Rucka Art Foundation and the Norway-based science center Vitenparken will seek creative solutions to today’s and future crises through critical discussions and contemporary art in the “Art+Food+Next Generation” project implemented with the support of EEA grants. Students aged 10 to 18 will be offered to participate in various face-to-face and online master classes led by an interdisciplinary team of professionals from Latvia and Norway, representing visual arts, environmental science, gastronomy and other fields. Helping the next generation to find solutions to overcome crises, alleviating anxiety and worries related to the uncertainty of the climate and geopolitical situation today, it will also promote the involvement of children and young people in art and cultural activities in the regions.
Online master classes, with the help of artificial intelligence, will visualize what the meals of the future might look like, discuss invasive species, which, just like aliens, inhabit foreign ecosystems, for example – the American crayfish found in the lakes and rivers of Latvia. Also, the participants will research together what people could eat and what products grow while living in space. During the summer in Cesis, Rucka Artist Residency will also host face-to-face workshops, in which young people will discuss and model the future through the prism of art and food for a week together with artists and cooks. 3D food sculptures will be created, food leftovers and oyster mushrooms will be processed into art, a game about invasive Signal crayfish will be created together, as well as an opportunity to taste everything prepared in the workshops.
Whereas, in autumn, students will have the opportunity to receive do-it-yourself art kits “Eat+Art”, in which the authors of the project will have compiled guidelines for individual art and culinary experiments. You can apply for them on the project website, and the kits will be sent to all regions of Latvia free of charge. At the end of the online and face-to-face activities of the project, an exhibition will be opened on July 16 in Cesis, where the art objects created by children and young people created during the workshops will be exhibited. In parallel, the cycle of short films “Next Generation+Climate+Future” will be made, which will explore ecological anxiety and uncertainty about the future in the environment of children and young people, which is planned to be published in the fall of 2023.
The project is implemented by Rucka Art Foundation, which was established in 2007 with the aim of attracting public attention to solving current environmental and social issues with the help of documentary cinema and photo projects, and the Vitenparken Science Park, which is located in the premises of the Norwegian Life Science university in Ås. Vitenparken is a non-profit organization whose main activities are seminars, workshops and hackathons on food production and technology.
The project “Art+Food+Next Generation” (Nr. EEZ/2022/2/23) has been realized with the support of the European Economic Area (EEA) Grants Financial Mechanism funding period 2014. – 2021. program “Local Development, Poverty Reduction, and Cultural Cooperation” open call “Support for the Creation of Professional Art and Cultural Products for Children and Youth”.
The project’s realization period is from 1 October 2023 until 30 November 2023. The project’s total eligible costs are 164,958.33 EUR. The project receives a 140,214.58 EUR grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway through the EEA Grants and a 24,743.75 EUR grant through national co-financing.
More information about the project: https://next.rucka.lv/en/
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