Raising cultural awareness among young people in rural areas

Active in the Poitou-Charentes region of central-western France, Rurart is a cultural outreach programme aimed at raising the awareness of young people in rural areas in respect of the practice and dissemination of culture: contemporary art, film, performing and digital arts. With support from the regional government, as also from the Ministry of Culture and Communication, the

departmental council of Vienne and the Xavier-Bernard Foundation, Rurart organises screenings and artist residencies, taking a line that meets the requirement to wake up viewers to the world around them, while avoiding the clichés of the classic handicrafts lesson. The approach is based on curiosity and suggestion, but without falling into the many traps laid by the passing fads that come and go in the contemporary art world. Rurart exhibitions, held mainly in schools but also in town halls, have included shows by well-known British environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy (2001), Venezuelan artist Sabrina Montiel-Soto (2006) and, from France, the art collective Kolkoz and Martin Le Chevallier (2007).