W.E. - Words of Europe

The European Union is going through a delicate phase. The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a response by the European institutions that demonstrated an unprecedented ability to make democratic, effective and rapid decisions. Nonetheless, the integrity of the Union is shaken by several serious challenges: from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to threats to the rule of law, from climate change to the impasse on migration and asylum policies. Strengthening citizens’ participation and belonging to the European community is crucial to push forward our “Unity in Diversity”.

The aim of this project is to encourage EU citizens, especially young people and those belonging to marginalised groups, to participate in and contribute to the democratic life of the Union. It will also involve those who are not [yet] citizens of the EU (they may become so by 2024), but who live, work and weave bonds in it.

The proposed participatory model aims to bring together the artistic, cultural and emotional dimension with the political one – too often associated with a distant bureaucratic bubble. Art will be the input for participation and the main medium to disseminate the results of the process. During the co-construction, participants and partners will identify a set of artistic content to start the discussions around the identified European keywords. At the end of the participatory process, the resulting words and new ideas about the EU will become artworks, created by artists who will be promoters of community cultural works.

The European keywords represent the heart of the Words of Europe participatory model: defined and discussed by participants in order to identify proposals for the future of Europe, then transformed into artworks and exhibited and transmitted. A vocabulary of false myths will be also co-created in WP5 to provide citizens with tools to deconstruct them.

• Workshops on the European Union
• Workshops on the forms of democratic participation
• Co-creation of the participatory model
• Final transnational event – “Festival of European words” for sharing the collected ideas of the vocabulary – now transformed aslo into artistic works.
  

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