The main topic of this symposium 2, Acting on the Margins: Art as Social Sculpture 2 follows symposium Horizon2020 AMASS project: Acting on the Margins: Art as Social Sculpture 1. Four case studies dealing with artistic and pedagogical activities for marginalized and disadvantaged people will be presented.

Facts point toward transformative  forces that are, as yet, unnamed, but send out sinister signals within fields on the fringes of  institutional spaces. Economic and political discourse within  fine arts and education, resonate more than in established centers of power or  within major social groups. This trend is now accelerating unprecedentedly as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the transition to a new regime of communication and social practice. Social inequalities are already deepening and doubling due to social distance and unequal access to technology and education, which has been long highlighted by many critics based on analyses of economic and sociological data. In connection with the dynamics of transcultural, globalized and digitized social systems, both the paradigm of education and the epistemological field of fine arts, with which art education is in many respects linked, periodically change.

The main objective of the  AMASS project is to address a European-wide lack of synthesis around  the potential of the arts  to generate  alternative or unconventional solutions to societal challenges and policy development. Thus, the  aims will be to discover and analyse the underpinning structures that influence the functioning of arts in addressing societal challenges through arts-based RIA.. The challenges addressed by AMASS are geopolitically oriented: the future of work in creative, cultural and other sectors; radical ideologies and extremism; societal polarisation and stratification; lack of civil society participation; populism; migration.

Thus, this project will identify, explore, collate, evaluate and analyse existing and new innovative productions, experiments and case studies from the perspective and the physical positioning of those  European countries "on the margins". The AMASS team, which is located in Europe's culturally often underserved Northern, Southern, Western and Eastern region, consists of 8 countries (Finland /Lead/, Malta, Czech Republic, Portugal, Hungary, Italy, UK, Sweden). After finishing WP3, piloting a research model, in 2021 we continue with a larger amount of experiments to investigate the educational effects of the cognitive power of an integration model bridging the arts with humanities and science through participatory and multidisciplinary approaches.

Methodology and research methods:

Mixed methods within qualitative participatory research and arts-based research

Collecting data: Pre- and post-assessment surveys, focus groups, interviews, journals and PhotoVoice, visual and auditive archives, neonarratives, online curriculum structures, websites

Analysis: Using Atlas/ti software for qualitative analysis (Grounded Theory, Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

Ethics: Informed consent of all participants (probands), under the ethical councils of participants´ institutions

Research questions:

How to use transformative arts-based educational activities to strengthen skills and competencies of underserved communities?

How can arts education be used to foster cognitive and communication skills of marginalised youth?

How to create joint action and systematic change to apply transformative arts-based methods in resource deprived areas?

How can the artistic research generate alternative or unconventional solutions to current and emerging societal challenges?

How can socially engaged arts education ‘sculpt’ new, non-hierarchical power relations in deprived areas and provide a platform that highlights the richness of voices on the margins?

Findings:

Against this background, we will present four different manifestations  of the above-described issues in case studies from different countries. Examples will be taken from their socio-cultural situation and from different human situations showing possible solutions, but also asking new questions of artists, educators and students, as well as    of representatives of governmentality and leaders of relevant institutions.

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