wellness and positive feelings. It generated a vibrant energy that led to the production of powerful artworks and that created a sense of belonging.
It was evident also observing the participants' reactions to the presence of the film-maker: suspicious at first and finally proud to show their work.
Here the words chosen by some students to describe the experience (we asked them to choose only one): incredible, joy, fantastic, yes, amazing, relaxing-I feel like on the seaside, I haven’t only a word…
Actually is in progress the design of a second edition of the workshop, always with Fargo as artist and ISFORCOOP as partner, working in the neighbourhood of the school.
