A(RT)CTION for Climate Change

Prior to the start of the project, preliminary research highlighted the needs of artists to a) belong to a wide community with like-minded artists who share the same vision, b) use their art as a ...

‘A(rt)ction for climate change’ was a multi-dimensional project that enabled behavioural changes for individual preferences, consumption habits, and lifestyle by training and educating young visual artists and youth workers on how to be true agents of change and green entrepreneurial practitioners. The project aimed to achieve this via four educational project results: R1. the Artists as Green Actors of Change’ Curriculum; R2.the Green E-learning Platform & Cross-cultural Network for Collaboration’; R3.the ‘Artists for Climate Change Toolkit’, and the; R4.the E-book for Young Artists/Actors of Change. All project results were meant to foster and strengthen young people’s sense of initiative by promoting green entrepreneurship and creative learning among youth as well as educate young artists and workers to become true agents of change and help in addressing the challenges of climate change. Other immediate outcomes included the increase of quality innovation and recognition of youth work (of art) as well as the productive knowledge exchange, and the stimulation of intercultural dialogue with people across Europe.

All project activities aimed to achieve the objectives of A(rt)ction for Climate Change. Having delved into the needs of the target group and the challenges of climate change, all partners agreed to proceed to the following project results and activities: Starting with creating the design, Development and Piloting of the ‘Artists as Green Actors of Change’ Curriculum (R1), the first activities, concerned the development of the research research methodology and the implementation of questionnaires and interviews with our target group(s). We then continued with the development of the curriculum's macro and microstructures, in order to develop a final comprehensive curriculum with inter-connected themes, related to the topic of climate change and how young visual artists can fight against it. The final activity for R1 was the piloting of the curriculum. This was done to test our content before it is distributed widely. Regarding the next result (R2), the activities started by the design and development of the platform and the transition of the curriculum into e-learning material. The curriculum was assembled into one cohesive course and the interactive platform was ready to be tested and piloted. Following this, we created the ‘Artists for Climate Change Toolkit’ (R3) which was directed to Youth Workers & Art Professionals. The activities involved: Content collection, Evaluation, and review of collected content, organisation of resources and lastly, a final review, synthesis and publishing. The last result was the creation of the ‘How to become a Successful Green Social Entrepreneur/ Actor of Change book/e- book for Young Artists(R4). To create it, we first defined the gaps and the added value of the e-book and will later develop its content and proceed to the final review, synthesis, and publishing. To achieve the above, we carried out three Transnational Meetings in Greece, Cyprus and Spain, and also run several multiplier events in all partner countries.

R1. The Design, Development and Piloting of the ‘Artists as Green Actors of Change’ Curriculum R2. The Design, Development and Piloting of the ‘Green E-learning Platform & Cross-cultural Network for Collaboration R3. The creation of the ‘Artists for Climate Change Toolkit’ for Youth Yorkers R4. The creation of e-Book for Young Artists on ‘How to become a Successful Green Social Entrepreneur/ Actor of Change’ R1. The first result referred to the design, development & piloting of the Artists and Green Entrepreneurship curriculum. The content of the program was designed to meet the needs of creative young visual artists across the EU whose work is -or has the potential to- be related to the environment (and therefore the potential to raise awareness about environmental challenges at a local, national and EU-level). Examples of this target group included EU professional and non-professional young EU-based artists, who might have been painters (botanical, landscape, figurative artists to name a few), photographers, landscape artists and other visual artists working with traditional and non-traditional media. The curriculum was a comprehensive, developmental program of inter-connected themes, which included themes related to: The power of Arts to Trigger Change; Social and Green Entrepreneurship for Artists; The role of Digitization for Sustainability; New Ways to maximizing Environmental Impact through art; Artists in a Digitized World; Becoming Actors of Change for Climate Change, and other relevant modules. R2. The curriculum was formatted in an e-learning platform, which was tailored to the needs of the target group. In contrast to other already available e-learning platforms, our platform aimed to combine education with applied education. In other words, put theory into practice. R3. The third result referred to the creation of a practical toolkit for youth workers and relevant art professionals, on how to teach young artists to become successful Green Entrepreneurs/ Actors of Change. It was meant to offer practical advice and guidance regarding creativity and how to develop it to raise awareness for environmental issues, with a special emphasis on visual artists and how to develop their creative practice to inspire behavioural and influence people to switch to more environmentally friendly habits. The toolkit embodied multi-disciplinary input from famous artists of different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds as well as the input of achieved academics, green-market experts, and environmentalists on the topic. The content on the toolkit was of different forms and included stories, case studies, inspirational quotes, best practices etc, coming in both digital and physical format. R4. The e-book was created to meet the needs of youth artists whose work was used as a means to inspire action to switch to more environmentally conscious habits. It offered practical advice and guidance regarding arts and green entrepreneurship, with a special focus on how to teach visual artists to use their art to raise awareness for green issues, with a special emphasis on visual artists and how to develop their creative practice to inspire behaviour and influence people to be more environmentally conscious.