ARTiCulture, a youth exchange for young people aged from 18 to 30 from Bulgaria, Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro, Italy and the Czech Republic was held from August 19, 2017 to August 29, 2017 in Ulcinj. The project was organized by the NGO “Magic in the Contemporary World” (“Magija u savremenom svijetu”).
The project brought together 33 young people and seven leaders from the aforementioned countries, whose main goals was to enhance the visual communication skills using the artistic media (photography, video, comics, animations). The participants gained considerable understanding, skills and experience.
At the very beginning of the project, guided by personal feelings and inspiration, participants made different things from paper and collage, using crayons, clay and other materials. With blank paper and a small dot on it, drawing lines, as well as making animals from clay, they learned about the importance of space and our relationship to things. Support was provided by the artist Edvina Hudechkova, who helped them understand the essence of artistic work from the psychological point of view.
“The work of an individual describes the individual himself”, Edvina pointed out.
The participants also experimented with photography. Divided by groups, the participants’ tasks were to photograph the architecture, people, as well as the atmosphere in Ulcinj, without limitations in photographing and showing the important cultural segments of the city. Each group had to select only three photographs of their official works, and together with Edvina, they analyzed the selected photos.
The leader Damir Balic introduced participants with the comics. Through a discussion about favorite cartoons and comics, analysis of flash cards with different elements and creation of comic books heroes within the groups, the participants let their imagination play and, with different materials and the exchange of ideas, they worked on writing and illustrating the comics. Upon completion of the task, each group presented its work. After daytime workshops ended, the animated movie “Persepolis” was shown. After the discussion on creating the first animations, the groups of participants had to create their own animation on a particular topic. Each group made a short summary of the theme they wanted to present, and then switched to creating objects and backgrounds using paper, collage and clay in order to make the combination of photographs and video recording.
With the journalist Milica Zugic they worked on conducting the interviews through group work. Each group had a different task – from interviewing the participants and project leaders, to interviewing local people and recording the workshops activities. In the end, each video was compiled and combined into one that served as a short reminder of everything participants learned and went through the whole program.
In addition to the workshops, during one-day excursions the participants visited Bar and many important places and beaches of this multi ethnic town.
At the end of the project, the participants worked together on the development of their own project plan, and the support was provided by program managers.
The main activities of the project were group work, energy booster activities, tasks that stimulate the process of cooperation and ideas exchange, development of learning abilities and negotiation skills, as well as the improvisation and the ability to deal with problems.
The project was supported by the Erasmus + Program and was developed and implemented in cooperation with the following partners: Mladiinfo Montenegro, Open Window Albania, CaravanSerai Palermo, Turkey Europe Foundation, Club Hvarchilo Bulgaria.
