UCREATE is a Creative Europe funded project, in which four European artistic organisations based in four countries, namely International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation in Belgium, Big Sur in Italy, HANGAR in Portugal and MUS-E Hungary have joined their forces to launch a training programme based on co-creation and dedicated to the inclusion of young artists from cultural minorities and migrant backgrounds.  

Through this project, creation is shared! Co-creation is at the centre of this project, and the arts are used as a powerful lever for creating social bonds between individuals. In each country, one artistic discipline has been in the spotlight: music in Belgium, cinema, photography and performing arts in Italy, art education in Hungary and visual arts in Portugal. Our main objective has been to involve local European communities with young newcomers around a common artistic project. Sharing experiences, creating and achieving something together are the solutions UCREATE is implementing for the social integration of newcomers in Europe, setting the premises of a feeling of belonging.  

In addition to proposing solutions for the inclusion of audiences, UCREATE is indeed a training programme for young artists, a research around co-creation, and an artistic research of the multiple facets of what Europe is today and how we foresee its future in four European countries.  

The highest priority of UCREATE is capacity building, developing skills through training and education transnationally. The second priority, intrinsically linked to the first, is facilitating intercultural dialogue and social integration training through co-creation, increasing newcomers’ participation in European cultural and societal life. 

While in the last decades many efforts have been done on how to engage new audiences in the passive “consumption” of art, today we see a strong focus on involving audiences in a more active and participatory way. This is not only because of the desire to find new approaches to attract new audiences but also because of the understanding of the importance of active participation in the art for our own personal development and, therefore, its beneficial impact on society as a whole.  

Artistic co-creation is a new, innovative model that goes even further. Within co-creation, participants do not just participate in what already exists, but they become decision-makers within the artistic process, design and implementation. Principles of artistic co-creation can also effectively be applied to many other sectors of our lives, thus contributing to innovation and creativity not just in the field of culture, but also promoting innovative spill over on other sectors. 

Through the last two years of activities of UCreate, we have learned a lot and gathered many positive experiences that we would like to share and multiply in future in order to create a meeting place, a place for dialogue and a laboratory for critical reflection on the role and meaning of art and the growing need to have more innovative approaches to participation in culture, regardless of background and artistic experience.  

The synthesis of these best practices has been gathered in an interesting document entitled « U-CREATE GUIDELINES » available in English, which aims to inspire practitioners in the field of social inclusion through the arts, in the specific context of migration.  

The U-Create project culminated with a final event of two days in December 2022. The first day the event took place in Brussels at the Instituto di Cultura italiana in partnership with ENCATC and gathered all partners involved in the project as well as members of ENCATC at the occasion of their “Happy Hours”. A presentation of the project was done by the partners and culminated with the solo interpretation of cellist Matthieu Saglio, Ambassador artist of the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation.  

The second day the event took place in Yvoir, within the asylum Centre for migrants and started with a participative workshop on percussions for children led by the artist ambassador of the IYMF, Antonino Talamo. In the afternoon, a concert took place within the Centre and gather a large audience of residents and social workers. The musicians who participated in the concert were cellist Matthieu Saglio, percussionist Antonino Talamo and five young classical musicians from String for Talent, an association with whom we work for this special occasion.