The Sharing Roots project will work with partners from six European Members States: Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal and the UK. Its core element will be the process of exchanging and developing ideas across various disciplines of the creative arts and using the work of a practising indigenous ‘creative’ (e.g. painter, dancer, musician) to develop a final “product”, eg mural, exhibition, installation – as selected by host institutions.
The aim of exploring Europe through creative arts will be the quintessential default of this project as, in addition to exploring the essence of a piece of creative work in dialogue with the originating creatives, participating staff and students will also have the opportunity to be conversant with the varying stimuli that creatives respond to. Participants will also broaden their field of experience by working with creatives from countries ranging from the former Soviet Bloc to the Iberian peninsula, and seeing how their practice has been informed by these differing cultural and socio-political backgrounds.
Much of the project work will be “hands-on”: all partners will develop/organise a core cohort of staff, students and parents, as well as supporting partners (eg the selected ‘creative’, local press, gallery, theatre) at the start of the project to ensure a consistency of approach. Preparation for each visit will be undertaken in each institution to ensure that all participants are familiar not only with the work of the originating ‘creative’ and their culture/context, but also with the details of the final creative outcome(s). A project blog will be used to establish lines of communication to develop ideas prior to each visit; a web-site will be developed to record what is achieved over the life of the project.
Preparatory Meeting in Panevėžys (28.11.2011-02.12.2011)