Isabel Xavier

Heidi Pietarinen, Amna Qureshi, Melanie Sarantou

Joséphine Aldebert, Élise Bourgeois-Guérin

Rafael Goldstein, Rosana Vasques, Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos

Nina Luostarinen

Martin Bálaz, Erik Rejta

Rosana Vasques, Rafael Goldstein, Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos

Monica Moura, Lucas Melara

The SEEYouth project invites contributions from communities, their members and leaders, alongside designers, academics, practitioners and policy experts on the following theme: arts and design-based activities in response to the ongoing global turbulence which is impacting most significantly on youth in marginalised contexts and their communities.

In addition, the conference aims to make use of the concept of ‘mirroring’ as the means both to reflect upon the diverse set of contributions and also as a way to facilitate new connections and inspire new relationships.

We welcome proposals for contributions across a variety of formats, including:

1. Long (academic) paper – 2000-3500 words
2. Short (report) paper – 500-1500 words
3. Visual contributions (posters, visual essays etc.)

Please send your 400-word abstract to seeyouth@ulapland.fi by June 6th 2021.

Read the full call, including additional discussion of the concept of ‘mirroring’ and details about the submission requirements, here.

In the last ‘SEEYouth Creative Thursdays’ Webinar, we present the Tapiskwan project, an inter-generational Participatory Action Research project, initiated by a collaboration between the Atikamekw Nation’s Council (CNA — Conseil de la Nation Atikamekw) and Université de Montréal’s Design School (Design & Material Culture research lab) in 2011.

This led to the creation of the Tapiskwan Collective in 2017, an Indigenous NPO, bringing together leading Atikamekw artists, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, professional designers, researchers, community members, and more. 

The project aims to value, share, and celebrate Atikamekw culture through the combination of traditional crafts, design, and contemporary arts. Tapiskwan organized multiple workshops over the years and focused on empowerment through “making”. Most recently, two-week intensive workshops were conducted with youth in Atikamekw high schools (Opitciwan & Wemotaci). 

The speakers will present the project and share inspiring activities and techniques based on the Tapiskwan approach: Cultural transmission, making and creating new designs and production of marketable items. 

Speakers:

Karine Awashish

Co-founder – Nitaskinan cooperative

Doctoral researcher - Université Laval

Caoimhe Beaulé

Doctoral researcher – University of Lapland

Our sixth and final webinar takes place on Thursday, April 29th 2021 at 9am - 10:30am EST - (11am BRT / 2pm GMT / 4pm EET). 

To join the webinar, please use this link:

https://uqac.zoom.us/j/4927583531?pwd=Q0R2aDN4bGdDLzVNZEo1WStwU0tjUT09

The ‘SEEYouth Creative Thursdays’ are a series of webinars that highlights how creativity can empower youth and young adults who face challenging situations. 

Every month, a member of the international SEEYouth team speaks directly from experience about how to run art and design workshops depending on participant profiles, overall objectives, and available resources.

The webinars are an opportunity to share perspectives, discuss best practices, and get inspired to prevent marginalization and increase opportunities for youth using creativity-based methods.

Tags:

#SEEYouth #creativethursdays #webinar6 #empowerment #culturaltransmission

The four panelists (Ana Nuutinen, Heidi Pietarinen, Enni Mikkonen and Katri Konttinen) presented two case studies from the region of Lapland that focus on working with marginalised youth to develop arts-based methods that aims to develop relationship between researchers, stakeholders and youth in an empowering process for youth and young people. 

The first case study presented by Enni Mikkonen and Katri Konttinen was called ‘SOS Children’ and consisted of a multidisciplinary project involving arts-based methods and social work that tried to address different issues lived by youth from the middle-east and Africa that sought asylum in Finland. Some of the issues they were engaged with were negative stereotypes of refugees in the general public’s narratives, the delegitimization of the knowledges and the experiences of these youth and the gap between the ideologies and the implementation of empowerment practices with the youth when they are asked to engage with similar projects. 

 To respond to those issues, the project co-organise arts-based (indoor and outdoor) activities with seven teenagers and young adults that aimed for the youth to express their voices and act on their perspectives of their past, their present and their future. 

