Creativity and freedom as a response to current challenges facing Europe

LIBERTY is an exciting international arts programme exploring and celebrating freedom, led by ArtReach.

Led by UK cultural development charity, ArtReach, LIBERTY is an ambitious and innovative creative response to current challenges facing the European Union. At a time of significant change for Europe – with substantial movement of people and arrival into Europe of refugees; disturbing breakdown in community cohesion, focused by the terrorist threat; and the implications of BREXIT (and other possible EU structural change) – ArtReach and partners want to focus on the positive impact of creative integration through art and culture, helping to forge new sense of identity and place (both locally and Europe-wide) with strong engagement from young people. We also want to significantly develop and enhance a process of artist and artistic collaboration and audience development that previous ArtReach-led Creative Europe projects have initiated. Our commitment is to engagement of young artists and young audiences.

LIBERTY brings together 12 cultural partners from 10 countries, partners with shared values, passions and commitment. We will forge a vibrant curatorial and development team, enabling artists and cultural professionals to work together over three years, commissioning at least 75 new collaborative works from 750 young artists that are presented as free access events across Europe and with transnational circulation. Inside Out Performance, Processional Theatre, Liberty Wall-Art, Outdoor Digital Arts projects, workshops and seminars will together explore our theme of creative integration and identity, encompassing Festivals, venues, interdisciplinary arts, training and conferences. Embedded in the project is commitment to audience development and education/training, prioritising culturally diverse and disadvantaged communities, including refugees, those from deprived socio-economic backgrounds and disabled people. LIBERTY will conclude with a five-month pan-European programme from May to September 2022, maximising new technology to share works and ideas as widely as possible, and generating substantial legacy momentum.

LIBERTY comprises of six strands of artistic creation and presentation:

• Inside – Out Performance: A performance taking place both outdoors and inside cultural or non-traditional venues; bridging the two spaces.
• Processional Theatre: A moving, parade-like, performance that engages passers-by and audiences on the street.
• Liberty Art: Provocative and place-making visual art, sculptural art, murals, street art and graffiti that exhibits anywhere there is a suitable space.
• Outdoor Digital Art: Presented outdoors, this work cuts across any art form and features significant digital elements in its creation.
• Educational Workshops: LIBERTY workshops are practical, accessible, challenging and fun. They enable the co-creation and exploration of the project’s themes.
• Seminars: Enable a deep-dive into the project’s themes; raising questions, seeking actions, and galvanising more interest and spin-off activity.

The six elements of the project will maximise engagement of audiences by being delivered in public spaces with prolonged artist development and sector learning opportunities. LIBERTY will be presented across 10 countries from September 2019 to October 2022.

In September, partners on the project from locations across Europe came to Leicester to celebrate the start of this ambitious project. The celebrations included meeting the City Mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, and visiting the city’s cultural quarter, which will be the site for some of the projects performances and workshops over the next 3 years.

Leicester based ArtReach, the Lead Partner for the project, is the only UK organisation this year to receive funding on this scale from Creative Europe. They will be teaming up with eleven other arts organisations representing ten European countries from; Germany, Italy, Romania, Denmark, Serbia, France, Slovenia, Hungary and Belgium.

About the project

LIBERTY – A New European Generation – Exploring Freedom and Identity through Creative Integration is cofunded by CREATIVE EUROPE_ CULTURE Cooperation projects Category 2 – Larger scale cooperation projects.

Partners

“The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.”