Can art help build a future that is more sustainable, inclusive and livable?
Nine artists. Three countries. Three communities. One shared question: how do we shape the future together?
Art that moves communities
This is the question at the heart of CREATE PURPOSE, a European cooperation project bringing together organisations from Germany, Greece and Romania. Together, we want to show how participatory art connects people, strengthens communities, and opens new perspectives for our shared future.
Inspired by the values of the New European Bauhaus — sustainability, aesthetics and inclusion — the project brings artists and young people together to turn these values into lived, everyday experience.
Between May and August 2027, three artistic residencies will take place in Kiel, Athens and Bucharest, each bringing together an international team of artists and around 50 local young people aged 15–30. All will search for future, make visible young ideas + young voices. The results will be presented in public festivals — and will keep living in public space long after.
| Programme | Creative Europe (CREA-CULT-2025-COOP) |
| Duration | 20 months |
| Countries | Germany · Greece · Romania |
| Partners | Heinrich Böll Stiftung SH (Kiel) — lead · STIPO (Athens) · Atelierul European de Artă (Bucharest) |
| Core values | Sustainability · Aesthetics · Inclusion — New European Bauhaus |
| Artists | 9, in 3 international interdisciplinary teams |
| Young people reached | 150+ direct participants, aged 15–30 |
| Community reach | 600+ through public festivals |
| Residencies | May–August 2027, one per country |
Partners
CREATE PURPOSE is carried out by three non-governmental organisations from Germany, Greece and Romania — each bringing a different artistic and social lens to the same shared question.
Heinrich Böll Stiftung Schleswig-Holstein
Based in Kiel, HBS brings over three decades of experience in civic education and public engagement through art and culture. HBS coordinates the project as a whole and hosts the residency exploring the NEB value of Aesthetics, drawing on its work in design thinking and participatory urban culture.
Meet the Team
STIPO Greece
STIPO specialises in placemaking, participatory urban development and socio-cultural education. Its team brings hands-on experience in community-driven urban regeneration and public space activation. STIPO hosts the residency exploring the NEB value of Sustainability.
Meet the Team
Atelierul European de Artă
AEA works at the intersection of youth work, cultural inclusion and non-formal education, using dance, film, theatre and scenic movement to support personal development and social engagement — particularly for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. AEA hosts the residency exploring the NEB value of Inclusion.
Meet the TeamTogether, we combine civic education, urban placemaking, and grassroots youth work — three different starting points, aiming at the same goal: communities that shape their own future through art.
NEB values
The New European Bauhaus (NEB) is a European Union initiative connecting sustainability, inclusion and beauty — bringing the Green Deal closer to people’s everyday lives and spaces. CREATE PURPOSE takes these three values out of policy documents and into public squares, through art made together with local communities.
Each residency puts one value at the centre:
Sustainability
How can art help communities imagine and practise a more sustainable way of living together in public space? In Athens, artists and young people will explore this question through site-specific interventions rooted in placemaking and community-driven design.
Aesthetics
What makes a space — or a community — genuinely beautiful to live in? The Kiel residency explores aesthetics not as decoration, but as a shared, participatory act of shaping the everyday environment.
Inclusion
Who gets a voice in shaping their community — and who doesn’t? In Bucharest, the residency centres on inclusion, working with young people from diverse and often marginalised backgrounds through theatre and scenic movement.
Each value is explored locally, but the three residencies speak to one another — proof that sustainability, beauty and inclusion aren’t separate goals, but three sides of the same future.
Activities
CREATE PURPOSE unfolds in three connected phases, over 20 months.
Online preparation & artist training
Before meeting in person, the 9 selected artists take part in online team-building and a structured training on participatory and co-creation methods — building a shared toolkit and a shared language across three countries.
Artistic residencies & local festivals (May – August 2027)
Three residencies, one in each partner country, each lasting around three weeks. In every city, the international artist team works side by side with roughly 50 local young people (15–30 years old) to co-create a site-specific artwork inspired by one NEB value. Each residency closes with a public festival presenting the work to the wider community.
Dissemination & legacy
Every artwork, together with photos, video documentation and participant testimonials, is shared on our digital platform and social media channels — and stays visible in public space in each host city long after the festivals end.
Want to follow the process as it happens? Follow us on:
Artistic Teams
At the heart of CREATE PURPOSE are 9 artists — 3 from each partner country — working across three disciplines: music, design, and theatre and scenic movement.
Selected through an open call in each country, the artists first come together online for training and team-building, then travel to co-create in all three host cities: Kiel, Athens and Bucharest. Each residency brings together artists from all three countries, working alongside local young people and community members — so every artwork carries more than one national perspective.
Applications for the current call are open until 30 August 2026.
See the Open Artist CallCreating with Purpose is realized by:
Heinrich Böll Stiftung SH (Kiel) · STIPO Greece (Athens) · Atelierul European de Artă (Bucharest)
Funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.