The second case study was presented by Ana Nuutinenand Heidi Pietarinen. The case was in the city of Kemi in the north of the Lapland region that aimed to create a ‘carefree space’ through arts-based methods. Following discussions with stakeholders and participants, the challenge to valorize the life and knowledge of the participants drew itself - working to identify forces and structures which impact upon people’s experiences. One of the key elements of the case following these discussions was an idea of a shared horizon, but viewed from different viewpoints, that can help society through a structured process to bring to light processes of marginalisation and inequities.

To achieve this idea was to reflect on the self-responsibilities of behaviours to place the experience of the youth in a much wider social and cultural context. With that in mind, one of the examples shown by the was an arts-based / experiential space called ‘Empathy Echo Chamber’ which aimed to develop empathic relationships towards the idea of a shared horizon.

The four presenters brought together their experiences and ideas in the respective case studies to demonstrate their similitudes, and how arts-based methods have power and potential for the empowerment of marginalised youth and the importance of developing empathic relationships. 

The Q&A which followed the presentation was co-hosted by Étienne Levac and Caoimhe Isha Beaulé and the presenters talked (among others subjects) about the importance of their roles, and the responsibilities of facilitators in developing relationships with the youth through activities that will simultaneously speak to the youth while also aim the objectives of the projects.

They also talked about the impacts of the project the daily life of participants, and that they should be taken into considerations throughout the ideation of any project.

Finally, they talked about the importance of considering, planning and communicating a project’s end and the final steps or outcomes - so that the core ideas can be transmitted to aimed towards a continuation, and how to take into account the needs and ideas of the youth in a way that’s sustainable. 

Étienne Levac. February 2021

The fourth ‘SEEYouth Creative Thursdays’ webinar will feature a presentation by the project team from the University of Lapland, Finland. 

It takes place on Thursday, February 25th 2021 at 9am - 10:30am EST 
(11am BRT / 2pm GMT / 4pm EET). 

The webinar link can be found at the end of this post.

Description

As the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to develop new communication and interaction tools and methods, it poses particular challenges - but also new possibilities - to work with youth at margins.

In the fourth Creative Thursday Webinar, we present two arts-based case studies in Finland, focusing on the processes of creating networks, connection and shared horizons between the stakeholders and researchers, and between the youth and researchers.

The youth with asylum seeking backgrounds and stakeholders with long-term experience of working with the youth contributed their knowledge to the project.

We explore the possibilities and challenges of online/face-to-face arts-based methods to create safe, dialogical spaces for collaboration and promoting change on structural and individual levels.

Speakers:

Professor Ana Nuutinen
Professor Heidi Pietarinen
Dr.Soc.Sci  Enni Mikkonen
MA Arts Katri Konttinen
University of Lapland

Format:
A presentation of approximately 30 minutes will be followed by a Q&A period and discussion.

To join the webinar, please use this link:

https://uqac.zoom.us/j/4927583531?pwd=Q0R2aDN4bGdDLzVNZEo1WStwU0tjUT09

The ‘SEEYouth Creative Thursdays’ are a series of webinars that highlights how creativity can empower youth and young adults who face challenging situations. 

Every month, a member of the international SEEYouth team speaks directly from experience about how to run art and design workshops depending on participant profiles, overall objectives, and available resources.

The webinars are an opportunity to share perspectives, discuss best practices, and get inspired to prevent marginalization and increase opportunities for youth using creativity-based methods.

Tags:

#SEEYouth #creativethursdays #webinar4 #creating-shared-horizons

The Creative Thursday of the 28th of January was presented by Dr. Paul Wilson, with Dr. Alessandro Medici as a guest speaker. Together, they discussed the importance of genuine participation and spending time on the field during ethnographic research, through their experiences from a past participatory research conducted with the Tsoga Environmental Resource Centre, in Cape Town, South Africa. Throughout the presentation, we came to learn not only which activities they developed and the steps they took to ensure their success, but also the key takeaways from working together with a local community using arts and design based methods.

