ABOUT
The project will try to build an imaginary bridge to connect two schools (Tallinna Saksa Gümnaasium and Deutsche Schule Lissabon) and two different cultures and societies (Estonia and Portugal) on the other side of Europe, with the aim to understand how different or similar we are. This connection will be made through the means of art, which is a powerful, effective, efficient and creative way to describe our mutual values and differences. The main objectives of this project are the workshops dealing with art, digital tools and creative assignments between the students from Tallinn and Lisbon. The students, who will be selected for participating in the project are in the age of 16-18 years.
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Portugal and Lisbon will commit the vibrant culture and renowned street art scenes to this project, Estonia and Tallinn, in turn, new innovations and extensive use of digital tools in everyday life. This is the ideal combination to build an imaginary bridge of shared values, tolerance, innovation and creativity between the two. This connection will be visualized by means of art, which is a powerful, effective and creative way to describe and share our mutual values and understandings.
PROJECT PARTNERS
Tallinna Saksa Gümnaasium is a municipality high-school in Tallinn, capital of Estonia. There are approx. 1000 students and 80 teachers. Our school is unique for its German Department (DPS - Deutsch Profil Schule) and focuses on social subjects and languages. These students, who finish the school in the German Department, get both the Estonian and the German Diplomas, a really unique opportunity in Estonia and the Baltic States. Tallinna Saksa Gümnaasium is really investing a lot of time in teachers’ training in the field of digital innovation in recent years. School is participating in the project of Future Classroom Lab (http://fcl.eun.org/) and in Citizen Science Classroom + Project, both dealing with digital and educational innovations. Every year many different international delegations (teachers, educators and politicians, mostly from German-speaking nations) come to the school to learn from our experience and see how digital tools can be a part of the curriculum. We really appreciate the possibility to exchange experiences and cooperation with partners from the other side of Europe. The previous projects have had the full support of the school management and every time there's an artwork which stays in the participating in school to inspire others. This project will be led by the school´s art department by art teachers Erik Joasaare and Carol Pahk.
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The German School of Lisbon (Deutsche Schule Lissabon/Escola Alemã de Lisboa) is an officially accredited international German school founded in 1848. It has approx. 1100 students and around 130 teachers and pedagogical assistants in three departments, Kindergarten, Elementary School and High School, across two campuses, Lisbon and Estoril. As an international German School with students from over 30 nationalities, the school sees itself as a place of intercultural exchange and promotion of the ideals of tolerance, diversity and mutual respect. The school is a twice-recipient of the prestigious „Exzellente Deutsche Auslandsschule“ (Outstanding German international school) distinction, awarded after an extremely thorough review of school practices and results and several inspections. It has recently also been distinguished as a „MINT-freundliche Schule“ (STEM-friendly school) for its activities and projects in this area and as a „Digitale Schule“ (digital school) for its growing use of technologies and other activities in the digital realm, including extracurricular activities and international competitions. Our Kindergarten has been hosting interns funded through the Erasmus Plus programme for several years now, either from schools affiliated with the programme or through individual applications. This project will be led by the school art department by art teachers, Alicia Fuster and Anna Malessa, with Stefanie Santos as an accompanying teacher.
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2019 LISBON
Street-Art project in Lisbon and Porto
From 30. September to 4. October the first mobility (C1) of the Erasmus+ project „Art Bridge Between Tallinn and Lisbon“ was organized and executed in Lisbon and Porto. This mobility focused on street art and the main objective was to organize and to prepare a tape-art (art form of street art) exhibition in the public rooms of Goethe Institut in Lisbon. Extensive preliminary work was done in both schools before the mobility, to create the ideas and to communicate with each other. Other activities included different workshops in art museums, exhibition spaces, etc. in Lisbon and Porto (Banksy exhibition in Cordaria National in Lisbon, Underdog Gallery in Lisbon, Olafur Eliasson exhibition in The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, etc.) and on-site tours and visits of different street-art sites in Lisbon and Porto organized by the Portuguese partner.
From 02. October - 15. November a tape art exhibition was opened for the public in Goethe Institut in Lisbon. This exhibition was prepared and executed in collaboration between high school students from Portugal (Deutsche Schule Lissabon) and Estonia (Tallinna Saksa Gümnaasium) co-funded by the Erasmus+ project. This Erasmus+ mobility was organized and prepared by the Portuguese project manager in the Deutsche Schule Lissabon, Alicia Fuster, with the help of the Estonian project manager Erik Joasaare. The preliminary work was executed in both schools separately, with the help of communication via long and countless Emails, ETwinning, Whatsapp, Facebook, etc. From both schools, 10 students from class 10 (16-17 years) took part in the Erasmus+ Project activities.
