The development project "Youth, Art and Sustainability - UKB" has as its main objective to test new methods and ways of working with sustainable education and the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals in secondary schools through work with aesthetic learning processes and artistic forms of expression. The project has three aims:
- To give the young participants from Iceland and Denmark a personal experience of being part of a globalised world, yet having a common Nordic identity, through exchange and cooperation
- To develop a model for working with sustainable education and the 17 UN SDGs using aesthetic learning processes and artistic expression to motivate young people to engage and express themselves artistically around key global challenges
- To support the establishment of a "Nordic Youth Network for Art and Sustainability" to help young people engage a wider group of young people from other Nordic countries around sustainability and the opportunities artistic expression offers them to communicate a message about global climate challenges
With a reflective and curious approach to the world and using the central question "why?" from the discipline of art analysis, we will explore possibilities for artistic expression around an important global issue through artistic forms of expression such as in film, drama, music or visual art. We will experiment with how we can work with artistic processes and forms of expression to open young people's curiosity and provide them with a language or means of expression around the theme of sustainability. We will work with a local as well as a global perspective, e.g. by exploring differences and similarities around sustainable development in Denmark/Skive and Iceland/Reykjavik.
Teachers and other professionals from external learning environments are an important group of professionals around young people's educational processes. In order to develop a model for working with sustainable education and the UN's 17 SDGs through artistic processes and forms of expression, it is essential to also involve and develop the skills of teachers and young artists together. By providing a framework in which teachers and artists facilitate a space for wonder, experimentation and learning, young people acquire knowledge and skills by transforming impressions into artistic and aesthetic expressions that carry a message of sustainable development and the 17 SDGs.
Young people have a central role in the implementation of the project. We see it as an important learning that the young people will be responsible for important pieces of the project under the guidance of their teachers, such as the organisation of the visits for the foreign young people, the selection of the artists, the organisation of the openings, the PR work and an active co-creation and participation in the continuous evaluation of the project.
