4Cs: From Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture is a European Cooperation Project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The 4Cs seeks to understand how training and education in art and culture can constitute powerful resources to address the issue of conflict as well as to envision creative ways in which to deal with conflictual phenomena, while contributing to audience development through active participation and co-production. The project aims at advancing the conceptual framework of intercultural dialogue and enhancing the role of public arts and cultural institutions in fostering togetherness through cultural diversity and intercultural encounters.
The European Commission has acknowledged that tackling the migration and refugee crisis is a European obligation that requires a comprehensive strategy and a determined effort. Within such framework, the European Commission has emphasised the role of culture and the arts in contributing towards building a more cohesive and open society through the integration of refugees, helping them to better understand their new environment and its interaction with their own socio-cultural background.
Grounded in the belief that culture and creative practice can emerge as powerful resources in conflict situations, the 4Cs wishes to respond to this challenge by exploring the ways in which culture and the arts can help bring individuals together within a model of intercultural dialogue, mutual recognition, and equal participation. This will be achieved by fostering equal involvement and by promoting cross-cultural collaboration through the creation and development of different activities such as exhibitions, artistic and research residencies, film screenings, mediation labs, workshops, conferences, publications, an online platform, and a Summer School.
The 4Cs aims at responding to the challenges of migration, security, and freedom of expression by raising awareness about the role of creative and cultural work in the strengthening of European identity and European citizenship in a project of peace and conviviality. The 4Cs will support community members in their role as active agents in the cultural scene at local, regional, national, and international levels and contribute to a lasting change of attitude and active citizenship in local communities.
Project leader
- Faculdade de Ciências Humanas | Universidade Católica Portuguesa FCH|UCP (PT)
- Artistic Director and Project Coordinator: Luísa Santos
- Scientific Co-coordinators: Isabel Capeloa Gil and Luísa Santos
- Project Manager: Ana Fabíola Maurício
- Project Assistant and Communication Officer: Maria Eduarda Duarte
- Coordinating Committee: Peter Hanenberg (Research Coordinator); Adriana Martins (Researcher); Inês Espada Vieira (Researcher); Daniela Agostinho (Researcher); Ana Cristina Cachola (Researcher); Sónia Pereira (Former Assistant Researcher); Clara Caldeira (Former Communication); Elisabete Carvalho (Secretary); Inês Carrão (FCH - Communication); Carla Ganito and Cátia Ferreira (Webmasters)
Partners
- Tensta Konsthall (SE): Cecilia Widenheim (Artistic Director), Hanna Nordell (Project Manager)
- Maria Lind (Former Artistic Director) and Hedvig Wiezell (Former Project Manager)
- SAVVY Contemporary (DE): Bonaventure Ndikung (Artistic Director and Curator), Elena Agudio (Artistic co-director and co-curator), Lema Sikod (Project Manager)
- Royal College of Art (UK): Michaela Crimmin (Artistic Director) and Peter Oakley (Project Manager)
- Fundació Antoni Tàpies (ES): Anna Saurí (Project Manager), Linda Valdés (Project Manager)
- Carles Guerra (Former Artistic Director), Núria Bardalet (Former Project Manager)
- Vilnius Academy of Arts (LT): Egija Inzule (Artistic Director), Monika Kalinauskaitė (Project Manager)
- Rasa Antanavičiūtė (Former Artistic Director), Vytautas Michelkevicius (Former Project Manager), Evelina Rinkeviciute (Former Assistant to the Project Manager)
- Museet for Samtidskunst (DK): Birgitte Kirkhoff Eriksen (Artistic Director and Curator) and Magnus Kaslov (Project Manager and Curator)
- ENSAD (FR): Anna Bernagozzi (Artistic Director), Ludivine Zambon (Project Manager)
Steering Committee
- Isabel Capeloa Gil – Universidade Católica Portuguesa (PT)
- Luísa Santos – Universidade Católica Portuguesa (PT)
- Cecilia Widenheim, Maria Lind – Tensta Konsthall (SE)
- Bonaventure Ndikung – Savvy Contemporary (DE)
- Michaela Crimmin – Royal College of Art (UK)
- Anna Saurí, Carles Guerra – Fundació Antoni Tàpies (ES)
- Egija Inzule, Rasa Antanavičiūtė – Vilnius Academy of Arts (LT)
- Birgitte Kirkhoff Eriksen – Museet for Samtidskunst (DK)
- Anna Bernagozzi – ENSAD (FR)
ACTIVITIES
Conferences
In a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners, and educators, the conferences produce and exchange knowledge on conflict, conviviality, and creativity. They draw on the other activities to reflect on the topic of the project as well as to devise strategies conducive to best practices.