The theme of this exhibition was “The Wall”, which is a homage to the events leading back 30 years. The Fall of the Berlin Wall (9. November 1989), the Baltic Way (23. August 1989) and eventually the events which lead to the Fall of Soviet Union. It also expresses the reunion of Europe as a whole, embraced by the ideas of freedom of speech, expression, and information. The 8 tape-art artworks by the students want to present a positive approach to these subjects through artistic symbols and motifs from the past.
The opening of the exhibition on 2. October was witnessed by at least 100 people - co-students and -teachers from Deutsche Schule Lissabon, parents, friends, people from the German and Estonian embassy and other guests. With opening words from project managers from both schools, representatives from Goethe Institut in Lisbon and German Embassy, big applause for the 20 students opened the exhibition, which will be open to the public until 15. November. The collaboration between the two schools has been going on for 3 years and will continue with new projects in Tallinn in February 2020.
How did the participation in this activity benefit the involved participants?
10 students from both schools were involved in the activities of the first mobility. Through different workshops, they practiced International teamwork and created artistic ideas and realizations in the form of tape art, a medium unknown to them before.
A big part of preliminary work was done in both schools, where students could improve their cognitive skills of critical thinking and problem solving by creating the ideas for the exhibition. A well-executed and positive international teamwork characterized the whole planning and realization of the tape-art exhibition. All the works were done in collaboration between the Estonian and Portuguese students.
A great improvement of their knowledge of contemporary art and street art was concluded through different art workshops in museums, exhibition spaces and on-site. A very positive written feedback was given at the end of the Project.
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Thank you
We thank Susanne Sporrer, Beata Weber and Adriana Martins from the Goethe Institute in Lisbon, Teresa Salgueiro Lenze, Alicia Fuster, Stefanie Michalke Santos from the Deutsche Schule Lissabon and the German and Estonian Embassy in Lisbon.
The mobility was co-financed by the European Union's Erasmus + program.
Video summary from the first mobility in Lisbon and Porto
2020 TALLINN
Summary
From February 3rd to 7th, 2020, the second mobility of the Erasmus+ project "Art Bridge between Tallinn and Lisbon" between Tallinna Saksa Gümnaasium and Deutsche Schule Lissabon took place in Tallinn and Helsinki and this time focused on short films and architecture. Nine 10th graders from both schools took part in the project.
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The first part of the project took place at the Tallinna Saksa Gümnaasium and focused on one-minute long short films. Various film workshops were held for the students and the concept of the one-minute films that they had to realize themselves was explained in more detail. On the first day, the students learned how to write stories and how to pitch them to others. International groups were formed. The pupils were able to develop the ideas of the short films themselves and concentrated mainly on mutual respect and perception, social media dependency, friendship, etc. - on topics that appeal to and concern young people. Also, an inspirational guided tour to the Fotografiska gallery in Telliskivi was made. The photography exhibitions included photos from Mandy Barker, James Nachtwey and Vincent Peters. On the second day, the students completed a film editing workshop based on the free software Davinci Resolve, which was carried out by Tiina Kasuk, the digital education tutor from the Technical University of Tallinn. The filming of the one-minute films began on this day. The newly renovated school rooms of the Tallinn German Gymnasium and its unique architecture served as the filming location and offered the students various options. On the third day, the most time-consuming and complicated part of the short films took place - the editing of the films, if necessary, additional filmings were made. The last groups finished their films only ten minutes before the premiere. The day ended with a film screening in the school auditorium, to which over 100 people had gathered - pupils, teachers, parents and guests from Germany and the Goethe Institute. The short films were cheered by the audience, followed by a reception and free discussion in the lobby.
The second part of the project took part on Thursday and Friday in Helsinki and focused on architecture and design. A guided tour of famous architectural examples in Helsinki was done by the project manager Erik Joasaare. Different buildings were visited and experienced (e.g. Temppeliaukkiokirkko, Allas, Kamppi chapel, Oodi Central Library, Kiasma, Amos Rex, etc.). In the Helsinki Design Museum, a complimentary guided tour was conducted by the museum guide Kirsi Arppo, who explained the field of design and designer in case of Finnish design. After the tour, a workshop took part, where students had to design a sneaker for the future. They could draw their ideas or mould them physically using gley. After that, they had to present their ideas to each other and tutors with lots of interesting discussions. The trip to Helsinki was exciting and educational and made our group grow even closer.
