Art and Music for a Greater Sense of Community Among Young People

Paola Dubini and Aura Bertoni of Bocconi's Art, Science and Knowledge Laboratory (ASK) have started a collaboration with the Italian non-governmental organization Comitato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo dei Popoli (CISP), the leader of an important active citizenship project for young people in Cuba, funded by the European Union as part of the EuropeAid program.

The project, called A ritmo de inclusion, is aimed at strengthening creative groups of young people, providing opportunities and cultural values related to the idea of responsible citizenship, based on social participation and the building of a dynamic community.

The project promotes inclusive and creative cultural spaces, generating greater cultural vitality in communities and the active participation of artistic groups. It supports new initiatives in the field of visual arts and electronic music as a means of inclusion for young people.

One of the features of this project is to build upon some elements of the local culture while taking care to make the interventions sustainable in the long run, with a bottom-up approach which is relatively innovative for this type of operations.

This project, therefore, is inspired by the well-established presence on the island of a lively music scene, especially electronic music, and aims to create what is commonly referred to as "cultural hybridization". In practice, this means providing creators of (for example) electronic music with open environments in which these actors can come into contact with other forms of expression. In this way, a process can be triggered in which a sense of community and social awareness is increased through fruitful contact with other forms of culture, making cultural experiences less short-lived.

Bocconi's contribution to this project is significant and on several fronts. First of all, Paola Dubini and Aura Bertoni have already tackled the issues of cultural hybridization and active citizenship in Italy and in Milan in particular, and are therefore able to propose useful examples of best practices. In addition, they can help establish the scientifically sound indicators of sustainability a project of this magnitude must start with in order to properly evaluate the results achieved.