The Open Atelier Project - An example of Education as Tool for Innovation within Cultural Heritage

Author : Daniele Sepe

Abstract :Through a workshop-based approach built on interdisciplinary collaboration and co-creative processes, the Creative Europe project Open Atelier within the European Union has started to design, develop and test a set of innovative experiences based on cultural heritage. At the outset we started with the question: what will happen if we connect the stories of the past, their legacy, with another place, in another time, in another context and with another audience? Open Atelier is an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral network of four European House Museums, the Art Museums of Skagen in Denmark is lead, and here the project focus on the target group: young creative people. The aim has from the very start been to support the EU Youth Strategy, a strategy that encourage young people to engage and become active citizens involved in democracy and society. In one of our experiments in the project, the fundamental goal was to involve this specific target group – young people - since at Art Museums of Skagen this audience group is rather limited. Therefore, a group of young creatives from Northern Danmark, aged between 20 and 25, were invited for an experiment and were led through education in the exploration and reinterpretation of a museum collection of historic photos. This paper is about this experiment and its findings, highlighting innovative education and engagement by supporting the development of creativity among young peoplenthrough cultural heritage and by this increase their access to culture and creative tools.

Keywords :Cultural heritage, innovation, education, museums.

Conference Name :International Conference on Information and Education Innovations (ICIEI-25)

Conference Place Venice, Italy

Conference Date 4th Feb 2025