ArtQuake is an Action 3 Networking project funded by the European Commission’s YOUTH Programme. It is a project entirely originated, organised and realised by young people between the ages of 16 and 25 years old and involves the collaboration between youth groups coming from three different European countries, which are: Italy, Lithuania and Malta.

The idea derived from an experience done in 2005 at local level by the italian group in collaboration with the Social Cooperative Meta Onlus in Rome and was called: “La nona nota” (the ninth note).
In January 2006, Davide, Clayton and Dovile met in a contact-making seminar in Paris promoted by the French National Agency with the aim to make different young people meet and propose different ideas to each other so as to come up with networking projects such as this one.

The three participants immediately agreed on creating a project and communication started to take place mainly through e-mail after the contact-making seminar in Paris. Together they came up with a project proposal and it was presented in April by the Italian group to their National Agency. The proposal for the project was approved and therefore…it was time to work!

Projects under Action 3 promote the active participation of young people and their collaboration is essential in their social and cultural life of their own respective countiries and thus Project ArtQuake aimed at promoting this in the artistic way.

There are many young people who have a passion for the arts be it music, theatre and dance; unfortunately it’s very hard for these young people to express themselves and make themselves known, or even to relate with other artistic youths.

By putting this focus as our starting point, we wanted to create a space for these young people from different countries to meet and get to know each other’s cultural and artistic diversities while providing the space to exhibit and express themselves.

The project consisted of various activities and seminars which took place in its initial phase (English language workshops, meetings with local artists, seminars on the opportunities which the EC offers for young people) and which will end with a Festival in Rome between the 10th and 11th April 2007 in the premises of the Circolo degli Artisti (The artists’ Guild). The Festival involved various bands from Rome but also various performances from Lithuania and Malta. In addition, a group from France and Spain was also introduced in this festival because a parallel youth exchange project was taking place for which it lasted 10 days and where 30 young people with diverse artistic experience have come up with a common performance which was presented during the festival.

For this festival to have been possible, it was required that these young people share their skills in order to organise, publicise, help in the technical areas as well in the artistic disciplines. All the performances of the festival (music, theatre and dance) were recorded...and hence this double CD was created. Such a CD shows the final product of all the work done which showcase the extent of preparation needed as well as narrate the passions and enthusiasm of these young people in order to put up such an experience. An experience composed from different countries with different languages and habits, all having their own stories and tastes, but an experience which talks about one universal language: art!