In that sense, Paul and Alessandro pointed out the importance of storytelling and relations in design and in their work. They highlighted that the collaborative aspect of the Party project is a key part to engage a dialogue with the Tsoga Center community to work in a way of co-creation. The 3 methods that they presented (my story to this place, communities of place, our future news) in their workshop respond to those considerations by interrogating the relation with the place of the community, the community itself and the future of the community.

One aspect that marked the presentation was the consideration in making explicit their own point of view by explaining their perspective of the activities and the project and by doing so, it gave us a glimpse of the human process behind the research. Paul states that it's essential to be on the field and spend time with the individuals, to present yourself as a person first and a researcher afterwards; to put in time beyond just research and show your dedication to working together; and to actively pay attention, knowing when to just listen to the people you are with and what are their needs. In the end, it is important to think about the participants’ engagement, fun and which outcomes are there for them.

A Q&A co-moderated by Dr Rosana Vasques and Dr Maria Cecília Loschiavo followed shortly after the presentation; there, it was discussed sensitive topics such as how to deal with privilege as an outsider from a wealthier background, with the dynamics between researchers from the “north” and the community from the “south”; the act of learning, put as an active role by the researchers to engage in a trusting relation that went beyond the workshop, is one way to tackle this situation. In this sense, Paul and Alessandro showed the importance of the collaborative aspect of research in design as a way to decentralise the needs of the researchers and put at the center the needs of the Tsoga Center community. It was also discussed how they managed their research funds, risks and handled being on their own during their research.

We thank Paul and Alessandro for the insightful experiences they shared, as well as Rosana and Maria Cecília for their moderation. Our next webinar will be on February 25th, and you may subscribe to our mailing list to stay updated. Until then, stay safe!

Étienne Levac and Rafael Goldstein. January 2021

This creative Thursday was dedicated to open questions about the relationship between design, consumption, and sustainability with the presentation of different projects of Maria Cecilia Loschiavo do Santos and her collaborators. The main project was the presentation of Coopamare that is a coop situated in Sao Paolo that changes the relationship we can have with waste through recycling, art and creativity.

Through seven presentations by Stuart Walker, Ikka Suppamen, Fausto Viana, Rafael Szafir Goldstein, Rosana Vasques Anna Beatriz Simon Factum, Amanda Carvalho and Danielly O.M.M, we learned about the challenge to address of sustainability in design with examples of Coopamare and another project called Kantan; the magic pillow, that also address the relationship with waste through clothing design and the Japanese theatrical heritage. The presentations addressed philosophical question as of our relationship to consumption, waste and creativity, but the presentations also exposed their experiences in the projects. In the case of Coopamare, Rosana vasques summarize the aspect of relation that emerge from the experience of collaborating with the people of Coopamare in declaring that Coopamare is less a project than a long-term partnership.

Though out these presentations, we had the privilege of learning about the idea behind the projects, but also to learn how they were realized and lived by different persons through the academia, art, dynamic relationships, etc.

At the ends during the Questions and Answer sections, we finished on a sentiment of solidarity and a reminder the important thing is to be here together. Together, we can point out solidarity stories like the one of Coopamare in the face of the context consumption that we globally live in. Solidarity and actions to change our relationship with consumption and what we perceive as trash is what’s important.

Étienne Levac. December 2020

The third ‘SEEYouth Creative Thursdays’ webinar (and our first of 2021) will feature a presentation by the project team from the University of Leeds, UK.

It takes place on Thursday, January 28th 2021 at 9am - 10:30am EST 
(11am BRT / 2pm GMT / 4pm EET). 

The webinar link can be found at the end of this post.

Description

This talk focuses on the telling of community stories as a method of activation which can create positive links between people and place - in particular, how it was used to reflect on one community’s ambition and efforts to regenerate their community centre in the township of Samora Machel in Cape Town, South Africa.

Our latest webinar aims to show how new tools for collaborative storytelling can encourage a type of storytelling which captures significant moments in a community’s lived experience and which facilitates novel approaches to participation.

