"Your Arms!" presentations in Italy and Greece.

In January 2007 The Your Arms! project began it's second phase in preparation for a presentation at the Biella Oasis of the Nurope Nomadic University of Philosophy and Enterprise.

Andy and Yvonne were invited to present the work they had done over the Summer as part of the residency at Cittadellarte to academics and business leaders from across Europe in a debate over the future of Industrialised communities and links between creativity and economics.

To better contextualise the project Andy and Yvonne researched council and community led initiatives that might prompt discussion about art activity and enterprise. This spanned the local activity in Yorkshire to the wider economic context. Presentation notes and an archive of the research can be seen here

To illustrate the current situation in Bradford and Leeds and give examples of community and state-led activity, Andy and Yvonne also made a short film interviewing local figures about their relationship with these two very different cities that have developed in close proximity of one another.


Video for Nurope presentation part 1.


Video for Nurope presentation part 2.


Video for Nurope presentation part 3.

The credits for the video (missing from the online version for technical reasons) are: quotes about Leeds and Bradford from Vic Allan and Kate Dunn, other quotes from Jeremy Rifkin's 'End of Work' (1994) and Brian Milani's 'Designing the Green Economy'(2000).

Following this presentation they were invited by the O2k (Open to Knowledge knowledge economy project) to deliver the same presentation in Thessaloniki, Greece where representatives from the Biellese district were also present.

The seminars in Italy and Greece raised a lot of issues about the future of Biella and how a relationship with other cities and communities may inform how the region could adapt to changes in production. Reflections on the seminars and plans of actions drawn up immediately afterwards can be found here