Lessons from Less Heard
How can we amplify the voices that are under-represented in the production of and discourse on culture and cultural environment?
Over 2020-2022, Visio coordinated an Erasmus+ funded strategic partnership project.
Goals for this project
1) improve the competence of cultural organisations to promote social inclusion of ethnic minorities and social cohesion within communities, and
2) create relatable cultural products as well as concrete experiences of inclusion for ethnic minorities.
Each of the four partners cretaed their own co-creative cultural products and produced videos demonstrating these methods. The idea behind the methods was, that rather than minorities learning about the dominant culture, they shared knowledge and skills, and produced events acknowelding the diversity of culture and heritage. This proved to be a straightforward way to create fertile ground for developing a sense of belonging and social inclusion.
”Garden of Cultures” – Urban Community Gardening with Finnish Literacy Training Group
Everywhere around the world people grow their food. The basic practice of working with the natural laws, nursing the growth of plants and harvesting the crop for alimentation is familiar to all of us, nevermind the differences stemming from different environmental conditions and gardening practices.
In a group or community consisting of a variety of cultures, ages and educational backgrounds, universal themes such as gardening are immensely valuable. These themes allow us to look and work beyond the invisible and artificial but sometimes very tangible and certainly challenging barriers between us.
In our project, Garden of Cultures, we worked together with an adult literacy training group, and connected the planning and building of the urban community garden to language learning. Watch the video above for more details!
Take also a look at the video demonstrating one concrete gardening method – how to make a seedbomb: https://youtube.com/shorts/g6HTyXiDpro?feature=share
Are you planning on beginning an urban gardening project?
Below you can find a collection of images to support in a gardening-themed project with a group which does not have a shared language:
Lessons from Less Heard is a strategic partnership consisting of four partners, who all work either or both in the cultural field and with cultural minorities:
- Green Cultural and Educational Centre Visio (Finland)
- Norrbotten Museum (Sweden)
- Art27 (Belgium)
- Consorzio Comunità Brianza (Italy)
Questions about the project? Contact project coordinator Adele Halttunen: adele.halttunen(a)opintokeskusvisio.fi.
The project is funded by Erasmus+ programme. Erasmus+ and EU are not responsible for the content created in this project.