The use of these imaginative visual and (typo)graphic ‘design devices’ becomes a way for a community to recognise their own sense of agency - through the identification, communication and documentation of their past motivations, experiences and values in their own words.

We can recognise a value in these acts of articulation and association, and how a story’s power or importance can be reinforced in the process of it being retold. This also presents an opportunity for empowerment, perhaps by seeing this story as one chapter among those still to be told in a community’s future.

Speakers:

Dr. Paul Wilson - School of Design, University of Leeds

Dr. Alessandro Medici - School of Design, University of Leeds

Format:
A presentation of approximately 30 minutes will be followed by a Q&A period and discussion.

To join the webinar, please use this link:

https://uqac.zoom.us/j/4927583531?pwd=Q0R2aDN4bGdDLzVNZEo1WStwU0tjUT09

The ‘SEEYouth Creative Thursdays’ are a series of webinars that highlights how creativity can empower youth and young adults who face challenging situations. 

Every month, a member of the international SEEYouth team speaks directly from experience about how to run art and design workshops depending on participant profiles, overall objectives, and available resources.

The webinars are an opportunity to share perspectives, discuss best practices, and get inspired to prevent marginalization and increase opportunities for youth using creativity-based methods.

Tags:

#SEEYouth #creativethursdays #webinar3 #communitystories

The first ‘SEEYouth Creative Thursdays' webinar was held on Thursday 26th November, when researchers from Canada, Brazil, Finland and the UK met online to discuss the actions, approaches, ideas and concrete results that were included in a presentation by SEEYouth team member Jean-François Vachon.

This presentation successfully set the tone for the webinar series by focusing on the practical experiences of participation when working with marginalised communities in Brazil and in Canada, and introduced a range of projects that he's been involved in as part of La Boîte Rouge VIF, an indigenous non-profit organization.

The discussion that followed the webinar was wide-ranging and, prompted by a number of questions from members of the audience, covered a range of very interesting and inspiring topics. The conversations that developed from each question created a very welcome opportunity for fruitful reflection upon the challenges, opportunities and untapped potentials of arts-based participatory research.

For Jean-François, the significance and benefits of building strong relationships, of being and working with a community over extended periods of time and in encouraging the whole community to participate were particularly clear.

Such values, he argued, help to make sure that participatory research avoids the worst tendencies of so-called ‘helicopter’* research. In order to try and achive the aim of a ‘genuine’ participation, he reminded us that it’s important for any particpatory art and design activities to acknowledge the complexity and sensitivities for building and maintaining trust with community members.

Although there are many matters to discuss and consider in terms of navigating the challenges of participation, its clear that there is much to learn from the approach shown in Jean-François’ presentation so that we might address the issues and questions that are faced when working with marginalised communities and, particularly, by showing a commitment to long-term relationships that is demonstrated through tangible behaviours and by working openly on immediate, concrete and mutually-interesting results.

Careful consideration of how these relationships can or should be managed will hopefully allow us to avoid the worst outcomes of the ‘helicopter’ research which risks legitimately offending the community (since such behaviours reinforce a sense that they’re considered subjects first and people second), and which also damages and undermines the potential for change that our work hopes to achieve.

One particular challenge of working with indigenous communities that was discussed following Jean-François’ talk was the need to acknowledge and address history’s weight, and to recognise any situation's historical context(s) where the researcher can often represent, remind or embody experiences of oppression, disadvantage and injustice. Whether through colour, social class or institutional affiliation it was felt that this can't be ignored but rather that, with an attitude or openness and humility, should be addressed whenever it is felt, noted or raised within a project.

We agreed that it’s wrong to assume that such differences don't exist and that everything is otherwise ok simply because we might be working with a community. It is important, therefore, to step back and realise there are ways to work with difference, and to achieve this by recognising a need to acknowledge and accept that the complexities that come from our differences are at the heart of this kind of work.

Similarly inspiring was a suggestion emerging from the discussion that we might reconsider or upturn certain relationships we have with the work. Jean-François outlined an idea and approach that considered the project itself as the subject of research and where we recognise that we are all participants within a process, with each of us having a very specific contribution to make to it.