How did the participation in this activity benefit the involved participants?
The students had an intense week of international teamwork and socializing with people from another culture, which improved their language skills, as all the assignments focused on presenting the ideas to the others. This mobility focused on making short films and about architecture and design, during which the students could boost their critical thinking and their creativity as well as their problem-solving skills and abstract thinking in those fields. During the filmmaking process, the students learned about short film history and about film making process like writing the story, storyboarding and pitching the ideas, pre-production, directing and producing, camera and lighting, post-production and editing, etc. A comprehensive film editing workshop with freeware film editing software DaVinci Resolve was done by the digital educational tutor in Technical University Tallinn Tiina Kasuk. All the final short films were edited using this software. The results were appreciated by the audience who came to see the screening, where the students again could express their ideas and explain the background of their stories. In Helsinki the students gained knowledge about modern architecture, by expressing their experience with each other and the tutors. In the Finnish Design Museum workshop the students had a problem-solving task to design a sneaker for the future, where they mostly were concerned about climate change and presented their eco-firendly ideas to the others.
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Thank you
We thank Tiina Kasuk from Taltech University, who helped us with the short film workshop.
We also thank Kirsi Arppo from Helsinki Design Museum, who led the interesting museum workshop.
The mobility was co-financed by the European Union's Erasmus + program.
Student short films from 2020
Paperplane
Poison
Trance
Leave tonight
2021 LISBON
Summary
After extending the project for one year because of COVID restrictions, finally, the third mobility (C3) could take place in Lisbon from October 16 (Sunday, October 17 excluded) to October 21. This mobility focused mainly on photography and street art; some changes had to be made in the program because of the COVID restrictions in Deutsche Schule Lissabon. On October 16, participation from the #ErasmusDays 2021 was also planned to celebrate our Erasmus project and share common European values through art.
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The project was divided into two parts. The first part dealt with street art and took place at German School in Lisbon on the 16th of October to celebrate the ErasmusDays. The plan was to decorate an old kiosk with street art. The students from both schools had to come up with ideas on how to represent the connection. Two street artists - Thiago Goms and Véronique Van Grieken held a workshop, where they introduced their work, techniques and helped the students to form their ideas into street art projects. The common theme and connection were made through swallows - birds who visit Estonia in the summer and Portugal in the winter. The redecorated kiosk made the schoolyard a colorful attraction.
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The second part was about photography. The students had the task of taking art photos on six different themes during our mobility. For inspiration, various workshops and exhibition visits were organized. In MAAT we visited an exhibition “Day” by famous artist Carsten Höller. Another day an exhibition "Luminous Matter" in the modern and contemporary Art Museum Museu Coleção Berardo was organized. Also, visits to inspirational art scenes (Panorâmico de Monsanto, LX Factory, Caçilhas, Sintra, etc.) in and around Lisbon were organized. On Wednesday, students participated in a photography workshop at Casa de Cerca Art Center, where principles of camera obscura were observed and practiced. All these ideas helped the students to gain knowledge about light and photography and produce artistic photos of our project, museum visits, people involved, and common values. These photos were printed out and prepared for an exhibition on October 21 at German School in Lisbon. A photo exhibition with around 60 pictures was realized on the walls and frames in the schoolyard. Because of the Covid restrictions at school, only a small vernissage was carried out for the headmaster, teachers, and students of the German School in Lisbon. In spite of the limited possibilities to show the results of the students' works physically, efforts were made to show the works virtually and include more people through means of social media. Students and teachers made numerous posts on different social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) which were followed by around 300-500 people every day. An online exhibition can be seen here: https://readymag.com/u1562946007/3188552/2/. An exhibition of the students' photos in Tallinna Saksa Gümnaasium was opened in the beginning of 2022.
How did the participation in this activity benefit the involved participants?
Eight students from both schools were involved in the activities of the third mobility. Through different group activities and workshops, international teamwork has been enhanced; students also improved their language skills in English and German, visualized their ideas in the form of street art and photography, etc.
Students improved their cognitive critical thinking and problem-solving skills by producing the ideas for redecorating the kiosk and the photo exhibition works. They learned to create stencils and to decorate a wall using spray cans. In the photographic workshops, they learned how to tell stories, visualize ideas through photos and draw using a camera obscura technique, etc. All the works were done in collaboration between the Estonian and Portuguese students.
