The Project / DESCRIPTION

Since 2009, Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB) and Barcelona Education Consortium (CEB) have promoted Artists IN RESIDENCE at the schools of Barcelona, a pioneering programme in our country aimed at bringing contemporary art to state secondary schools through direct, continuous contact between an artist and pupils. Under IN RESIDENCE, then, an initiative developed in cooperation with the association A Bao A Qu, artists are invited to conceive a work that they will the produce together with a group of ESO compulsory secondary education pupils. Over the academic year, as part of the school timetable, these pupils take part in the conception and creation of the work.

The artists play the role of the authors at the school, creating their own works, whilst dissemination is carried out through participation, discussion and direct contact with the work and the artist. Thought and analysis are also very important aspects of the learning process, and blogs are created in order to channel and share such activities.
The project pursues a three-fold objective through this direct contact between art and education:

• To encourage pupils to discover their own processes of contemporary creation through constant contact and discussion with an artist, and to think about art through their own personal experience.
   
• To promote and generate situations and contexts that stimulate artistic innovation and creativity.
   
• To help to transform schools into places that actively encourage culture, art and thought, into centres that host creativity and spaces for artistic experimentation and innovation.

The success of this experience, both for the artists and the teachers and pupils, has enabled the programme to become consolidated as a key initiative in the city for establishing links between contemporary art and teenagers, and has generated new forms and contexts for creativity.