Experiential City
Youth Counselling Office,
The workshop focuses on the Karancs Hotel, an iconic building of the ex-socialist industrial town of Salgótarján. The participants research its past, engage with its present and design what they would like it to be in the future, i.e. the present of their adult lives. The goal is to inspire their immediate surroundings to participate in a process of collective thinking and creation.
Munkájuk első összefoglaló eredményét, amelyet a DemoLab első Hollókőn megrendezett táborában készítettek el, itt olvashatjátok. A 36 oldalas kiadványt, amelyben számtalan visszaemlékező és az épület lehetséges jövőjét latolgató interjú és grafika olvasható, látható rizográf technikával készült.
WORKSHOP LEADERS
Kriszta Erdei
artist
Freelance photographer, art manager and image editor. She studied Philosophy and Political Science, but also took classes at ELTE’s Film Theory and Visual Pedagogy departments. Krisztina discovers the world through her photographs, documenting unexpected situations that question generally accepted truths. She is interested in the narrative potential of coincidence and examines it in the framework of socially engaged projects. She has been a teacher of photography and visual communication for ten years. After working on the international projects of an art foundation that ran an exhibition space in Budapest, she started publishing thematic art publications. Krisztina is currently a PhD student and Media Design manager at the Moholy-Nagy University’s Multimedia Doctoral School, as well as a participant in numerous creative educational programs. She published her first book of photography in 2007. Her spontaneous aesthetic shows no sign of taming over time: it allows a visceral, graceless, yet all the more original world to unfold in front of our eyes.
Erzsébet Virágos
teacher
Erzsébet consciously decided to be a teacher as she felt a great commitment to working with teenagers for the rest of her life. However, after completing her degree in Humanities, she went on to study law, which eventually served to broaden her horizon and further cement her decision to become a teacher. She is interested in schools and how they can be better adapted to life in order to give every child an opportunity to lead a successful life. Paradoxically, she is currently able to realise this goal outside of the education system. This is why she participates in programs that are experimental, prioritise 21st-century challenges and focus on debate, cooperation and problem-solving. For the last 6 years, she has been collaborating with the Foundation for Democratic Youth, as she believes that proactive, entrepreneurial students are the most effective agents of change.
Rea Miklós
office manager
Rea has been working as office manager of the Salgótarján Youth Office for almost two years. She strongly believes that besides extracurricular classes, there is a need for children to spend their free time in a meaningful way that is entertaining, communal and has a developmental effect on every participant. In line with her localist politics, Rea is currently the director of the Sakkozzuk ki! (Let’s Figure It Out) action group that uses collective painting as a way of bringing some diversity to public spaces and organising a team of volunteers. As for her qualifications, Rea is a teacher of Hungarian language and literature, a graphic designer as well as an arts and events manager, but she also spent a long time working in the public sphere. She is at her best when surrounded by a creative community. She likes to dream big and view seemingly impossible tasks as challenges. She leaves and breathes creativity, be it writing, painting walls and benches, or organising events and community initiatives. Rea does not like to wait for change: she would rather make it happen!