Different art workshops in museums, exhibition spaces, and on-site helped students broaden their knowledge of contemporary art, photography, and street art. Students were involved in managing and creating social media posts on the school´s social networking sites, where posted videos and pictures were uploaded regularly. At the beginning and at the end of the trip, interviews were conducted with students, where they could share their ideas about mobility and the program. Very positive feedback was given by the students - mostly they mentioned the implementation of their ideas, improvement of language skills, openness to other people, an extension of their knowledge about art, participation in fun activities with other students, adaptation to different cultures, etc.
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Thank you
We thank project managers Anna Malessa and Stefanie Michalke Santos, headmaster Teresa Lenze and all the students from the Deutsche Schule Lissabon, who participated in the project activities.
We thank street artists Thiago Goms and Véronique Van Grieken, who helped with the street art workshop.
The mobility was co-financed by the European Union's Erasmus + program.
Exhibition photos about the photo-and street art project in Lisbon
Video summary from Lisbon 2021
2022 TALLINN
Summary
From 2.-6. May 2022 the last mobility of the Erasmus + project "Art Bridge between Tallinn and Lisbon" took place. This time the topic was the creation of a video installation in support of Ukraine, supervised by video artist Taavi Varm (varmstudio.com). The project involved 9 students from both schools (11th class) and the program took place in Tallinn and Helsinki.
The introductory lecture of the project took place already on 8th of April in the form of an online meeting, where the possibilities of video installation and video mapping were shown and the joint program was introduced under the guidance of video artist Taavi Varmi. The students were given a homework assignment to film various clips in Estonia and Portugal, which could be used later to make the installation.
The program was divided into two parts. The first part took place in Tallinn and focused on creating a video installation with Taavi Varm. The second part took us to Helsinki, where we participated in workshops in various museums and architectural observation practices.
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As the program was very dense, the very first day we started learning the programs and developing the concept of the installation very intensively. Video artist Taavi Varm explained the technology of video mapping and the possibilities of storytelling. During the workshop, we talked to sound artist Ville MJ Hyvönen (http://www.villehyvonen.fi/) from Helsinki, who showed us his work and gave us tips on the meaning of sound in video installations. Later, mixed groups were formed and students presented their ideas about the Ukrainian war and its impact. It was a small contribution from our team on how to support the Ukrainians and bring to the fore a subject that is difficult, sad but very necessary to talk about. The students wanted to show the unity of Europe in supporting Ukraine and to bring visual and artistic motifs from the history of Estonia and Portugal to reflect on this topic.
On Monday afternoon we visited the Fotografiska Photo Museum together, where we received an exciting guide tour and inspiration from three different photo exhibitions. We discussed what we saw and heard at a joint dinner in the F-building.
On Tuesday, they continued to study different programs, formed teams, divided individual tasks and started compiling the idea for the installation. Some students started creating animations, others cut film clips to fit, a third started creating the idea of ​​tape art, and a fourth were project managers who watched the whole project be completed. The students learned to use the animation tool ProCreate, the video editing program Davinci Resolve and the video mapping program MadMapper, for which we received special licenses from the program creator for this project. In addition to the initial version of the video installation, a tape artwork was completed that day, which remained the background for the video mapping installation completed the next day. The day was very exhausting and difficult for everyone, but the great desire and desire to get the job done the next day gave everyone extra motivation to endure.
Wednesday began with the compilation of the final video and animations in MadMapper. We moved to the hall together, where under the guidance of Taavi Varmi, the students could try video mapping and fit it to the back wall of the hall with tape art. The work required precision and a lot of time, but fortunately we got the job done on time. In the evening at 6 pm, the video installation premiered in the school hall, which had been watched by almost half a hundred people. The video installation was positively received by the audience and received a lot of applause. Thanks to everyone who contributed to its completion and great congratulations to the students who showed exceptional motivation and energy in its completion!
On Thursday and Friday, an architectural observation internship and workshop program took place in Helsinki. Unfortunately, many public buildings were closed due to the strike in Helsinki, but we still saw a lot. We visited the Temppeliaukkio Rock Church, Kamppi Chapel, the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and the Amos Rex Art Museum.
On Friday, an interesting and educational workshop took place at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art EMMA. In their free time, some students visited the open-air swimming pool and sauna complex in Alla, while others explored Helsinki's Old Town and other attractions. Accompanied by sunset, we arrived in Tallinn happily.
During this short time, our international group grew very close, it was sad to leave each other at the airport the next day.
