Weaving Europe

Description

Weaving Europe, artefacts, values Exchanges

ZigZag – Textile, fibre and felt: it’s a Smart Child’s play! event

is the main output of Weaving Europe: Artefacts, Values & Exchanges – Cycles of cultural events and ateliers to discover Culture and Art through Textiles and Fibre Artefacts in Europe project.. A project with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union

for 3-12 years old children, families, schools, teachers, museums operators, University researchers and students, designers, fibre & textile artists to promote the cultural heritage through an innovative and not formal approach, learning by playing, hands-on activities and art performances. WEAVE main aim is to offer 3 free events (September – October 2014) about textile art in The Netherlands, Bulgaria and Italy: “ZigZag – Textile, fibre and felt: it’s a Smart Child’s play!”

Partners: Explora (Italia) as coordinator, Waag Society (Paesi Bassi), Associazione Art Land (Bulgaria). 7 European institutions as Associated Partners: Imaginosity Dublin Children’s Museum, Museum of Macedonia, Istanbul Toy Museum, Associazione Le Arti Tessili, Hands on! International, Sofia University St. Kl. Ohridski, Sapienza Università.

Why textiles?  The ZigZag events want to stimulate children, their families and teachers to learn more about the art of textile. Besides its industrial function, textile play an important role in preserving cultural and social heritage and expresses three geographical areas through their different lifestyle, history, traditions, values and symbols. ZigZag wants to better inform about cultural heritage, textile arts, engineering and manufacturing of smart textiles, in order to fill a gap in the educational field about this artistic topic.

What we do? ZigZag is a brand for three European cultural free-access events in Amsterdam, Sofia and Rome: children, families and schools playfully discovered textile and fibre art and the cultural heritage from a European perspective.

Children and adults with international artists and educators from 6 European museums took part in the creation of 3 collective textile artworks and to the workshops. Key elements the project are the training workshops with teaching packs for teachers, 12 videotutorials, 3 press conferences, a good practice guide and a photo exhibition in which the whole experience of the project is shown to public. Artists and museum operators cooperate and exchange expertise and experiences to give children, schools and families strong awareness and sensations about textiles and fibre art, its history, its features and traditions.Weave offers a field-training opportunity to university students in The Netherlands, Bulgaria and Italy through the creation of 3 local groups which creatively cooperated with the local artists to organize the final event in each city. In preparation of the final events children and adults took part to co-creation activities and focus groups with museum operators and artists to give inputs, ideas and advices about textiles and their awareness of the topic: in this way ZigZag events matched the needs, knowledge and values of all the participants in Europe.