When I was involved in helping people organise their own festivals, I hosted a “Create Your Festival” session and the techniques we used from “silent brainstorming” to “I wish this was” to “semiotic stimulus”. So what ideas did people come up with?
1. Discover different cultures through creating and sharing new experiences with people
- Discover different cultures within their own city
- Share their different cultures by organising fun activities
- Meet people from other cultures by creating & sharing things together
We are composed of members from countries across the continent. What if we found that in the very communities we live in, there are people with those different nationalities — from exchange students to shopkeepers? Where are the places in our neighbourhoods we can find “transnationalism in one city”? How could the creative activists in the citygroups across Europe connect up with their compatriots living in…our own cities to create these shared cultural experiences?
2. Observe how their neighbourhoods can provoke new thoughts and ideas on democratic and economic alternatives
- Find stories & objects in their neighbourhood that describe the issues
- Organise community-based activities that foreshadow alternatives
- Create content expressing the issues and exchange between the cities
We often escape from the places we live in to get inspired, but what if the triggers for our imagination were found in the streets or squares we pass through? What if economic alternatives could be connected together between the neighbourhoods of our European cities rather than between their financial hubs? What if new forms of democratic participation could be found between our public squares rather between our parliaments?
3. Create activities together that express the way we collectively feel about the issues we face & wishes we dream about
- Use content from different cities on the issues to perform a story
- Use their experience to develop proposals with others with similar skills
- Win prizes for creative but simple activities
Politicians and officials have come up with a common language (Esperanto), a common currency (Euro) and a common market, but we often hear talk of a democratic deficit. In fact, it’s an emotional deficit that Europe suffers from.
We want to share common bonds with people over issues we deeply care about between different countries — whether it’s how we tackle student debt, how we make learning more fulfilling for children or how we make more space for open air. Different people are passionate about different things in different ways. How could we create the connections across the cities between groups who share similar interests to inspire those visceral transnational moments.
4. Create the spaces to challenge the way we’ve been brought up to think and act
Across Europe, each country is trying to find scapegoats to blame the economic and social recession we’re going through. Of course they won’t challenge how we’ve been brought up to think because that would affect their own positions of power.
So they will reinforce existing prejudices and stereotypes of anything that’s different — like people from other countries — or that’s weak — like younger people who are being blamed for causing social breakdown or older people who are castigated for having spent all the money.
So it’s refreshing and reassuring that people in the session came up with ideas on how satirise and repurpose those prejudices into positive populism and create activities that bring children and older people together to design a better future.
