Introduction of CREA's Hungarian partner

Pro Progressione is a member of the Creative Room European Alliance consortium. Our goal with our collaboration is to support Panodyssey in reaching wider European and Hungarian audiences. Let us introduce ourselves and the work that we do! 

We are a Budapest-based artistic hub that connects people, professions and ambitions by designing international collaborations in the field of culture. From this combination, creative ideas emerge – artists, cultural activists, scientists and experts of various fields meet and give cutting-edge answers for the questions of our age. We focus our capacities on the fields where we aim to have a positive long-term impact, thus Pro Progressione is built up on four main pillars, namely PP Social, PP Cult, PP Arts and PP Sound.  

At our PP Social pillair we promote socially engaged arts by connecting social, educational and artistic fields at the national and international level. We are proud to have carried out numerous projects all aiming to explore innovative ways of social inclusion and contribute to social transformation through the language of arts. In the last few years, our main focus has been on underprivileged youth. Our aim is to give these young people a chance to step out of their tight realities and meet new people, concepts and methods. For this end, we participate in the creation of international youth worker exchanges,  such as our ACADEMY FOR ACTORS OF CIVIL CHANGE project, strategic partnerships for youth such as ACADEMY+, and socially engaged Creative Europe projects such as WHAT’SAP, as well as online conferences such as the @CADEMY CONFERENCE. Our mission under this pillar is to change the perception on Social Art Practices and consolidate it as a profession in Europe and beyond. Our innovative team disposes of a large scale of professional competences and creativity, each of our members are personally engaged with arts and culture. 

At PP Cult we use arts for transformation in the area of cultural and natural heritage interpretation. We wish to step out from the well-known practices and find new, engaging ways to generate meaningful dialogue with professionals and the wider public about pressing issues such as the protection or revitalization of our cultural heritage in Hungary and Europe wide, or the climate changes and the importance of our environment. Our highlighted initiative of this field was a Creative Europe project called JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNINGS, that introduced prehistory through the eye of an interdisciplinary collaboration of archaeologists, performing artists and IT developers. The OUR SHARED HERITAGE – VUCEDOL CULTURE project continues to elaborate this subject with a focus on our shared heritage of the Croatian-Hungarian border region. Our ongoing Creative Europe project MUSE.AR aims to create a platform that will help cultural institutions to work with their collections in an innovative and meaningful way to co-create new digital narratives. 

At PP Arts we place great emphasis on the creation of special performances in collaboration with other companies – which projects, on the one hand, push the boundaries of the traditionally interpreted theatrical performance, and on the other hand, represent a unique experience for both the creators and the audience due to their cross-sectoral nature. On the national level, we also function as an umbrella organization for Hungarian artists, embracing young emerging creators and art collectives in the field of performing arts. Our latest performance titled BANQUET FOR BEES was born from the marriage of performing arts, science and gastronomy, but in recent years we have also created space- and site-specific performances such as tram theatre, running theatre, wall theatre etc. We are also really proud to be the co-organizer of SZABIHÍD for several years now, which is an experimental programme focusing on urban planning and public space development. It is about the freedom of arts, sports, community programmes or just enjoying good time together on the Liberty Bridge in the heart of Budapest. 

PP Sound pillar understands music as not only an art form, but as a cultural activity:  collects initiatives related to music as vivid tradition. The pillar highlights our unique artistic approach that is used to interpret cultural heritage – like the POLYPHONY PROJECT – or to create a special interdisciplinary performance based on soundscapes of rural Europe – the HOME PROJECT. We always have strong intention to step towards the field of education, thus Polyphony archive is already enriched with an innovative educational tool – the FOLK MUSIC EDUCATION FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS – FOLK_ME. The pillar’s initiatives are strongly supported by the European Commission. 

Pro Progressione has been implementing numerous international projects supported by the European Commission. We believe in interdisciplinary creation, in a mutual exchange between disciplines, art forms and actors of social and artistic fields. Our overall objective is to create an international network of artists, institutions and audiences by helping the communities to find their path towards arts. In order to achieve this, we are active in a wide range of cultural associations and programmes: Culture Action Europe, IETM, MitOst, Voices of Culture, Association of Independent Performing Arts in Hungary. In 2021, Pro Progressione has been selected as an official partner of the European Commission’s New European Bauhaus Initiative in which we team up with a wide range of inspiring networks, associations, and organizations across Europe. In this new European movement, we act as community managers, sounding boards and key interlocutors to imagine and build together a sustainable and inclusive future.

If we piqued your interest, you can find more information about Pro Progressione's projects on our website.