Is a collaboration between 3 members of Shared Spaces Network: Alkantara/Portugal, Exodos/Slovenia, KVS/Brussels focusing on collaboration in multidisciplinary creation of live arts between artists from Europe, Middle East ( Palestine) and Africa.

Basis
1 Space considers it essential for the development of both European and non European young artists to have deeper mutual insight in how creation processes are being developed and how art relates to life, and is deeply locally rooted, on both sides of this north-south frontier. Not to come to a uniform language, on the contrary. To get a deeper understanding of how knowledge of the Other is essential for an understanding of your own identity.

There is also another challenge involved here, related to (post)colonial or post (orientalist) concepts of contemporary art. To put it bluntly: the West conceives itself as contemporary whereas South and the Middle East are perceived as traditional. Therefore it seems that artists from south-south axis have had to gain their 'contemporaneity' with specific effort, related to the power relations they had to fight, within their own context and cultures, and vis-à-vis a Western dominated concept of (post)modernity. That whole negotiation is for all involved, institutions as well as artists, at the basis of this project.

On the other hand, we should not overemphasize 'otherness'; the artists involved are mainly autodidact, young, but have been 'outside' either for training or workshop, studying or touring, and have been noticed for their potential rather than their impressive cv's. Some remarks: 'young' is relative, especially in places where no formal art education is available. This is the case for performing arts in Palestine. In most African countries where there is formal arts education, the curriculum is a reproduction machine of colonial arts concepts (definitely the case in Congo). As a result artists have to find their own ways of learning (often through the internet). They also need to support their families, work during daytime, practice or rehearse deep into the night. In places where being an artist is just not perceived by society and/or family as a possible career, potential tends to take time to come forward. How do you find/define makers in places with little opportunities? But also for the European participants, we might look at participants with less opportunities, from a migration or refugee background. This goes for Brussels and Lisbon, but is less relevant for Slovenia, where local artists run way if they get the chances elsewhere. For them this project could be a local perspective, on the contrary. Luckily within the Shared Spaces network, the organizations are all close enough to the artists and their local context to be able to distinguish and see the potential.

Aims
• sharing the knowledge, experiences, art visions, differences, capacity building among the young artists from different countries,
• to give them opportunity for equal possibilities even when the conditions in different continents are unequal, on all levels: financial, social and political.
• to give them one 1Space for longer cooperation, multicultural exchange and professional approach
• insight in diversity

Key words for the project
young artists, experts, mentors, sharing, collaboration, learning, performing arts, creativity, multidisciplinary, capacity building, cultural exchange, partners, audience awareness, networking, re-imagine and re-present, festivals, digital shift

Results
3 Lab in 3 different countries with 12 young performing arts artists and 1 digital artist
12 experts work with the young artists
1 project developing phase
3 mentors working with young artists during the productions phase
3 (co)productions with the artists from EU, Africa and Palestine
4 touring
4 expecting touring among other shared space partners (2017-2018)
+
1 web page with several tools for communication + archives, One space in global space
3 press conferences
3 meeting with local artists and audience
Spin off projects within the artists
Networking
Capacity building
Reflection