Creative Connections: The power of contemporary art to explore European citizenship

Fernando Hernández-Hernández,Fiona King,Mirja Hiltunen,Anabela Moura,Marie Fulková,Fiona M Collins,Mary Richardson

doi:10.14324/lre.18.2.10

Abstract

Across Europe, educational institutions are essential in assisting exploration of politics, culture and history, and the use of creative arts appears crucial to supporting this aim. This article reports on Creative Connections, a multi-partner research project that facilitated exchanges for young people to explore their European identities using online art galleries and blogging technologies. Their multimodal conversations revealed an openness to consider artworks as sources of knowledge and experience. Participants did not focus on the nationality of the artist, but concentrated on the relationship that the subject matter of the work had with their own concerns. Anxiety related to populism, exclusive nationalism, social inequality and new forms of labour appeared to impact young European citizens’ relationships and their perceptions of democracy.

Highlights

Current political tensions within European Union (EU) member states, and across Europe more widely, portray a continent in crisis and a union in danger of falling apart (Bassot, 2019)
While many of the artworks and discussions that resulted from Creative Connections raise issues and ways of thinking that show how positively connected students can be with one another, we remain aware of the limitations of the aims of documents such as the Council of Europe’s (2018) Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture and, within the context of school-based education, education policy may militate against attempts to achieve an education for citizenship
The students appreciated the highly charged political nature of European societies, and they were unafraid to explore perceived challenges to a sense of shared European citizenship and anxiety for the stability of their futures based on their current lives

Summary

Introduction

Current political tensions within European Union (EU) member states, and across Europe more widely, portray a continent in crisis and a union (both political and social) in danger of falling apart (Bassot, 2019). The EU-funded project presented in this article, Creative Connections (2 012–15), echoes the Council of Europe’s goals in that it was designed to facilitate betweencountry exchanges for young people to explore their feeling of belonging within a European context, using visual art and blogging technologies.

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Results

Conclusion