The conferences bring together experts in different fields and thus encourage exchange of experiences, career, and professional skills, and research results on all aspects of the potential of culture and creativity understood as resources in conflict and post-conflict situations.
Through this platform, researchers, practitioners, and educators will present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, concerns, and practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of Culture and Arts.
Film Programme
The itinerary film programme is co-organised and hosted by all partners. With a selection of different films addressing social conflicts in a poignant way through the various cultural lenses of artists, this programme will show a diversity of conflict and post-conflict situations as well as creative responses to it.
Each screening will be preceded by a conversation between a curator and one artist-filmmaker. University and high school students from various knowledge areas, community members, local and cultural associations, cultural and art professionals, and researchers will be invited to attend and actively participate in the film programme, particularly in the opening conversation between the curator and the artist-filmmaker.
The dialogue that the coordination of the film programme implies will strengthen the potential for artists and cultural professionals to work transnationally, to create an intercultural dialogue, and to build meaningful networks that can spark future collaborations.
Mediation Labs
One of the biggest challenges for contemporary art has been to mediate art – to understand the ways in which the audience can meet art, take part of it and engage with it as a methodology to actively participate in the world we live in.
The main goal of these mediation labs is to engage with the local communities, create and develop new audiences that usually do not attend art exhibitions and cultural events. By exploring the relationship between civic engagement, culture, and the arts, specifically through place-responsive arts projects and off-site, socially engaged practices, active audience participation and co-production, these mediation labs aim to develop the awareness and participation of the community.
A “handbook of good practices in mediation of conflict situations through artistic practice, creativity and culture” will reflect the lessons learned in this activity as well as in the workshops.
Multi-Chapter Exhibition
The multi-chapter exhibition is coordinated by FCH-UCP and organised by all partners with the goal of raising the awareness of community members regarding their roles as active agents in the cultural scene at local, regional, national, and international levels.
Rather than a travelling exhibition that presents the same works in different institutions, which often has a homogeneity effect, this multi-chapter exhibition will allow partner institutions to contribute with their own context-based exhibition to the overarching concept of the 4Cs. All chapters of the exhibition will be conceived under the same conceptual umbrella: the transition from Conflict to Conviviality.
Each one will follow its own narrative, therefore forming a larger non-linear narrative composed of eight chapters. Each chapter will be organised and curated by one partner institution and show a group of international artists or commission a new project by one artist. The final exhibition chapter will work as a conclusion of all exhibition chapters developed in each previous partner institutions.
Residencies
The art-based research residencies are aimed at researchers, artists, curators, writers, musicians, and performers working with the specific social, cultural, economic, and political contexts of each partner.
The participants in agreement with the host partner institution will decide on the shape of the final work to be produced during the residencies, which can take the form of a physical object, a series of workshops and lectures, a series of publications, an online or a public art project.
The art-based research residencies will give a valuable contribution to short-term cultural exchanges, as they will permit participants to develop a deeper understanding of their host societies and cultures, while creating opportunities for insights into the cultural background of each participating artist’s own background.
Summer School
The Summer School brings together leading scholars in the field of culture, curators, artists, cultural agents, doctoral students, and young researchers from all around the world. With its institutional partnerships and based on knowledge exchange, the Summer School functions as an incubator for new cooperation projects that promote the interaction between the academic and the professional worlds at national and international levels.
The main purpose of the Summer School is to allow emerging researchers and cultural practitioners to interact and engage with established specialists and professionals in the field. In addition, there is a cultural programme of exhibitions, screenings, and performances under a common topic.
In 2021, FCH-UCP will have organised ten editions of the Summer School. In its eleventh edition, in the framework of the 4Cs and under the theme “Convivial Cultures”, the FCH-UCP will make use of the best practices and lessons learned along its previous ten editions.
Workshops
The workshops will be organised, led and hosted by four partners under one of the following specific themes: conflict; conviviality; creativity; and culture. Each workshop will adopt one of the themes either conceptually or methodologically.
The development of professional skills in creativity, culture, and in methodologies of conviviality to address conflict are of utmost importance for cultural operators working with local communities facing conflict situations. Consequently, the aims of these workshops are: to elevate the potential of art and its impact in conflict circumstances; to reflect upon, to develop and to share good mediation practices through art and culture in conflict conditions in order to develop and transfer skills between cultural academics and professionals.
A “handbook of good practices in mediation of conflict situations through artistic practice, creativity, and culture” will reflect the lessons learned in this activity as well as in the mediation labs.