This aspect of the discussion created a very useful opportunity to reflect critically on the frames through which participatory research and co-creation might usually be considered, and from this it became clear that such an idea is potentially very exciting for the development of a very clear conceptual distinction and way of behaving that might avoid the more usual binary sense of separation between subject and object, between observer and observed, between researcher and participant.

As we work in contexts that are often results-driven and where there are expectations both in communities and within institutions defined by change and how it’s experienced, concepts of impact and evaluation were raised and questions such as how to navigate the formal procedures or those set purely on an economic accountability basis were discussed.

How can SEEYouth and similar projects, and the work that we all do, develop different modes and methods through which a more meaningful evaluation might take place? Or where any measurement is based upon how and where genuine participation is experienced within a community? It could be that, part of the broader contribution that our project is able to make, we consider alternative or parallel ways through which we can think about ideas of impact and evaluation. We might look to move beyond those ways we can all identify as not truly reflecting a range of experiences and opportunities that can be delivered through participatory arts approaches.

Specifically, Jean-François described the challenge of being able to effectvely measure impact - before, during and after such work takes place, and through one project within one community with one group - so that any longitudinal change is evident. Taking such a long-term approach as part of a project which is also concerned with the need to produce concrete outcomes is difficult. People in the project will change, or leave the project entirely. We can, of course, work with the same communities but not always with the same people. A project’s timescales can also present their own challenges - short term projects can be more beneficial so participants are engaged in the entire process - from beginning to end - and often one year is too long for one project.

Participatory projects are often difficult to develop a fully-fledged evaluation for impacts both for the individual and the community and some significant impacts are seen on an individual level. Capturing this can form part of the writing-up of the work although the desire to produce a more scientific evaluation of the research is often very difficult. The ideal duration of projects often isn’t always possible and preparation for one usually overlaps with another ending since projects tend not to start and begin in a neat way. In fact, the ways of working practiced by Jean-François and La Boîte Rouge VIF don’t lend themselves to such neat and tidy processes (of preparation, evaluation etc.) which is, of course, part of their strength.

The role of objects and images in participatory research, in particular the use of the image as a way to document work, events or process, was raised through questions regarding some images included in the presentation. It’s possible that, aside from being documents of participation, they have an equally important role to record or illustrate how people’s lived 'realities' can often be fundamentally different to others (including our own), and where these images can become a means of actively and critically raising issues, questions and challenges faced by communities.

Capturing how something as seemingly mundane as the high price of soft drinks in one village, for example, can tangibly demonstrate a particular experience of marginalisation in a way that might be otherwise atypical or unnoticed. A yellow object in the landscape (a skidoo or snowmobile, for example) reminds us of the value and importance of actively looking, of documenting and remaining open to the seemingly prosaic or everyday details of any living and working environment.

In contrast, cultural traditions or festivals are often significant times to document what happens at particular moments in a community’s life. Such events are important when working in the field as they tie community members together in a way that's perhaps not possible in the usual routines of everyday life and so can offer a unique point of difference in contrast with the more prosaic activities.

Perhaps these ideas of the everyday and of the silent ‘role’ of the object can be connected to those discussed earlier, in particular to the potential value in shifting our ideas of the research 'subject' from people, or environment, or culture to the project itself as an experience that is in a process of co-creation and emerging from a collaboration between every stakeholder or participant.

Might we also, therefore, consider our potential participants in terms of their being both human and non-human? The abandoned skidoo perhaps contributes something specific to any activity or observtation by virtue of its presence and, in its becoming a talking-point or reference to something or someone which might then inspire a certain thought or a particular activity? Such active and 'vibrant matter' has been the source of much discussion and inspiration across art and design practice and research, and perhaps has the potential to be further or more explicitly acknowledged and embraced within participatory approaches such as this.

The notions of things as concrete outcomes from any work of this kind were also raised and, as mentioned earlier, are for Jean-François key to achieving a particular type of meaningful engagement. By working quickly, creating content and bringing a project to life through making and a professionalised kind of production, it’s possible to produce practical, tangible and workable outcomes (for use in populating existing platforms, for example) that can directly benefit a community.

