IMAGINe GLOBALFEST 2012 Resource Pack- Exploring the theme www.globalfestcork.com
What kind of future can you imagine for yourself, your community and your world? What problems do we need to challenge to create this future? What values are important in shaping the future you imagine?
IMAGINE IMAGINE art encounter was a youth arts event bringing young people together the explore and express their ideas about a better future for themselves, their communities and their world. You can see/ read more about the event at www.globalfestcork.com following the link to Globalfest 2012
Who Globalfest is coordinated by the youth arts and global education programme of Mayfield Arts Newbury House www.mayfieldarts.org The following groups have collaborated for Art Encounter Fishbowl Youth, Scariff, Co.Clare, St. Micheals Youth Project, Ballyfermot, Crooked House Theatre Company
WHY THIS PUBLicATION
We believe the questions and themes of the IMAGINE art encounter are urgent and crucial questions in our rapidly changing and interconnected world We believe that young people need to gain confidence in exploring, expressing and taking action on issues that affect them and that they have fresh insights and perspectives. We used a range of tools and creative methods that may be useful if you want to explore these questions with young people. We believe that creative processes can assist us in imagining and moving towards a better future. “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited
while imagination embraces the whole world.”
"We can't solve todays problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." (Albert Einstein) This introductory resource will assist you in opening the theme and topics with young people while the accompanying pamphlets will expand on the processes of exploring the themes further through a range of art forms.
The Process The Imagine programme kicked off with warm up games and team building It was important to the process of exploring the questions that the group of participants connected with each other. You can visit the toolbox on this site for ideas of creative exercises that are useful to build creativity and connectivity in groups www.mayfieldarts.org/ connectingthroughcreativity
The next phase was to open and explore the theme using a range of exercises and tools which are the focus of this pamphlet. Following on from that the young people divided in groups to use a wide range of art forms to explore the theme further and express their ideas and visions. The young people worked with dance, theatre, visual arts, music animation and creative writing.
Exploring THE THEME The group explored how values have an effect on attitudes and behaviours using The Common Cause Handbook as a reference. This handbook is a guide that summarise the relevant research on values and frames and its implications. Find below some explanations about values taken information from The Common Cause Handbook that you can access in full at this link http://valuesandframes.org/handbook/
How values change
Visualizing information The following boards were used to visuals some concepts related to the values and the event.
walking debate A walking debate is a useful tool to get a sense of young people opinions and connection to the topic and to give them a chance to think about themes and express their opinions How to facilitate a walking debate Establish 3 zones in room to represent 'Agree', 'Don't Know' and 'Disagree'. Read out the walking debate statements. Young people are invited to position themselves in the room demonstrating if they agree, don't know or disagree. Invite young people to explain their position. The young people can change their opinion and move to demonstrate that if they are persuaded by the arguments given by other young people.
WALKING DEBATES These are some of the views expressed by the young people during the debate.
I’m in control of my future “You can only live once, say no to anyone who tries to stop you.”
Our government has an important role in shaping our future “They are in control, they have to make drastic changes to give opportunities to young people. They have an important role” “They don’t realise the impact of their budget and decisions. They should take young people into account.” “It only takes one teenager to get involved and make a difference” “You can speak up and protest” “If I was in the government I would fight for young people to express themselves” “We don’t get a say”
People in Ireland are good at having their voice heard “People have a stereotype of young people so they don’t listen to any of us” “It’s very hard to get your voice heard- it takes a very long time and then the message is lost” “I don’t hear anything in the media about young people”
Young people have an important role in what happens in the world “There should be more intercultural connections between young people” “We have an important role but there are not many opportunities for us to do it.”
It’s important to think about our values “If you don’t you could loose them (like in relationships or family)” “If you make the wrong decisions will be hard to recuperate your values”
“It’s part of who you are, your own personality” “You can properly prioritise them” “So you don’t look back and feel that you have wasted your life”
Creativity plays an important role in making a positive future “Without creative people you will never develop” “With creativity you constantly coming up with new things” “It means not following the crowd-being yourself” “Creativity is needed to fix the future- we can always be hopeful”
Young people have an important role in shaping the future “They have a role but it’s not just up to them” “It’s the choices we make that affect the future” “The older people will die soon and young people will be around for a long time”
Discussing the changes we want for our me, my community and the world
How to facilitate discussion
Use three large sheets and draw 3 concentric circles, one to explore imagination related to me, the the other for my community and the other for my world In the inner circle Highlight a challenge that needs addressed ( we used speech bubble postits) In the outer circle write how you imagine the future if this problem is solved (we used heart post-its) In the middle circle connect the two ideas with steps that are needed to move towards the future we imagine in relation to the issue raised. The outcomes from those discussions were disseminated through a calendar that was sent to other organizations, youth workers and decision makers.
Prioritizing values
Top ten values
as voted by participants
A list of values was given to the participants who voted with 5 little sticky dots the ones they consider most important. The importance of values was also explored through a visual art activity. The participants had a black and white photograph of themselves and they were asked to represent themselves using different materials and sticking the values who describe them the best. This is a good activity to get to know each other in a relaxed and creative atmosphere.
Calendar tex Below are the messages that the participants wanted to spread about problems that they identify in our society and the solutions proposed for a better future.
Postcard activity The participants wrote personal postcards to the ministers expressing their opinions and imagination about the future the imagine for themselves, their community and their world.