Internationales JugendKunst- und Kulturhaus

Youth, Art & Culture International

Schlesische Strae 27b
D - 10997 Berlin
Fon: +49 (0)30 / 61 77 67 39
Fax: +49 (0)30 / 61 88 048
email: b.meyer@schlesische27.de
web: www.schlesische27.de

Verein zur Frderung der Interkulturellen Jugendarbeit e.V. Ust-IdNr. DE 136625414

Geschftsfhrung / Director: Barbara Meyer

Project sketch:

euro paletopia A trans-European Youth Project for 2017

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Creative Conference| EU-topia | Berlin, 5. - 7. August 2016

The project idea: Europe is in crisis mode: Financial crisis, Euro crisis, refugee crisis.

Everywhere on the continent new borders are being erected: Customs borders, barbed wire,
intellectual borders. Its about time to ask what is actually happening and which direction Europe
is supposed to take. But we should turn to those, who will be affected the most by the current
developments: The young people of Europe. Will I be able to live where I want and love who I
want? Do I need borders or do they just hold me back? Should I care about the plight of people
at the other end of the continent or are the problems of my society already overwhelming? Do
I need just a safe home or do I need nation states? And what about Europe?

Those and more questions we would like to discuss with young Europeans by creating an artistic
platform for the exchange for ideas: The Pallet Parliament. We are envisioning an assembly kit
of Euro-pallets, which will be touring in a container through Europe and making stops in cities
all over the continent. Its destinations will be wherever our partner organisations are: In Greece
and Kosovo, Austria and Georgia, Great Britain and France, Hungary and Poland, Finland and
Cyprus. At its destinations the pallet kit will be set up to create a very physical, artistic and
intellectual space for youth, where they can discuss and draft ideas for the future of Europe and
its nation states. The youth is creating their own forum and debating Europe anew.
The Pallet Parliaments: At the various European project locations youth teams will be

receiving the container. They develop a concept and use the pallets to create workshops or club
sceneries, oracle caves or open-air kitchens they might construct huge sculptures or
reconstruct an amphitheatre aiming to create a space that is inviting and fostering an
atmosphere of musing and discussion.

They can invite writers, scientists, politicians or artists to join in the debate. Relevant results,
discussions and votes will be documented with photos, videos, texts and published through
social media.

The participants will transform the results into artistic statements, which will be packed on Euro-
pallets and loaded onto the truck. The final destination of the truck will be a joint closing
conference, in Berlin or elsewhere, where we will present and discuss the outcomes of this
European youth discourse together and create another euro paletopia.

Creative Conference | EU-topia | Berlin, 5. 7. August 2016

The foundations for euro paletopia shall be laid at the Creative Conference. We want to invite
young volunteers and representatives from the cooperation partners to Berlin, where we will
jointly set the artistic and organizational framework for the major project in 2017 and will do
trial-session called EU-topia. From each country we hope to receive 1 representative from the
cooperation partner and 2 young volunteers. Additionally there will be a Berlin youth team
joining the conference.

Ahead of the conference there will be two steps:

1. A small survey to collect opinions and statements by young people on the topic of Europe.
This is not aiming to be representative, but the goal is rather to collect interesting material and
inspiration as a starting point for the conference. We will ask all cooperation partners to do
participate and conduct short interviews with 10-15 young people from their country.
Schlesische27 will provide guideline materials for the interviews.

2. Two weeks before the conference the Berlin youth team will participate in an experimental
workshop to develop and create a modular pallet-construction, the Pallet-Lounge. It will serve
as a Prototype/idea generator for the container, which will go on the orad in 2017. In the same
time the Pallet-Lounge will be the backdrop for the trial-session EU-topia.
The Creative Conference itself will have three major bullet points:

1. Creating a Road Map concerning form and content of the project: Using the survey-results we
will identify major relevant topics and explore ways to address them from a political, artistic and
technical perspective. Furthermore we will work on developing the project from an
organizational perspective: Possibilities and boundaries for a trans-European project.

2. Preparing the application: In October 2016 we want to apply for funding through the
Erasmus+ programme Youth in Action in order to finance euro paletopia. At the conference we
will do the groundwork to meet the requirements for the application in October.

3. The trial session EU-topia: On Sunday afternoon (7th of August) the Pallet-Lounge will open its
doors for young Berliners, we will hold a first public forum and experiment with creative ways
of fostering a mutual discussion about Europes future from the youths perspective.

A more specific programme for the conference will be provided in late June.

For questions and inquiries please get in touch with Simon Traut:
Email: s.traut@schlesische27.de | Phone: +49-30-61776730

About Schlesische27:

The "International Youth Art- and Cultural Center Schlesische27" is a Berlin institution working
since 1983 in the field of aesthetic education and perception training within an artistic and
cultural context. In cooperation with artists and experts of varied disciplines, every year over
2000 young people experience and explore interdisciplinary questions designing their own
creative visions of the world. Our fields of work include projects for school classes, for young
refugees and projects that are open to all youth. We organize spare time- and holiday projects,
international exchange projects as well as vocational training for adolescents and adults. In
youth conferences and panel discussions on special topics we take a particular interest in
questions and issues regarding Arts and Education.