Fresh College of Arts’ activity and contribution to society, community, and culture
Fresh College of Arts through the years has built long-term collaborations with various organizations based in Cyprus with a mission to create valuable social impact and transmit the contribution of arts in society and culture.
A vast number of networks have been brought to life through the years and multiple events are continuously initiated by Fca as a part of the institution’s mission to raise awareness, promote education through arts and support young people by offering them the opportunity to be introduced in new ideas, experiences, and challenges.
The following points are referring to some of the collaborations and projects that Fca and its academic team has been a part of through the years:
1) Secondary and high schools’ educational visits
Students, which are mainly young teens, are joining multiple workshops, lectures and seminars regarding possible career pathways and are receiving free guidance and support from Fca. Further, with this initiation young teens are introduced to the fields of art and are encouraged to explore this industry as a future career. The college’s team in order to successfully implement this kind of collaborations they are spending a lot of time in focusing on the actual needs of young people with an aim to eliminate the gaps between art, education, and learning. Multiple meetings and trainings between the schools’ and college’s academic teams are taking place before the visits in order to make this experience valuable for the students, teachers, and academics.
ERASMUS+ – Romanian Secondary School Visit
Erasmus+ in an effort to offer the opportunity to schools and other organizations to be active in the field of education is organizing and planning learning activities abroad.
Fresh College of Arts through Erasmus has welcomed, for one-week period, school students from Romania in the college and invited them to join vibrant artistic workshops and produce their own work. That event was a great opportunity to exchange artistic ideas, bring multicultural communities together and create unions between societies with different characteristics.
2. REM CYPRUS 2018- Rotaract Europe
ROTARACT European organization has chosen Fca among many other art-based institutions to manage and contribute to the creation of the REM CYPRUS 2018 conference logo, which was supported by Limassol Municipality and the Mayor Mr. Nikos Nikolaides.
The conference was created in an effort to raise awareness and fulfil the vision: ”a world without Leukemia”
Alongside with the design, Fca students and academic team were asked to collaborate, design, and produce a 3D version of the logo. The team after many discussions and studies around possible concepts, themes and materials have concluded that the piece will be entitled ”Aphrodite Emerges”. The piece is a life-sized version of the Rotaract European Conference logo and represents the beauties and uniqueness of Cyprus including the mythical goddess’ Aphrodite’.
With this honorary invitation from a European charity organization Fca academic team with the help of students were enabled to be informed by issues that are affecting the society and were challenged to explore ways of contribution to the community and to plan such an important project that offered them the opportunity to study and explore practically various techniques, materials, and methods.
3) OLD PORT- BSM Building
Fresh college of Arts has been chosen after a competition initiated between Limassol’s Old Port committee and BSM Shipping Company to transform an existing building situated in the old port.
As a part of this collaboration academics alongside with students were challenged to transform an existing building in a key position in Limassol, into a vibrant attraction dedicated to promoting awareness for ocean pollution.
Environmental care and consciousness are major topics that are affecting the world globally and it have impacted as issues major artistic practices. Being a part of such project has obliviously empowered and guided academics and students to create substantial research, challenge themselves with new knowledge regarding durable designs and materials and plan accordingly to achieve their goals in a professional manner.
4. OLD PORT and Cyprus ports Authority – UPCOMING PROJECT
Fca team has been selected among multiple creatives to create a life-sized installation as a ‘reference point’ of the Limassol Old port.
Currently members of the academic team are working on collaborating with professionals for the installation which will be placed in a central and high engaging position with an aim to blend with the environment, attract citizens and tourists, decorate, and give life to the old port. Through this site-specific installation Fca is giving to the citizens and visitors of Limassol the chance to engage and interact, create memories capture and transfer the city’s beauty and history to other cultures.
5) Lifelong Collaboration with ‘Fundraising’ Non-Profit Organization
Fca’s academic team has established a life-long collaboration with FUNRAISING which is a non-profit organization that greatly supports families, students and generally people in need with an aim to betterment the life of individuals and therefore societies.
