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Alternative Education & Community-Based Artistic Approaches

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Alternative Education & Community-Based Artistic Approaches

Three days of self-learning and shared practices for artists, curators, cultural workers and educators

14-16 February 2026

Villa Davia, Borgo di Colle Ameno, Sasso Marconi (BO)

 

an initiative curated by Parsec APSin collaboration with Miško Uostas (LT), Spazio Relativo and the Municipality of Sasso Marconi 

as part of the European Erasmus+ project Creative Landscapes

 

Alternative Education & Community-Based Artistic Approaches is the first public event of Creative Landscapes, a European Erasmus+ project exploring the role of art and education as tools to activate territories, communities and transforming landscapes. The project unfolds through a programme of artistic residencies, two training initiatives aimed at cultural workers, and a series of activities involving local communities.

 

Creative Landscapes develops across two contexts: Sasso Marconi, in the Bolognese Apennines, and Švenčionėliai, a small forest town in north-eastern Lithuania. Although geographically distant, both places share a deep connection to the land and a desire to connect cultural regeneration with environmental awareness.

 

The three days are not conceived as a frontal training programme, but as a space for self-learning and horizontal exchange, where educational models, roles and methodologies can be collectively deconstructed by sharing practices, tools and experiences. The goal is not only to transmit skills, but above all to create the conditions to learn together through listening, dialogue and shared work.

 

The initiative is addressed to those working in decentralised contexts as well as in urban or institutional settings, and to anyone who wishes to adopt or strengthen an ecological, situated and community-based approach within their artistic, curatorial, educational or cultural practice. 

 

An open invitation to all who feel the need to rethink the way they work in relation to territories and communities.

PROGRAMME

  • Saturday 14 February – Alternative Education Models 

The first day is dedicated to exploring alternative education models, self-learning practices and non-institutional learning tools. Through dialogue with experiences operating outside or on the margins of traditional educational systems, the day invites participants to question the roles, formats and methodologies of cultural education, sharing situated practices and tools that can be adapted and reused.

The morning opens with a roundtable featuring the Scuola di Ecologia Politica in Montagna. The Scuola di Ecologia Politica in Montagna is a training and discussion programme created to read the ecological crisis through its social, economic and cultural dimensions, also questioning the power structures that shape it. Active since 2020 in Castiglione dei Pepoli, in the Emilia Apennines, it promotes a decentralised perspective from the highlands to rethink the relationship between territories and communities.

Throughout the day, four workshops take place, inspired by open-source toolkits and publications developed by artists, researchers, and collectives, proposing replicable, situated, and non-hierarchical knowledge-production practices. Overall, the day offers a shared experimental framework to imagine and practice alternative forms of learning grounded in collaboration, critical awareness, and collective transformation.

Choose the workshop that interests you most and experiment together with the group on new practices and replicable tools!

Collective Lucid Imagining: a laboratory for experiencing a different way of learning and producing knowledge, without predefined content, objectives, or projects. Through collective imagination, listening (to rhythm, atmosphere, and tension), and the body as a tool for perception and transformation, participants enter an open narrative process to navigate change, chaos, and deviation, cultivating collective lucidity through creative disorder.

Allo-Auto Process: a workshop that experiments with autotheory as a situated method for cultural work and community-based practices. Through three core movements (positioning, shifting, and negotiating) participants explore care, collectivity, and responsibility in non-hierarchical contexts, using radical honesty to critically reflect on the extractive potential of collective practices.

Living Agenda: a workshop exploring the concept of a Living Agenda as a dynamic approach to collective work that resists the pressure of efficiency. Participants test a mini Living Agenda in real time through rituals such as the Talking Stone circle and Body Breakaways, fostering deep listening, presence, and co-creation, and develop a replicable ritual structure for their own cultural contexts.

Toolkit for Collective Reflection and Unlearning: a workshop activating exercises for collective reflection and (un)learning toward the decolonization of knowledge production. Through shared codes of practice, positionality exercises, and reflections on language and authority, participants make visible normalized hierarchies and exclusions, experimenting with concrete, replicable tools for more situated and accessible practices.

  • Sunday 15 February – Community-Based Artistic Approaches 

The second day focuses on community-based artistic practices, co-design processes with territories and long-term relationships between art and communities. The day explores how artistic practices can become tools for social activation, trust-building and the production of shared knowledge. 

The morning opens with a roundtable featuring Adelita Husni-Bey, an artist who has long worked with participatory practices and collective processes, and Habitattt.

Adelita Husni-Bey is an Italian-Libyan artist and educator whose work intertwines participatory practices, research and experimental educational formats, questioning the mechanisms of political and economic power that shape contemporary society.

Habitattt is a cultural project and participatory platform working between art and territory, promoting practices of dwelling and collective storytelling in rural contexts, with a particular focus on the Tuscan Romagna area. Through residencies, workshops and public moments, habitattt builds a living archive of experiences, memories and local imaginaries.

Throughout the day, a series of thematic workshops will take shape: program explores community-based artistic approaches as situated practices capable of generating relationships, activating contexts, and building temporary forms of community. The workshops draw inspiration from projects and methodologies developed by contemporary artists and collectives, translating them into workshop formats and replicable exercises. Through practical and creative activities, participants will question established notions of authorship, impact, and value, exploring art as a device for collective imagination, shared action, and mutual responsibility. The day’s schedule offers an experiential framework that approaches artistic practices as tools to imagine, activate, and experiment with new forms of collaboration, learning, and community-building.

Choose the workshop that interests you most and experiment together with the group on new practices and replicable tools!

Arte Útil Lexicon of Usership: a workshop focused on the language and criteria of Arte Útil as a framework for artistic practices oriented toward social change and collective processes.

Micro Soil Kitchen: a participatory format inspired by convivial exchange, using soil as an entry point to reflect on ecology, relationships, and territory.

Gelatineria: a laboratory of sensory and material practices intertwining art, science, and feminist new materialisms, where experimentation is understood as a collective and situated practice.

Group Material-Site-Specific Collective Display:  a workshop centered on collective assemblage and relational display, using place, materials, and memories to build a shared and political narrative.

  • Monday 16 February – Closing session and meeting with the Apennine community

The final day is conceived as a moment of translation and opening: moving from the reflections that emerged during the days of self-learning towards a concrete dialogue with the territory. The goal is to share practices, questions and visions, and to co-imagine together with the local community the possible developments of the public programme of the Creative Landscapes artistic residency.

Download the PDF with the full three-day program and register for the workshops via the form. If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact us by email!

Hotels & Convenient Accommodations in (and near) Sasso Marconi

How can I get to Colle Ameno?

Can I register for the speed date?

Yes. Registration for the speed date will be available during the lunch break each day.

Can I participate in more than one workshop at the same time?

Is it possible not to take part in any workshop?

Is it mandatory to attend all three days?

Hotel & sistemazioni comode a (e nei dintorni di) Sasso Marconi

Come posso raggiungere Colle Ameno?

Posso partecipare a più di un workshop contemporaneamente?

No. È possibile scegliere un solo workshop.

In alternativa, puoi decidere di non partecipare ad alcun workshop e prendere parte all’evento in generale. Non è possibile partecipare a più workshop nello stesso momento.

È possibile non partecipare ai workshop?

È obbligatorio partecipare a tutti e tre i giorni?