The Open UP project- a four-year project for human creativity

The Open Up (https://openupeu.com/), was a project, co-funded by Creative Europe,which aimed to unearth artists, performers, designers and crafts people-with a special focus on young people-from neglected, segregated and underprivileged communities in urban environments in seven European countries: Cyprus, France, Greece, Sweden, Finland, Portugal and Spain. Since 2019, just before the Covid-19 pandemic, and until 2023, the Pierides Foundation, as the Project Leader together with Publics in Helsinki, Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV) in Amiens, University of Thessaly (UTH) in Volos, Valand Academy (VA)- an institution within the University of Gothenburg, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), and New Hand Lab (NHL) in Covilha, co-organized activities aiming at providing a strong, active and sustainable platform for creative synergies. The project aspired to build sustainable art practices amongst underprivileged communities in each participant city and consisted of a transnational network in the fields of art, culture, performing arts, urban and social issues. The Open Up project explored how, in this era of division and partition, of segregation and exclusion, culture could play an active role in allowing new forms of community relations to emerge.

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