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How did the participation in this activity benefit the involved participants?
The days were intense and busy, but at the same time very developing and meaningful. The students were exceptionally good, they respected each other's thoughts and ideas. During this project the involved students were able to learn about the technology of video installation and video mapping. They were able to discuss and form their own ideas and to make a storyboard, how to visualize their story. They experimented with different sound and learned how important is the sound for a video mapping storytelling concept. Also the students were able to experiment with the tape art, as tape art was used for the background of the video installation.
During the workshops with video artist Taavi Varm, the students learned to use different programs needed to create a video installation. Those programs were for example the animation tool ProCreate, the video editing program Davinci Resolve and the video mapping program MadMapper, for which we received special licenses from the program creator for this project.
The students divided themselves in different groups during the process of the project. Some students started creating animations, others cut film clips to fit, the third group started creating the idea of ​​tape art, and a fourth group were project managers, who managed that the whole project would be completed. In Helsinki the students had different task during museum workshops, where they needed to observe art, to discuss on different topics, to create some art and to present their ideas. We reiceived very positive feedback from the students.
The days were very exhausting and difficult for everyone, but the inner motivation of the students to complete the project in time, was something that kept everyone going. During this short but intense time, our international group grew very close.
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Thank you
We thank the Madmapper team for letting us use the professional MadMapper software (https://madmapper.com/) for this workshop.
We thank the sound artist Ville MJ Hyvönen (http://www.villehyvonen.fi/), who explained the importance of sound art in video installations to the students.
We thank the Ukrainian musician Oleksii Zinchenko from the band stonefromthesky (https://soundcloud.com/stonefromthesky), whose music we received permission from the author.
Heartfelt thanks from students and project managers to video artist Taavi Varm (http://varmstudio.com), who completed the students' first joint video installation.
The mobility was co-financed by the European Union's Erasmus + program.
MAKING OF VIDEO: Projection Mapping workshop 2-4 May 2022 / Tallinn
FINAL PRESENTATION: Projection Mapping workshop 2-4 May 2022 / Tallinn
MEDIA
Article about tape art project 2019 in Lisbon on the Tallinn school homepage (Estonian)
https://saksa.tln.edu.ee/tanavakunstiprojekt-lissabonis/
Article about tape art project 2019 in Lisbon on the Lisbon school homepage (German)
https://dslissabon.com/2019/10/tape-art-installation-die-mauer/
Album about the tape art exhibition on the Goethe Institut Facebook page (Portuguese)
https://www.facebook.com/goetheinstitutportugal/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10162351623625182
Article about the tape art project on the homepage of city of Tallinn (Estonian)
https://www.tallinn.ee/est/Uudis-Tallinna-Saksa-Gumnaasium-pani-Lissabonis-ules-teibikunsti-naituse
Information about a tape art exhibition in Lisbon on the homepage of Estonian Embassy (English)
https://lisbon.mfa.ee/tape-art-exhibition-at-the-goethe-institute-in-lisbon/
Article about film project 2020 in Tallinn on the Tallinn school homepage (Estonian)
https://saksa.tln.edu.ee/kunstisild-tallinn-lissabon-luhifilmid-ja-arhitektuur/
Article about film project 2020 in Tallinn on the Lisbon school homepage (German)
https://dslissabon.com/2020/02/gut-angekommen/
Article about preparation for the project in Lisbon (Estonian)
https://saksa.tln.edu.ee/erasmus-projekt-jatkab/
Article about photo- and street art project 2021 in Lisbon on the Tallinn school homepage (Estonian)
https://saksa.tln.edu.ee/foto-ja-tanavakunstiprojekt-lissaboni-saksa-kooliga/
Article about photo- and street art project 2021 in Lisbon on the Lisbon school homepage (German)
https://dslissabon.com/2021/11/erasmus-austausch-tallinn-lissabon/
Exhibition photos about the photo-and street art project in Lisbon (English)
https://readymag.com/u1562946007/3188552/2/
Article about video installation project 2022 in Tallinn on the Tallinn school homepage (Estonian)
https://saksa.tln.edu.ee/videoinstallatsioon-ukraina-toetuseks-koostoos-lissaboni-saksa-kooliga/
Article about video installation project 2022 in Tallinn on the Lisbon school homepage (German)
https://dslissabon.com/2022/05/schueleraustausch-tallinn-lissabon-2022/
Article about video installation project 2022 in Tallinn on the Tallinn city homepage (Estonian)
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