Idea Submission

Eurocultured Project

Masterclass workshops from European artists working in different fields will be delivered to young professionals ending in a public event.

Submitted by Spearfish.

The Eurocultured Street Festival has been taking place in Manchester for 7 years, attracting up to 18,000 people over 2 days. The event celebrates the diversity of European culture in all its forms. In April we were awarded a grant from the EU that has lead to us delivering a series of projects in Manchester, Belfast, Romania, Finland and Slovakia. Artists from different countries and who work in different artistic disciplines have been delivering creative projects with groups of young people in school, we have paired up puppet makers with graffiti artists, choreographers with DJs, music producers with VJs; the work has explored the young people's perceptions of Europe and has been of a very high standard.

The final youth project takes place in Finland in September and then 6 of the artists involved will form an artists group, we will commission then to create a brand new piece of collaborative multi disciplinary work that will be premiered at a Eurocultured Street Festival in Turku, Finland as part of 2011 European Capital of Culture program in May. The work will then be shown at the Manchester Eurocultured event the week later.

This work will be developed over a 6 month period, they will meet in Manchester in November to discuss their ideas and then present them to us to 'sign off' before releasing the budget. They will then meet a a 10 day residency in Slovakia and a 10 day residency in Finland

Whilst they are in Manchester we want to apply to Umbro Industries to support a series of materclass sessions for young professional in the city. There will be a graffiti artist, puppet makers, digital artist, a music producer/DJ, a VJ/video mapping specialist and a break dancer/choreographer. All artists are at the forefront of their respective art form and they are hugely inspirational individuals that have performed all over the globe on dynamic and groundbreaking projects.

The sessions would be a combination of presentations, Q&A and a practical element. They could take place in Umbro Industries HQ in the Northern Quarter and would be promoted via posters, flyers, online and though networks. We envisage that there will be up 30 spaces on each session.

We would also like to end the sessions with a celebratory event that will be a mini version of the Eurocultured Street festival, it will showcase live music, DJs, dance, VJ sets, performance in the Sound Control venue on New Wakefield Street. Part of the event would be a mural being created live opposite the Thirsty Scholar in front of Sound Control.

Each artist will perform at the event and we will work with local promoters Hoya:Hoya, Mind on Fire, Same Teens, Hit & Run and Cutloose. There will also be a charity art auction as part of the event, we will sell artwork created at previous Eurocultured events with a percentage of sales been donated Cancer Research.