Shaping Shores, Shaping Europe: The WATERFRONTS Wave of Change

A single drop of water can create ripples that spread far and wide. The WATERFRONTS project is built on a similar idea: that targeted, local actions in three diverse European waterfronts—Gothenburg (Sweden), Lesvos (Greece), and Zadar (Croatia)—can inspire a wave of change across the continent. While the project's heart lies in deep, community-level engagement, its vision is resolutely transnational.

The challenges of climate change and eco-anxiety are not confined to one city or country. They are shared European challenges that require shared European solutions. Here’s how WATERFRONTS is designed to make a splash far beyond its initial locations.

A Pan-European awareness campaign

One of the project's most ambitious goals is to increase public awareness across nine European countries. Leveraging the power of digital media, WATERFRONTS will launch an online campaign designed to reach at least 3 million citizens. This campaign will showcase the artworks, stories, and solutions developed in the three core locations, making the project's findings accessible to a broad audience. By targeting communities along the North, Adriatic, and Aegean Seas, the campaign will make the impacts of climate change tangible and relevant to people across different coastal contexts.

The WATERFRONTS toolkit: A Guide for Replication

How can a community in Portugal or a city in the Netherlands learn from the experiences in Croatia? The answer lies in the WATERFRONTS Toolkit. This comprehensive handbook will be one of the project's key legacies. It will distil the project's methodology, learnings, and best practices into a practical guide for others to use.

The Toolkit will empower other communities, cultural organizations, and policymakers to:

• Adapt and replicate the project's successful methods for engaging communities through art.

• Launch their own initiatives to address eco-anxiety and build climate resilience.

• Foster interdisciplinary collaboration between artists, scientists, and health experts.

This ensures that the innovation sparked by WATERFRONTS is not a one-off event but a sustainable model that can be adopted and adapted across Europe.

Influencing policy, Inspiring unity

By bringing together diverse cultural narratives under the shared experience of climate change, WATERFRONTS aims to foster a stronger sense of European cohesion. The project will use its findings to engage with policymakers at local, national, and EU levels, advocating for policies that integrate cultural well-being into environmental and mental health strategies.

In a time when Euroscepticism is a significant force, WATERFRONTS makes a compelling case for how culture can be utilized to raise public support for shared European goals like the Green Deal, demonstrating that our common challenges are best met with unified, creative, and people-centric solutions.