Organization
Heartefact was founded in 2009 as an organization dedicated to raising critical awareness and building open and free societies through creative and artistic exchange on important social issues related to human rights, freedom of speech and social responsibility. They support and encourage contemporary and engaged cultural and artistic creativity, thus creating the conditions for constructing a new generation of socially engaged, creative and progressive forces that will critically reflect the world around them.
Heartefact pays special attention to marginalized and discriminated social groups, using culture and art as a way to promote their rights. They are implementing its activities within three program areas: Production, Institute and Foundation. Each of these program areas is focused on creating a variety of activities that are often mutually complementary and supportive.
Project
The project explores European cultural identity in the light of changes that have occurred in the last decade in Europe and its immediate vicinity. The focus will be put on four crises: referendum in the UK about leaving European Union (Brexit), refugee crisis, economic crisis, terrorist attacks. Causes and consequences that these events have on the sense of identities in Europe will be the research topic of at least 15 young artists and 10 young cultural policy researchers during the three-month exchange in the partner countries. The results will be presented through art works and research and policy papers.
The project researches how crisis events that evoke changes can affect creation, weakening or strengthening of European cultural identity. Causes and consequences of those crises may be nationalism, xenophobia, strengthening of the extreme right, Euroscepticism, border closures, etc.
Through a review of crises by combining artistic and cultural policy research methods, the project seeks to investigate and present the effects of major changes to the sense of European identity of the citizens of Europe.
W: http://www.heartefact.org/en/
Contact
E: info@heartefact.org, aleksandra@heartefact.org
Please find more about the project in the appendix.