Opening Doors (OpD) 

Opening Doors: The transformative power of art and science collaborations for societal growth and environmental sustainability. 

Opening Doors (OpD) is a 48-month European Cooperation Project, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme and coordinated by the Pierides Foundation (Cyprus), that brings artists, scientists and local communities together to turn urban and rural gardens into living cultural infrastructure. Two new garden sites are created from scratch – on the southern edge of Nicosia’s Buffer Zone, off Lidinis Street, and in the Exarcheia neighbourhood of Athens – while existing gardens in Amiens (France), Tampere (Finland) and Parga (Northern Greece) are adapted through site-specific artistic interventions. Facilitated by collectives of European artists, communities re-vegetate neglected spaces, install permanent soundscapes and artworks, and transform the gardens into hubs of learning and intergenerational exchange, supported by a multilingual digital infrastructure that carries the project’s methods across Europe. 

The challenge 

Culture’s contribution to the green transition is widely acknowledged but rarely activated: the creative sector’s potential to shape pro-environmental awareness and invite communities into sustainability practice remains largely untapped (UNESCO, 2023). At the same time, cultural participation is falling where it is most needed – Greece recorded the EU’s largest decline between 2015 and 2022 and its widest urban–rural participation gap, while fewer than one in three Cypriots accessed a cultural venue in 2023 (Eurostat). Athens has the lowest share of urban green space per resident of any European capital, and Nicosia remains Europe’s only divided capital, with a buffer-zone neighbourhood that is heavily visited yet lacks any structured artistic or ecological programming. Across the five partner countries, women, non-binary, LGBTQI+, migrant and minority artists are under-represented in publicly funded programming, cultural work is precarious, and no fairly funded mobility scheme or comparative framework exists for ecologically engaged artistic practice. OpD responds with a single participatory framework that integrates eco-sustainability, artistic co-creation and intersectional inclusion in the public realm rather than inside institutional venues. 

What the project does 

OpD follows an iterative Learn–Plant–Grow model. In the Learn phase, partners develop the EcoArt Hub, an interactive e-training platform in five languages (English, Greek, French, Finnish and Romanian) covering histories of urban landscapes and gardens; civic engagement and the transformation of green spaces; ecological gardening, microcosms and botany; artistic interventions in urban space; and inclusive urban regeneration. EcoART Consultations map community needs at each site, Local Artist Selection Committees issue open calls for artists, and the transnational symposium “Cultivating Connections: Urban Landscape, Gardens and Social Engagement” in Cyprus launches the Hub. In the Plant phase, 16 GardenLab workshops bring artists, scientists and residents together across the five sites – from visual-pollution and short-film workshops with Greek-Cypriot, Turkish-Cypriot and migrant youth in Nicosia and a Weeds Archive of Athens’ resilient plants, to permaculture and beekeeping in Amiens, microbial art in a Tampere daycare garden and performative walks through the wetlands of Parga – with each site hosting artists from at least three other consortium countries. Two implementation pathways run in parallel, garden creation (Nicosia, Athens) and garden adaptation (Amiens, Tampere, Parga), guided by an Architecture of Care seminar series and cross-site architectural reviews. In the Grow phase, the “Seeds of Transformation” Festival and Exhibition in Nicosia, three National ArtDays in Athens, Amiens and Tampere, and the Digital Galleries bring the works to the public, while a European Community of Practice secures the project’s legacy. 

What the project will deliver 

• Two new EcoArt gardens (Nicosia, Athens) and three adapted gardens (Amiens, Tampere, Parga), with permanent installations and soundscapes; 

• The multilingual EcoArt Hub, WCAG 2.1- and AI Act-compliant, reaching at least 1,000 users; 

• The GardenLabs Toolkit, consolidating the learning plans of the 16 workshops for at least 400 educators, artists and cultural organisations; 

• At least 18 transnational artists and 18 scientists mobilised – half from under-represented groups and half women or non-binary – with over 200 artist–scientist participations; 

• At least 16 co-produced artworks, a festival with 28+ artists, 20+ works and 3,700+ attendees, and three National ArtDays; 

• Design and planting guidelines for garden creation and adaptation, and a Comparative Synthesis documenting a transferable European model; 

• A Theory-of-Change social impact evaluation with 350+ respondents, and an Exploitation and Legacy Strategy anchored in a European Community of Practice. 

The partnership 

OpD unites seven organisations from five countries, coordinated by the Pierides Foundation (Cyprus) with its affiliated entity, the Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre (NiMAC): Citizens in Power (Cyprus), Tampere University (Finland), Université de Picardie Jules Verne (France), TiriLab (Greece), EIGHT – a critical institute for arts and politics (Greece) and HelixConnect Europe (Romania). Associated partners and supporters extend the project’s reach, including ARKHE (the cultural structure of the Turkish-Cypriot Municipality of North Nicosia), the Municipality of Nicosia, Larnaka 2030 European Capital of Culture, the CYENS Centre of Excellence, Trans Europe Halles and IZOLIATSIA. 

CIP’s role 

Citizens in Power leads the green, ecological and sustainability dimension of OpD, drawing on its Horizon Europe work in P2GreeN and TAPELINE. CIP leads WP2, developing the EcoArt Hub together with HelixConnect Europe and co-organising the Cultivating Connections Symposium in Cyprus, and leads WP6, Dissemination, Communication and Exploitation – from the project’s visual identity, multilingual website and awareness campaign to the Community of Practice and the final legacy roadmap. Within the Urban EcoArt Development work (WP4), CIP co-leads with TiriLab the Architecture of Care seminars and the Comparative Synthesis across the five garden sites. The CIP Impact Hub, housed in the heritage building that once hosted Nicosia’s Shadow Theatre, a few metres from NiMAC and the Lidinis garden site, provides the institutional anchor for the Cyprus programme and for the Community of Practice beyond the funded period, under CIP’s 20-year operational mandate from the Nicosia Municipality, while CIP’s networks from Rainbow Rhythms and CuriEUs Youth open the project to LGBTQI+ and young artists. 

 ————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Opening Doors is co-funded by the European Union under the Creative Europe programme. 

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.