● Confederacy of Villages

Asociación Campo Adentro (ES)

Associazione Di Volontariato Casa Delle Agriculture Tullia E Gino (IT), Ayl Arvest Social And Cultural Nongovernmental Organization (AM), Grizedale Arts (UK), Kulturforeningen Huset Ideell Forening (SE)

State of the art

Rural communities can remain sustainable and engaging places in which to live, work and to visit. The project contributes to the recovery of villages and their natural landscape.

Description of the project

Confederacy of villages recovers rural communities’ traditions, skills, knowledge, and methods related to craftwork: vernacular farming, timber architecture, use of local berries, herbs and other plants in the making of oils, jams and honey. Through its hands-on methodology, the project explores ancient forms of communal organisation – recently redescovered through practices of commoning - and their relationship to the land. These approaches are part of European rural cultural heritage. Confederacy of Villages advocates for the protection of a common European culture rooted in the rural that has been silenced in modern times, and works to overcome prejudiced considerations of cultural patrimony as the product of the creative classes from urban settings. The project operates in the field of socially engaged art since it works with local communities to provoke social transformation.

Confederacy of villages is a project committed to the environment and climate change and aims to make changes that start from the local level and are scalable to other formats.

Creative Europe’s support

The Confederacy of Villages is an international exchange network that connects five socially engaged art initiatives operating in rural communities across Europe through a programme of artistic residencies and professional exchanges that develop innovative concepts for creative problem-solving and collaborative working outside urban centres.

Beyond Environmental Sustainability

The user manual resulting from the project will propose a new anchored framework for how art can better engage with and support rural communities.

Contact

confederacyofvillages.org/projects Creative Europe Project Results