A crisis of trust in Europe
There is a pressing need to rebuild trust and help citizens to reaffirm the meaning of co-construction on the European territory. 2015 migrants crisis, terrorist attacks, the rise of nationalism, climate change, covid19 crisis bring a lot of confusion and fears within the European societies. Our multicultural Europe is struggling to deal with cultural differences and is experiencing a crisis in trust.
How can we actually see the benefit of living together with strong cultural differences?
And more ironically, how to go deeper in the Other encounter than interest for food specialities or personal anecdotes?
How to create a common story that constitutes roots to make our intercultural future attractive?
Common trust must be reestablished at a grassroots level. This is precisely why youth exchanges are so important.
In 2019, 46% of Europeans said they tend not to trust the European Union.
Eurobarometer, 2019
In 2019, the most important issue facing the EU today was identified, by Europeans, as immigration
Eurobarometer, 2019
When young people come together to share their culture, language, and traditions with their European neighbours, a bond of empathy is created which can overcome limited perspectives. Things we do not know scare us. Knowing a person and their history inspires empathy.
Youth exchanges create a common solidarity and cultural fluidity among future generations. And most importantly, when young Europeans create altogether in collaboration, by sharing their stories, personal experiences, cultures and worldviews, they create very concrete common and shared narratives which builds new trust and reinvents relations between Europeans.
Art and theatre techniques give a fantastic space to actually experience common. The creation process at stake needs collective inspiration, collaboration, co-construction. Using the unique possibilities of theatre to tell shared stories, the idea is to apply it to young citizens living in Europe to make them co-write their own.
The question is: what story do we want to tell together?
Trust Tour project gathers 4 artistic companies from France, Portugal, Italy and Germany. These partners have been coordinating 4 previous youth exchanges tackling similar questions in the past few years (2016-2019). They have seen first-hand the benefits gained when young people create meaningful productions together while writing and adjusting their ever-changing European identity.
Such exchanges provided a space to question intra and extra-European migration and to build bonds of trust between Europeans from diverse backgrounds. Trust Tour will build on these previous experiences to develop methodologies to create intercultural artistic workshops that question trust and new European narratives.