Linked to this are ideas of dissemination and for developing ways that work can find an audience, together with the opportunities for archiving it in ways that also benefit a community. Developing educational materials for classroom learning or to help teachers, for example, has proved very useful and can be produced relatively quickly.

The necessity for moving fast - for an improvisational, agile or flexible approach - is often paramount, and needs to mirrored by how we might need to develop an ability for dealing with things that don't quite go as we’d hoped or had expected them to. Sometimes (perhaps more often that we think), we need to quickly and radically change our plans and be prepared to abandon what we've prepared if it simply isn’t working - however painful this might feel at the time. So, we should have a Plan B. And a Plan C. Just in case they're ever needed.

Jean-François went on to acknowledge that this kind of activity was often actually a means to an end: something that can be very useful in terms of organising thoughts and for anticipating any challenges, but easily discarded 'as soon as the real work starts...'

Paul Wilson. December 2020

* where a researcher might appear or ‘descend’ into a community, as if fallen from the sky and leave once the research is over often never to be heard of again by community members...

Tags:
#SEEYouth #creativethursdays #webinar1 #review #report

The second SEEYouth ‘Creative Thursdays’ webinar features presentations by the project team from the University of São Paolo alongside a range of distinguished guest speakers. It takes place on Thursday, December 17th 2020 at 9am - 10:30am EST 
(11am BRT / 2pm GMT / 4pm EET).

The webinar link can be found at the end of this post.

Description
Social innovation is a concept that deeply relates to sustainability through bottom-up solutions to overcome everyday challenges from the living hood.

In Brazil, COOPAMARE is the oldest and most relevant operating waste pickers' association formed 30 years ago by homeless people in a condition of marginalization and exclusion that transformed their reality through working with recycling materials and with their endeavour on raising the awareness of populations in a state of social vulnerability rights.

Realizing the essential work of “catação” (waste picking) and remembering is the meaning of dignity as a fundamental step for self-empowerment, the COOPAMARE group is one of the Brazilian case studies in the SEEYouth Project, which focus on youth and adult youth at/from the margins by using arts-based and design methods to give voice and help them to empower themselves.

This webinar will invite the audience to deep dive into two essential topics as inspirational sources to discuss sustainability, innovation, and social purpose:

1. Creativity as a potential tool to change our realities, and

2. The educational experiences and point of views from professors and students with different backgrounds that have been working with COOPAMARE

Speakers & schedule:
WEBINAR: EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE + INNOVATION + SOCIAL PURPOSE
3 min – Prof Dr Maria Cecilia Loschiavo – 15 years of educational experience with Coopamare
10 min – Prof Dr Fausto Viana
2 min – Dr Rosana Vasques – Introduction to Stuart Walker and Ilkka Suppanen speech
20 min – Prof PhD Stuart Walker –Design realities: creativity as a tool for positive change
10 min –Designer and Arch Ilkka Suppanen
3 min – Dr Rosana Vasques and Rafael Goldstein – Inspired by COOPAMARE
7 min – Prof Dr Ana Beatriz Simon Factum: Activity A
7 min – Msc Amanda Carvalho: Activity B
7 min – Arch Danielly Omm: Activity C
20 min – Q&A

To join the webinar, please use this link:

https://uqac.zoom.us/j/4927583531?pwd=Q0R2aDN4bGdDLzVNZEo1WStwU0tjUT09

Tags: #SEEYOUTH #creativethursdays #webinar2

The ‘SEEYouth Creative Thursdays’ are a series of webinars that highlights how creativity can empower youth and young adults who face challenging situations. 

Every month, a member of the international SEEYouth team speaks directly from experience about how to run art and design workshops depending on participant profiles, overall objectives, and available resources.

The webinars are an opportunity to share perspectives, discuss best practices, and get inspired to prevent marginalization and increase opportunities for youth using creativity-based methods.

The SEEYouth project consists of three, interlocking and interconnected cycles of research:

C1 - Creating insights:
familiarisation and creating trust - new dialogue for collaboration.

The first research cycle of our project is explored through two work packages, each one designed to gain insight into youth and young people and their lives and experiences at the margins.

