On Mobilisation

ON MOBILISATION focuses on community mobilisation through artistic processes. This bottom-up project co-funded by the European Union, takes an active role in an international solidarity and emancipatory movement. It aims to bring together and to engage individuals for favouring forms of social justice and equality. In order to effectively address the concept of micro-community mobilisation the project embraces local specificities of the four partner organisations: wpZimmer, Baltic Art Center, Studio ALTA and Lavanderia a Vapore. They are mobilised by adopting radical forms of cultural participation facilitated by six international artists: Kalle Brolin, Elisabetta Consonni, Daniele Ninarello, Ahilan Ratnamohan, Marika Smreková and Danae Theodoridou.

The main objective of the ON MOBILISATION project is to respond to the need for transnational creation and circulation of knowledge and capacity building. It proposes a softly guided frame for participation, in a peer-to-peer dynamic, contributing to the ongoing demand for elementary equality, social fairness and empowerment. It creates an informal and inclusive model of learning within culture, stimulating exchange, activating citizens, developing audience and by that opening up a connection to other social spheres and domains that were inaccessible before.

Parent-Friendly Culture

As part of the ON MOBILISATION project, we at Studio ALTA are focusing on artistic research into ‘parent-friendly culture’ under the leadership of Marika Smreková. This research centres on the invisible labour of parents and their exclusion from social and cultural life. Over the coming months, we will be exploring strategies to make institutions more accessible to parents of young children. We will do this through a community of active people and self-organisation. We would like to develop a prototype approach for removing the barriers we create amongst ourselves.

“One way to encourage positive change in society is to involve people in active communities where creative, collaborative work takes place. Artists, together with the audience and the wider community, can engage in a creative dialogue that serves as a prototype for disrupting society’s hierarchical, patriarchal structures and its anthropocentric view of the world.” Marika Smreková

Parent-Friendly Culture brings together a group of people (both parents and non-parents) who want to lead a more active cultural and social life.

It observes that there are numerous barriers in society and culture that separate parents from non-parents, as if these worlds were never meant to meet. And cultural institutions often contribute to this through their programming. The Parent-Friendly approach offers a change: it brings together a group of people organised via a WhatsApp group or organises a regular programme aimed at adult audiences, which starts earlier in the day and offers free childcare.

The initiative comes from the artist and mother Marika Smreková and Studio ALTA.