Polart Circle
Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership cooperation project coordinated by La Transplanisphère. How to create innovative video tools to explore European artistic practices combining art and politics?
WHAT
is the aim?
To define methods to create art questioning political issues
WHO
is involved?
9 European partners including theatre companies, universities and NGO
WHEN
is it happening?
The project took place from 2016 to 2019
The Aim
The aim was to raise awareness of innovative approaches by combining theatre and citizen debate on a topical issue.
Polart Circle involves artistic companies, schools, universities and NGOs in France, Sweden, Wales, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Croatia and Lithuania. It aims to create a series of MOOCs (online video courses) to help professionals, amateurs or educational actors to create their own artistic projects around political issues.
Since 2010, La Transplanisphère and its partners have gained valuable experience using artistic production to address social concerns.
For Polart Circle, the objective isto adapt this knowledge, combined with the expertise of the partner organisations, into a formal methodology, and to invite contributors to enrich the proposal. The hope is that these tools, once transmitted throughout Europe using MOOCs, inspire and inform other projects crossing art and politics.
The Outcomes
The Pedagogical Framework
In order to define the pedagogical framework for the MOOCs, the partners compared their practical experience with some existing manuals available on several European platforms (Erasmus+, Salto Youth toolbox, EACEA …).
While each of the MOOCs focused on a slightly different approach, they were united by a common value framework; notably, encouraging active participation, fostering interpersonal and intergenerational relations, and providing practical examples of situations which trigger personal expression.
The MOOCS
To reach the largest possible audience, partners chose an innovative vector of knowledge sharing: the MOOCs (massive online course). Easy to share and to access, this format provided the most contemporary means of reaching the target audience of young people, students, artists, and teachers.
Moreover, it permitted the construction of a community of users sharing their experiences of the tools as well as providing more exemplary material for fellow creators, within Europe and beyond.
The Partners
Timeline
December 2016
Launch of the project in Zagreb, Public Open University and then in Paris, Cité des Sciences.
2017 – Season 1 Writing
6 MOOCs published.
2018 – Season 2 Staging
6 MOOCs published.
2019 – Season 3 Performing
6 MOOCs published.
