What is Arte Migrante ?
Arte Migrante was born in Bologna from an idea of Tommaso Carturan, a young Anthropology student, and other friends met in Bologna. It organizes weekly meetings that are open to everybody, aiming at promoting inclusion through art. The first meeting has been done on the 17th of October in 2012.
How did this activity begin ?
The meetings started in a spontaneous and simple ways, once a week in bars, pubs, migration centres etc.
Where do these meeting take place ?
In Bologna and Modena we have also laboratories for migrants open and with a free access to share knowledge, abilities and skills.
The group is active in 18 different Italian cities and in other 2 countries (Spain and Cyprus).
It is the same organisation but with local groups and it works as a NGO. Over the years the group has grown and nowadays we can find many dynamic groups all over Italy: Bologna, Modena, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Imola, Rimini, Pisa, Torino, Cuneo, Settimo Torinese, Alessandria, Alba, Como, Trento, Padova, Naples, Latina and Palermo. It is also present in Zaragoza in Spain and in Cyprus island.
Who are your target groups?
Arte Migrante organizes meetings that are open to everybody, in order to create inclusion through art: those who take part are students, migrants, homeless, workers and unemployed, youngsters and elders.
What is Arte Migrante's mission ?
The art is considered the way to foster social inclusion.
We are women and men with hope. We believe in sharing as an instrument for social redemption, as an instrument of peace in human relationships. Reception and listening are the guide of our actions, because only through the encounter with the other we can understand our reality and create the future. We are convinced that discrimination, power and money can not be the values that guide our world. We repudiate any form of violence, including indifference, and we think of dialogue as a true instrument of peace.
We are a community who wants to be an example and a starting point for a new way of life.
We give what we have in abundance: smiles, hugs and hope. We give importance to diversity of any kind, always renewable and inexhaustible energy sources for men.
Art is the throbbing heart of our being together, our manifest, our scream to life!
How do you finance your activities ?
We receive support from the donors and participate to local projects as well as International projects (Erasmus+).
How do you set up a meeting?
We find a meeting venue and everybody brings something to eat from home e.g. a typical dish from own country, who wants is free to share and show what they can do such as songs, dances etc.
How long does it take ?
An evening, meaning a couple of hours.
How many participants can be involved ideally?
The limit is related to the meeting venue.
What is the main short term and long term impact of the practice on the participants? (are these clearly identified?)
Short term is the engagement of local people with migrants. Long term goals are about dynamic group growing and nowadays present all over Italy. The projects go further than the usual weekly meeting and there are evenings in pubs and clubs, as well as in reception centres for asylum seekers and refugees and in shelters.
What are the main tangible results?
The activities consists in theater, dance, music, crafts and painting, English language, Italian language for foreigners, literacy, synergic vegetable garden, computer science and curriculum editing. The tangible results are about involving and including homeless, migrants, students, workers and unemployed. And this is why such an activity is so important and strong: people from a more steady and regular background will have the opportunity to get to know and share experiences and time with individuals of different cultures, who come from totally different social environments.
How are these results promoted/disseminated?
Thanks to the involvement and active participation of volunteers and local communities.
How can the practice be readapted?
The format is free and could be used by anyone is interested in by simply contacting the main organisation via the website and social networks.
Website : https://www.artemigrante.eu/en/indexen