Y-ARTS

From 15 to 24 July 2025, in Gualtieri, in and around the Teatro Sociale, the project Y-ARTS – Youth for Arts, Representation, and Transformation in Society took place: an Erasmus+ youth exchange funded by the European Union, which brought together 26 young people from Italy, France, Spain, and Greece to collectively explore the potential of the performing arts as a space for participation, inclusion, and change.

Y-ARTS originated a partire from the experience of YPAL network (France), one of the project partners, and was carried out in collaboration with TNC Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (Spain) and Horizons for Youth (Greece).

Y-ARTS took shape as an active laboratory of ideas, practices, and relationships, created by young people for young people. Workshops, round tables, moments of co-creation, exploratory walks, focus groups, intercultural evenings, informal events, and performative moments followed one another throughout the exchange, generating a continuous space for dialogue and individual and collective growth for young artists, audiences, and cultural activists from across Europe.

The exchange was carried out in synergy with the Direction Under 30 festival, which for over ten years has represented a unique European model of youth cultural governance: here, young people under 30 curate the programme and engage in dialogue around artistic experiences, offering a concrete example of shared leadership and collective decision-making. Y-ARTS participants were fully integrated into this ecosystem, contributing to the organisation, attending performances, engaging in dialogue with artists, and forming an international jury responsible for awarding the Y-ARTS Prize.

The project, facilitated by Mooncult, concluded with the creation of a collaborative map and the drafting of a European youth manifesto for the performing arts—a document giving voice and vision to a new generation positioning itself as a driver of transformation.