Transforming Migration by Arts

Project Information

TransMigrArts

Grant agreement ID: 101007587

DOI

10.3030/101007587

Project closed

EC signature date 29 October 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 31 December 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 2 185 000,00

EU contribution

€ 2 185 000,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITE TOULOUSE II-JEAN JAURES
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TransMigrArts (Transforming Migration by Arts)

Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2025-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The reality of migration in the 21st century is a major social challenge for Europe and the whole world. The TransMigrARTS project, Transforming Migration through the Arts, aimed to prove, using an applied creative research methodology, that running performing arts workshops (theatre, clowning, dance, performance, writing) with migrants can reduce the vulnerability of people who leave their country due to violence, climate change, education, work, or who are displaced by armed conflict within their own territory, as in Colombia. For five years, 13 higher education institutions and cultural organisations from four countries (France, Spain, Denmark and Colombia) worked to design workshops based on different artistic languages, which they tested in several organisations, NGOs, communities hosting refugees, asylum seekers, exiles and workers, and companies working in the field of interculturalism. For five years, 13 higher education institutions and cultural organisations from four countries (France, Spain, Denmark and Colombia) worked to develop workshops based on different artistic languages, which they tested in several organisations, NGOs, communities hosting refugees, asylum seekers, exiles and workers, and companies working in the field of interculturalism. The evaluation of these practices was intended to assess the impact of these workshops on participants, in order to offer new artistic methods for supporting migrants and to support public policies on migration. An innovative communication strategy was devised through a documentary novel on social media and the writing of a musical comedy in order to create the TransMigrARTS community and raise awareness among a wider audience of the reality of migration.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In order to create the TransMigrARTS artistic workshops, the intersectoral, interdisciplinary, international and intergenerational network of artist-researchers and professionals met for a month at the start of the programme in Granada (WP1). The aim was to develop a method for observing the 26 performing arts workshops that would be set up in three countries with migrants (France, Spain and Colombia) as part of WP2. Thanks to the ‘Granada Guide’, it was possible to observe the artistic practices during these workshops in order to determine the best ways to transform the participants according to four categories structuring the experiences carried out: body, experience, creativity and group. As part of WP3, during another month of collective work in Toulouse, halfway through the programme, six prototype workshops were created - theatre, clowning, dance, performance, playwriting and a workshop for women - as well as a proposal for additional sessions, five smaller micro-workshops. A guide to good practice offers recommendations for implementing these workshops under the right conditions. The reproducibility of the workshops and their adaptation to the different social, geographical, cultural and political environments in which they are implemented are the two axes that structured the applied research and creation work. In addition, a measurement tool based on artistic variables was created to measure participants' self-perception of the transformative impact of the workshop on themselves, called TransformARTS, an innovative tool in the field of the arts. During WP4, these prototypes were adjusted during 17 workshops, in collaboration with NGOs, communities hosting refugees, asylum seekers, exiles and workers, and companies working in the field of interculturality, in order to validate the models proposed by the entire team and the reliability of the TransformARTS measurement tool. Then, in July 2025, during a summer university in Madrid, 150 people, including artists, social workers, migration professionals, young researchers and students, were trained in applied creative research methods and artistic workshops for migrants. A dedicated website was created to disseminate information to professionals: https://tallerestransmigrarts.com/t. In addition, a musical about the artistic workshop and migration was performed at the French Institute theatre in Madrid during the Summer University in order to reach a wider audience through a popular art form. The last year, 2025, saw the publication of a collective work by the various partners on applied creative research in Spanish, with French and English versions currently in publication.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

TransMigrARTS has involved 120 people on short or long-term mobility programmes (from one month to 12 months), 43 artistic workshops, 500 migrant participants supported, 8 issues of a journal published (50 scientific articles), a book on applied creative research in Spanish, 190 scientific publications, 91 popular science publications, 300 scientific events and demonstrations, the creation of the Armand Mac Clown brand to disseminate results on social media, and 230,000 people reached through communication and dissemination activities.
The research-creation methodology, still emerging in some European countries, has been innovatively enriched by the concept of applicability and has become a theoretical reference for partners. Universities have integrated it into their training and research, and cultural enterprises will offer these workshops as part of their commercial offering. A Creative Commons licence will both protect intellectual property and guarantee the free use of cultural products resulting from the project.
The project also represented a major advance in terms of the concept of innovation in the performing arts (according to the Frascati Manual). The prototype concept was tested and adjusted for the design of artistic workshops for migrants. It can be deployed in other socio-economic sectors and represents a major advance in the field of applied theatre. The research results can be transferred to other fields, as unlimited as the field of applied theatre itself: elderly people, people with disabilities, prisoners, employees, victims of gender-based and sexual violence. There are many implications for transforming social, professional and simply human practices through the performing arts, which promote co-presence, co-creation and collaboration

Results transfer website www.tallerestransmigrarts.com

Collective publication on Applied Creative Research

TMA Journal

Musical Taller de

Summer school 2025 TransMigrARTS

Armand Mc Clown, the project's scientific communication brand