What is it?
The Art Partner Project is one of the key activities in the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.
Why?
Art can’t eradicate poverty but it can give dignity and confidence back to people. It can help to recreate social links. Living in precarious circumstances forces people to focus on their basic needs. There’s no room for cultural activities. But when a person is excluded from culture, they’re pushed to the margins of society. By taking part in an art project, by creating, they can feel more integrated into society. Cultural action makes people exist as human beings without reducing them to social subjects. It confers an identity which allows people to escape from shame, a source of isolation.
Who is it for?
Trios - an art student, a person experiencing poverty and an NGO (non-governmental organisation) - will be formed in each Member State. The NGO partners will create a link between the student and the person experiencing poverty and will facilitate their first meeting and follow-up. Then, this duo, the student and the person experiencing poverty, in the course of their meetings, will get behind the camera and take some shots. So the photographs will really be co-produced.
An artistic committee will select about fifty photographs which will be exhibited.
How?
All the photographs (which fulfil the selection criteria) will be able to be viewed on this site and also in an exhibition of about fifty photos in Brussels at the end of November 2010. All the photographs will be co-signed by the duo. If the photo is selected, the duo will gain visibility at the European level, and will receive a participation certificate, the exhibition catalogue and postcards printed with the photo.