Countering the pandemic with creativity:
New initiative of the German-Dutch Youth Office:
Getting an idea of the Corona pandemic: There have been plenty of opportunities for this in recent months.
But how do young people experience this time, which for them means, above all, the restriction of personal freedom and development? This is where the initiative of the German-Dutch Youth Office (DNJW) comes in.
Under the motto „Come Together – creative without borders“, young people aged 13 to 21 from Germany and the Netherlands are called upon to report on their everyday lives in times of the Corona pandemic and on what gives them pleasure or worries. A special incentive and pragmatic support was the possibility to exchange ideas (digitally) during the creative phase with two professional artists (digitally) during the creative phase. In this way, personal wishes, dreams and visions, ideas for one’s own (professional) life, messages to politics and society, and expectations of Europe could have been creatively portrayed.
„The young people are completely free to choose their form of artistic expression: whether photography, video, painting, drawing, collage, poem, diary excerpt, short story, song or rap text: everything is welcome.
rap lyrics: everything is welcome. Our aim is to offer young people a creative outlet during the pandemic,“ said Jack Grooten, who is/was responsible for organizing the project on behalf of the DNJW.
The participatory campaign ended on July 16, 2021, and an online presentation of the results is available at www.dnjw.eu since August 24, 2021. A selection of the photo entries is exhibited in August 2021 at the Fotomuseum aan het vrijthof in Maastricht.
After their registration, participants received a small creative package for motivation and inspiration, equipped with a disposable photo camera, a blank diary, a USB stick and a number of tips and ideas for artistic and content implementation. The two artists Agnes Bläsen (Kerkrade) and Dirk Schulte (Aachen) are/were pleased to make their expertise available to the young people.
