Image GenEU - ©Rebecca Lena

Arts and Social Responsibility



Generation Europe as a project consists of three residencies in each participating partner country over the course of three years

Generation Europe Mixed Reality Exchange 2020


From June 29th to July 16th, 30 young artists from Cologne (Germany), Florence (Italy) and Larissa (Greece) jointly worked on the themes of “proximity and distance” – “communication and isolation” – “physical and virtual encounter”. But not at the same place - because of COVID-19, this was the first international ROOTS & ROUTES exchange where the participating groups stayed in their respective countries and worked together via online communication. The main project result, a digital story in 3 chapters, is online now and can be viewed here:
http://stories.rrcgn.de/generation-europe-2020

On July 14th at 19:00 the exhibition with the project results opened at Alte Feuerwache Köln (Hall), it was on display for the whole day on July 15th.

Generation Europe – The Framework


Generation Europe is an international network of 30 youth work institutions from 15 countries promoting an active European civil society. Within this network, three organisations from the ROOTS & ROUTES network – SMouTh Larissa/Greece, CCC Florence/Italy and ROOTS & ROUTES Cologne – form a partnership focusing on arts and social responsibility. Our first Generation Europe youth exchange with the topic “No Waste!” took place from Nov 25th to Dec 6th, 2018, in Florence. The second exchange themed “Make use!” happened from June 21st to July 2nd, 2019, in Larissa. From June 29th to July 16th, 2020, Generation Europe came to Heek and Cologne – not as a physical international exchange, but as an online cooperation with young artists in Florence and Larissa, who worked in parallel residencies.

Videos from our Generation Europe Residencies 2018 and 2019:

By combining our actions at the location with activities on the European level, we develop and test new approaches of a shared European democracy education. In our network, young people are active together, irrespective of origin, parental income, and previous success in formal educational systems.

“Generation Europe – Young Democracy in Action” is a programme by the International Association for Education and Exchange (IBB e. V.) Dortmund, funded by the Ministry for Children, Family, Refugees and Integration of North Rhine–Westphalia, Erasmus+ Youth in Action, the BMFSFJ, Stiftung Mercator and others.

Additionally, the Generation Europe Mixed Reality Exchange 2020 was supported by the City of Cologne’s operating grant for RRCGN.

Related: News