Europe is changing – transport your ideas!
Europe is in crisis: financial crisis, economic crisis, euro crisis, refugee crisis. New borders are emerging all over the continent: Customs borders, barbed wire borders, intellectual borders. So it’s time to ask whether everything is still going according to plan. And that means those who will have to live with the results of this development in the future: the young people of Europe.
What if I can no longer travel the way I want to? What if I can no longer work where I want to? What if I can no longer love who I want? Do I need borders or do they just hold me back? Do I need Europe or just a safe home?
We would like to discuss these and other questions with young Europeans in a place that is perfect for an open exchange of opinions: Euro Paletopia. By this we mean a practical construction kit made from euro pallets, which we will be touring Europe on a lorry in 2018 and which will give young people the opportunity to discuss the future of Europe and nation states wherever it is used.
And that is what has happened so far:
From 1 to 4 August, a team of young people from Berlin worked with two artists to develop an initial spatial construction made of pallets.
From 5 to 7 August, around 30 young people and full-time staff from partner organisations from nine European countries came together to plan the euro paletopia project for 2017.
On the evening of 6 August, we invited Berliners to the Eurovision Catwalk.The guests created a wearable statement on the theme of Europe and then presented it on the catwalk.
All participants will use 2017 for bilateral projects and campaigns and for further planning of euro paletopia.
The construction workshop, conference and Eurovision Catwalk were supported by the Federal Agency for Civic Education and the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Science.