Through this relationship Fca is voluntary undertaking the management and planning of events that aim the collection of money in order to support financially people in need.
For the events, which are often taking place in multiple cultural spaces, students are invited to be involved in any possible way, including creation of art workshops, arts and crafts production and sale, volunteering etc. before each event discussions, researchers and studies are taking place in order to choose the theme and purpose of each event.
Fca has always been in a great effort to transfer the volunteering spirit and its power to transform communities not only to its academic team but also to the college’s students with a goal to create responsible, highly conscious, and caring members of wider societies.
6) ‘FreshLove’- Charity Exhibition
Fca have created ‘FRESHLOVE’ a series of exhibitions that were planned, curated, and organized for three consecutive years with a purpose to spread the meaning of love and therefore to help through creativity and art people with great financial issues.
For each exhibition the institution has gathered approximately a hundred students and invited them to create a 30cm X 30cm artwork that was based and inspired from the concepts of ‘Love’ and ‘cheap art’ which means the art accessible and affordable for everyone. ‘Love’ has been chosen as a topic since one of Fca’s characteristic is to embrace acceptance, amongst different societies and cultures, care, and promotion of uniqueness between individuals including marginalized people, refugees, differently abled, abused families etc.
This action focused not only on students’ ability to construct an exhibition and enhance their professional skills but also has been dedicated on transforming students into active and determined citizens and showed the ability of art to unite.
All of the amount that has been gathered through the sales of artworks has been chosen to be donated to ‘FUNRAISING’ non-profit organization.
7) Collaborations with Municipalities-Site Specific Installation Projects
Within many collaborations with various municipalities Fca students and staff teamed up to create large scale artworks that are site specific.
‘The helping hand’ was in a collaboration with Limassol municipality and has decorated a public street outside of a private building in Limassol. After many studies, talks and debates around issues that are affecting humans both locally and globally tutors have motivated students to create a large-scale installation based on sustainability, Recycling and Ocean Pollution. After a week-long collection process of recycled materials and trash gathered from local beaches the students and academics have built a 6-meter-long sculpture made of recycled materials including bottles, cans, plastic tubes that had the shape of the hand (as a symbolism of protection, generosity, and power) and was covered by fiberglass.
8) The Human
‘The human’ was created in collaboration with the municipality of Engomi in the context of ‘IMAGINE THE ROADS FESTIVAL’ the largest outdoor art festival in Cyprus. The festival’s committee had invited hundreds of artists, institutions, students, creatives, practitioners, and professionals with multicultural backgrounds to create site specific sculptures in order to decorate multiple central streets of Engomi in Nicosia. Fca’s team created a large-scale wire sculpture that depicted the complexity and beauty of an individual’s identity with an aim to raise awareness on racism.
9) Support of local and international art practitioners.
Fresh College of Arts with a goal to spread the variety and diversity of contemporary art have created collaborations between external artists, students, and academics. Artists have created exhibitions like the ‘Black Light’ by Fractal Mangus art exhibition happened in 2021. By using Fca facilities as spaces of practice artists showcased their work. In terms of planning such events students were volunteering to support the artist in the installation, promotion, and creation of their work.
Students were given the opportunity to experience, not only in theory but in reality, as well, the struggle of curating a contemporary exhibition and the impact it has both to the artist and the public.
10) Street life festival
Street life is a festival initiated by Limassol’s municipality and it is an annual event that celebrates urban art, music, street performance, sport, natural therapies, and food. With a purpose to promote the creativity and liveliness of the city’s centre. Street life is bringing together a vast number of versatile artists with different backgrounds, ethnicities cultures and customs to decorate with graffities the city centre’s high streets
Fca academics with a selection of students interested, have participated multiple times by creating impressive and exceptional pieces of art that remained up to recently in the city’s heart. The whole experience offered the unforgettable vibe and power of collaboration, love and union between art, artists, and the public. Taking part in such events was a proof to students, academics, tutors, citizens, and public that once again art had the strength and ability to transform purposefully humans and their environments beyond the limits of imagination.
