Youth exchange and exhibition | Austria, France, Georgia and Ukraine | Photography, graphic arts | September 2011 | Villeneuve d’Ascq (59)
During 10 days, 25 participants from Austria, France, Georgia and Ukraine shared their daily life in an ecological farm at the periphery of the big city of Lille. The aim was to exchange together on the topic of the nature in the city and to work on the creation of a street exhibition, presented on the 3rd of September at the front of the City hall of Villeneuve d’Ascq (suburb of Lille).
Arrived on the 26th of August, the first step was to prepare the living place: building tents, setting their stuff, organizing the collective life and agreeing on rules to respect and on a planning for the different tasks to do during all the exchange. On the evening, Georgian group cooked a nice barbecue tasting like exotic food for all of us.
On Saturday, once those logistic stuffs were done, it was time to build up the team with small games and to check individual and collective expectations. On the afternoon, the all group get a small training to photograph: framing, composition, shots, dynamism and how to give deep sense to photographs etc… and went to practice to the park surrounding the farm.
On the evening, Ukrainian team organized a nice traditional meal, waryniki, and prepared a national evening opened to the local community. This allowed around ten people from local community and all the Youth Exchange participants to discover a bit more Ukraine thanks to folk and cultural animations, traditional clothes, videos, small games and food tasting.
On Sunday, participants went to Lille to the one of the biggest market of France, ‘Marché de Wazemmes’, in order to make participants aware of the short circuit of goods. It was also an occasion for them to discover the multicultural dimension of France. On the way back to the farm, they stepped to the Contemporary Art museum of Villeneuve d’Ascq and discovered this renewed amazing art collection in order to stimulate their creativity.
On the evening, Georgian prepared their national evening opened to local community. Once again, it was a successful initiative with traditional clothes, nice videos, food tasting and small artisanal objects from their country.
On Monday started the core of the project, after small energizers and ice-breaking games, the debate was open: For what you can thank your country for protecting environment and what more can be done? It was really interesting to see differences between the four countries. As we could imagine, Austrian was the most advanced country for the protection of environment but it was interesting to discover the new and original steps taken by Georgia and Ukraine to fight against pollution. It was also interesting to share decisions of our countries, especially France towards nuclear energy. The workshop by team started on the afternoon, every team agreed on what and how they wanted to prepare their part of the exhibition (photography, video and manual activities).
After eating Georgian meal, we prepared for them a nice closed French evening as a journey through French history starting from the French revolution and ending in our typical Bistrot from the North of France, stepping to Moulin Rouge, mine coal time and May 1968.
On Tuesday morning, team worked again on the exhibition. On the afternoon, animator from the farm organized for us a nice orientating course through the lake on the topic of pollination. Thanks to different small enigmas, participants had to find clues and objects related to the process of pollination. The ending point was an archaeological museum and they enjoyed a guided tour.
Getting back to the farm, it was time to start preparing the French meal, crêpes and the Austrian evening. Austrian evening was also the opportunity to discover traditions, history and tastes and see differences and common points with each participant’s countries.
On Wednesday, after one working morning, participants could enjoy a nice afternoon and tried the magic balls (transparent plastic balls into which we enter and with which we can walk on the water). As the exhibition was coming soon, some of them start again working on the photographs, video and manual creations. The evening was dedicated to Europe and small games were prepared by the leaders’ teams.
On Thursday, we worked hard to finish the exhibition. We went for that in the city center to take the last pictures and videos missing. Getting back to the farm, it was time to work on it, select the final photographs that had been taken and agree on the order to exhibit it, make the final video editing and changing sound, and creating decorations. As it was much work, we kept on working during the evening after having enjoyed a tasty Austrian meal.
On Friday, participants left early to go to visit the nice Belgium city of Tournai… Getting back to the farm, it was time to finalize the exhibition: preparing the photographs, the final videos and manual creations and packing everything to be ready for the next day morning.
Saturday was the big ending day. We arrived at 11 o’clock in the city center and started to set up everything. After one hour of work, our exhibition was done and we could finally see and appreciate the huge work that has been done during all those days of working. Then, we start to explain our project to people steeping to the square, foreign participants could share a bit about their country and time in France, and we could give some information about the European Program for Youth in Action.
Unfortunately, a storm was planned for the end of the afternoon. Thus, we had to pack everything quite early. This was not as bad as announced and participants could go to Lille city center and enjoy the big event Braderie de Lille. Going back earlier to the farm because of the rain, we had a nice ending party in a storm mood!
Sunday was the departure day and on the morning, the participants left and we stayed between French group a bit sad and tipsy thanks to this amazing and fast week we spent all together.