A project aimed at increasing the participation of young people in cultural life and at including their voices in cultural decision making processes
Not all young people enjoy the same degree of access to arts and cultural events. Young people who have not had access to the sphere of “legitimised culture” since childhood are far less likely to participate in cultural activities offered outside of the school (let alone to help shape them) than are those whose family and social environment incorporated this sphere from their early childhood on – even when such activities are theoretically open to everyone.
The Canton of Zurich’s festival Blickfelder – Künste für ein junges Publikum (Fields of vision – Arts for a young audience) is tackling this issue head on. Building on two studies conducted by the Institute for Art Education (IAE) of the Zurich University of the Arts (“Die Elternfalle”[The Parent Trap] 2011 and “Altstetten erklärt Blickfelder die Welt” [Altstetten explains the world to Blickfelder] 2013), the project “Art Affiliators” was launched in July of 2014 by the IAE and the Office of Elementary Education of the Canton of Zurich, supported by Stiftung Mercator Schweiz.
A group of young people - from pupils at different schools and users of a range of youth centres in Zurich, was approached to co-design the Blickfelder Festival as experts of everyday culture. In regular Workshops, the group engaged with a "basic vocabulary" of the Arts, learning about modes of contemporary cultural production as well asanalysing the unspoken rules of the art world. With educators and artists, they created their own forms of communication (WE CROWD YOUR VENUES) and festival formats (TIME OUT) to engage youth and other publics.
The module 'Art box' is another outcome of the project, resulting from the "basic vocabulary" of the arts and the collaboration with the youth group. The "art box" is a practical module for learning with the arts - it offers young people ways to engage with protagonists and productions in music, theatre and the visual arts. The art box is available in three specializations for visual arts, music and dance/theatre. Each special box contains materials for at least seven teaching units.
The boxes are available free of charge on the festival’s website (in German only: http://blickfelder.ch/index.php?id=2613).
The exepriences and findings of the project were published in a book aiming at educators and cultural institutions willing to implement strategies for wider participation and greater diversity within the cultural world (in German only: («Zurücktreten bitte! Mehr kulturelle Teilhabe durch rationale Kulturvermittlung» Wanda Wieczorek, with a text by Markus Rieger-Ladich. kopaed, München 2018)