WP1. Contextual mapping and discovering agency of the youth - University of São Paolo, Brazil

WP2. Stakeholder Network - University of Lapland, Finland

C2 - Experiments in training:
description and representation - new knowledge for innovation.
The second research cycle, again, makes use of two work packages to apply the insights gained through the activities of the first - developing from the knowledge of our participants and of the project’s academic network.

WP3. Training the trainers - University of Montreal, Canada

WP4. Life-cycle bathing - São Paolo State University, Brazil

C3 - Implementing engagement:
production and publication - new strategies for mobilisation.

The third and final research cycle, builds upon the work of the previous two and looks to develop, by way of the fifth work package, a range of ways in which the insights, knowledge, experiences and outcomes from the project’s activities can be published and disseminated to relevant communities and stakeholders.

WP5. Dissemination and communication - University of Leeds, UK

Tags:
#seeyouthproject #research #researchdesign #creation #experimentation #implementation

The ‘SEEYouth Creative Thursdays’ are a series of webinars that highlights how creativity can empower youth and young adults who face challenging situations. 

Every month, a member of the international SEEYouth team speaks directly from experience about how to run art and design workshops depending on participant profiles, overall objectives, and available resources.

The webinars are an opportunity to share perspectives, discuss best practices, and get inspired to prevent marginalization and increase opportunities for youth using creativity-based methods.

Our inaugural webinar takes place on Thursday, November 26th 2020.
9am - 10:30am EST 
(11am BRT / 2pm GMT / 4pm EET)

Title:
TECHNOLOGY as a means to create bridges between generations.

Presenter:
Jean-François Vachon
La Boîte Rouge VIF - Indigenous Non-Profit Organization / Canada

Description:
Based on many years of experience working with and for Indigenous communities, Jean-François Vachon will discuss initiatives aiming at:

1) Fostering interest of the youth towards their elders,
2) Creating collaborative contexts for the expression of the cultural identities, and
3) Empowering the youth for the self-definition of their present and future.

The webinar will present 3 detailed activities you could do with young people for creative and documentary productions using accessible equipment; digital cameras, cell phones and 360 cameras.

Format:
A presentation of approximately 30 minutes will be followed by a Q&A period and discussion.

Tags:

#SEEYouth #creativethursdays #webinar1

Welcome to the online presence for the SEEYouth project - a place for publishing our activities and also reporting on the ongoing work of the international team who make up this project: artists, researchers, activists, designers, communities, individuals, academics and, most importantly, the youth and young adults who are key to realising the project’s ambitions. 

We’ll be updating this page frequently and will include a wide range of material, including reports from each of the project’s partners on their participatory arts-based research taking place in Brazil and Finland, the work of teams in Canada and the UK to develop and support the project - as well as how each of us (both individually and as a group), is meeting the ongoing challenges of COVID-19.

At the moment, we're running a regular monthly webinar programme (‘SEEYouth Creative Thursdays’) through which we’ll share the experiences we’ve had working creatively with communities to address their needs, discussing how we’ve cultivated conditions and opportunities to identify where and how marginalisation is experienced and the ways we’ve made use of creative methods as a means to empower youth and young people.

A plan for the webinar series is available here, and this will also include archived videos of each presentation together with written reports on the talks and summaries of the discussions that occur as part of each session.

The SEEYouth project takes an in-depth and holistic approach, and a key feature of what we’re doing is the development of an innovative ‘Trans-Atlantic Mirroring’ (T-AM) method which allows us to understand the complex social situations that lead to marginalisation across continents, and which will realise innovations on both sides of the Atlantic, strengthening young people's agency in three distinct contexts.

Based on participatory art and design's strong moral commitment to communities, our project aims to support new contexts for youth engagement and empowerment, generate innovative outcomes, and increase the practical application, scalability and impact to help reduce youth marginalisation across the globe.

We’d love for you to sign up for all further updates, and follow our project over the next twelve months - get in touch if you’ve got any questions!

Subscribe now

In the meantime, please share our URL and help spread the word about the SEEYouth project!