Creative Thursdays Webinar 4 report: 'Starting with the end in mind'.
A post summarising the discussion which followed our fourth SEEYouth webinar - 'Online/face-to-face arts-based methods in Creating Shared Horizons with Youth and ' (University of Lapland, 26.02.2021).
On our fourth SEEYouth Creative Thursday, the University of Lapland (Finland) team delivered a presentation called ‘Online/face-to-face arts-based methods in Creating Shared Horizons with Youth and Stakeholders’.
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