As part of this project, various activities such as reading, writing, drawing, dance and music were offered to refugees and migrants aged between 3 and 20 living in the Red Cross hostel in Sanem. The project aimed to reduce the gap in reading and writing skills among children from a migrant background through an innovative method: family learning. It also aimed to encourage non-formal education, intercultural exchanges and creativity. Thanks to the expertise of the Social Impact Development Centre and the Association d’Artistes Pluriels asbl, 45 children and young people could benefit from these multidisciplinary activities once a week.

The “Ich habe etwas zu sagen” (I have something to say) project was a joint initiative between the Mierscher Kulturhaus and CooperationsArt Wiltz, an interdisciplinary and inclusive network of artists, some of whom have disabilities.
As part of CooperationsArt’s “Vis-à – Vis Reloaded” exhibition, the Mierscher Kulturhaus organised artistic and creative workshops for primary school classes. Around a hundred pupils had the opportunity to work with artists from the CooperationsART collective, creating paintings, drawings and texts together. The children responded freely and imaginatively to the works on display. They were able to talk openly with the artists, who showed them the different techniques, processes and methods they use.
This project allowed the children to experience inclusion through active participation, and to engage in something unknown while expressing themselves artistically. The works created by the child-artist pairs subsequently became part of the existing exhibition, and were presented at a vernissage at the Mierscher Kulturhaus attended by pupils, artists, teachers and parents.

“The biodiversity crisis and the disappearance of species – we have a problem!” This is the theme of the joint project by natur&ëmwelt and Independent Little Lies. Through open-air theatre workshops, co-directed by a theatre director and a nature educator, the two partners aim to raise awareness among children and young adults of a subject that concerns us all. Through the link between art and science, they hope to improve understanding of the biodiversity crisis in general, and in Luxembourg in particular. After a first series of workshops in 2022, a second is planned for the end of 2023, open to young people aged between 12 and 18.

This project is in line with the Institut Pierre Werner’s slam educational activities, in particular the 2021 Teen Poetry Slam project. Giving young people a voice and developing pupils’ confidence in using a language were the aims of the ‘A voix haute – Lautsprecher’ project.

In a series of slam workshops, young people aged between 14 and 18 were asked to write lyrically on the theme of “peace”, a subject chosen together before the project began. They were coached in writing and presenting their texts by professional slam poets Bas Böttcher and Florian Cieslik on the German side and Ozarm and Ayun on the French side.

Slam texts are made up of three equally important elements: idea, text and performance. In the workshops, the pupils learned techniques for finding ideas for their own literary texts, writing techniques and practical exercises for presenting them on stage. To bring the project to a close, some of them were able to present their creations at a public performance evening, where they had the chance to hear what the audience had to say. It’s an exercise that requires a lot of courage and self-confidence.

This project enabled 65 pupils from three primary schools and the BTS Animation course at the Lycée des Arts et Métiers to take part in the process of creating the music performance Nikki Ninja, which brings together the worlds of Luxembourg hip hop and jazz through the NICOOL Project (Nicole Bausch, Nadja Prange and Dennis Scholtes) and Pol Belardi & Afrobeathoven. The aim of the project was to raise awareness of hip hop far removed from the stereotypes that are sometimes associated with it (violence, misogyny), in order to offer the full expressive potential of this genre. In creative workshops run jointly by a drama teacher and the artists, pupils aged between 7 and 9 gave their opinions on the themes to be covered in the songs, learned how to record tracks and sounds, and also came up with their own suggestions for costumes. Confident in their relationship with the artists, the children even felt free to talk about their “little silly things”, which contributed to the show.

Through this project, 50 young people aged between 15 and 26, in vulnerable situations, were introduced to the “Self portrait experience (SPEX)” method, developed by the artist Cristina Nuñez. Through a series of workshops, the artist offers a practical tool for exploring the influence of digital culture on people’s identity. In contrast to the selfie, which tends to reflect a smoothed-out image of the individual, she is looking at the way in which we – and in this case young people in particular – can use technological tools such as cameras, smartphones and social networks to express our emotions and broaden our perception of ourselves and others without filters. The benefits for young people have been many: empowerment, increased self-esteem, creativity, self-knowledge and emotional management. A selection of the photographic material resulting from the workshops was presented in an exhibition at the University of Luxembourg, a permanent online exhibition and a publication.

“Seeing everyone’s photos hanging there in physical form really touched me and also made me think about the difference between seeing things online and on a screen and seeing them in physical form. It had a really big impact on me. This project has really given me the courage to adapt to my emotions and those of others without being afraid of them”. (participant)

www.artasexperience.org/virtual-show

Through this project, the Lycée Vauban offered its students the chance to meet professional dancers and experience an art form from which they may be somewhat distanced. The contemporary dance companies AWA – As We Are and Corps in Situ were on site for 6 months, carrying out a range of activities for students and teachers. During their creative residency, the artists opened the doors of the studio to attend rehearsals, take part in workshops and film their fellow students. While there were also classroom presentations on the subjects explored in their plays, the students were also able to attend professional performances outside the studio. The presence of the artists on a daily basis also allowed for informal but essential exchanges for the young people. Lastly, by bringing together several school disciplines – dance, video, art and film – the project helped to create a real teaching-artistic community, a fertile ground for future projects of this kind within the lycée.

Students of the Lycée des Arts et Métiers under the artistic direction of Joseph Tomassini and Jean Back.

This collaboration between Jean Back and the 2TPTI class (video and photography) at the Lycée des Arts et Métiers is based on the play “Bilder einer Ausstellung revisited”, which accompanies the new novel “l’Arc di Marianna” (Editions Guy Binsfeld) by Jean Back.
The author asked the students to create a visual interpretation of the texts he had written for Modest Mussorgsky’s famous piano cycle. The photographs created in this way are thus a further development of the historical pictures by Viktor Hartmann, which inspired the Russian composer. The very free literary interpretation of Mussorgsky’s work by Back is contrasted with the very personal view of the young people, who were able to get to know the diverse professional profiles and working worlds in the theatre through this project.

Giving young people a voice was the aim of the LAUTSPRECHER project of the Pierre Werner Institute.

In eight poetry slam workshops at the Lënster International School, the Sportlycée and the European School I, young people between the ages of 14 and 18 were challenged to lyrically deal with the theme of freedom in the Corona era. They were coached in writing and performing the texts by professional slam poets Bas Böttcher and Florian Cieslik.

Slam texts consist of three equally important elements: idea, text and performance. In the workshops, the students learned techniques for finding ideas for their own literary texts, writing techniques and practical exercises for stage presentation. The results were recorded and edited into a poetry film.

The project also includes a training course open to all interested teachers on the subject of “poetry slam”, certified by the Institut de formation et de l’éducation Nationale du Luxembourg.

Watch a short video clip of the project