Project:  European Cultural Heritage Onstage

Description: ECHO is an international project in the field of arts, culture and heritage, that aims to enhance cultural production and reinforce the European sense of belonging by connecting contemporary artistic creation with Dark Cultural Heritage of local communities in Europe.Dark Heritage is connected to events that traumatise groups and determine their cultural identity. Such events concern societies, as physical and conceptual spaces related to war, genocide, mass killings, ethnic conflict, oppression, violence and death bear such moments in their heritage, tangible and intangible. Dealing with traumatic heritage may have therapeutic effects for locals and outsiders. War and conflict spaces exist around the whole Europe, thus dark heritage can be a starting dialogue point for artists and citizens.ECHO attempts to 1) tighten and promote the link between artistic creation and dark heritage, 2) enable contemporary artistic co-creation based on cultural elements from new, old and future EU member states and 3) capture original images of local communities as a cultural entirety and as part of the European cultural context.ECHO tries to benefit a) artists through cultural and artistic practices exchange and stimuli, b) art receivers by promoting audience development through creations that concentrate local communities’ dark heritage and arts from new, old and future EU states.The project will:-Promote local dark heritage through artistic co-creations aiming at enhancing a European sense of belonging-Facilitate cultural and artistic exchange between new, old and future EU member states ECHO as a pilot project includes 2 Art Residencies in Knin (Croatia) and Novi Sad (Serbia) of 4 visual artists each (8 artists in total), 4 Community Engagement Activities (2 in each local community) and an Arts Exhibition (AE) in Veliki Preslav Municipality (Bulgaria).