ESC: Volunteering at MARK Salzburg

The MARK Salzburg is an open house for arts and creativity. As a non-profit, our "Verein MARK für kulturelle und soziale Arbeit" (in short: MARK Salzburg) aims to support ongoing artists, creative people of all kinds and everyone interested in participating in alternative arts productions and DIY culture. All our projects have a common background: to promote young people in arts and DIY offering a low entry-level, to help them in their personal growth, and in gaining self-confidence. To reach our goals, we offer workshops in the field of arts, especially music and theatre. We organise open stage evenings and competitions, e.g., literature, writing and music. Our program wants to encourage young people to show their works, present themselves and exceed their potential in a safe environment. At the same time, we promote the society around us by enriching it with our diverse programme for a more sustainable community and tackling environmental challenges. MARK puts a strong emphasis on community building and inclusion. The neighbourhood of our headquarters benefits from a community garden, community kitchen and other offers like clothes sharing or bike kitchen. Further, MARK offers a safe space for people with fewer opportunities. We, therefore, take this as a priority in the choice of participants for our ESC volunteering project. Our aims: - To offer an inclusive and diverse arts program enabling active participation in cultural and political life, contributing to the promotion of young artists in the fields of theatre, music, literature, film and visual arts - Inclusion of different age groups, social classes, nationalities and people with fewer opportunities - Tackling current societal and environmental challenges and crises with innovative and artistic interventions In this sense, we further aim for: - Freedom of artistic expression: we invite young people to try new and innovative approaches. - To offer young people possibilities to present themselves in safe spaces, try different fields of art and gain self-confidence - affordable prices for rehearsal and ateliers to support young artists - Community Building and development of the neighbourhood of the MARK headquarters - To offer a barrier-free infrastructure accessible for people with physical disabilities - Empowerment of young people by offering learning opportunities, training and other opportunities to gain self-confidence Main activities: - Support of ongoing artists through competitive events, space for exhibitions, rehearsal, training, workshop area and networking activities (e. g. Open Stage, Literature competition, "Lesezeit" Library talks, Synthesizer Stammtisch, MARKart monthly vernissage) - Enabling active participation in cultural and political life through seminars, expert talks, focus groups and else - Commitment to a more sustainable lifestyle, tackling environmental challenges as well as giving options for a more sustainable and autonomous lifestyle (e. g. Community kitchen, community garden, social hairdresser) Our target groups: - (young) people interested in arts and socio-cultural interventions to realize their potential, gain self-confidence - people with fewer opportunities; offering them art and socio-cultural program with low or no entry fees; including migrants and refugees - Ongoing artists or people wishing to perform in the artistic field (supported with affordable rehearsal (rentable per hour), theatre space and ateliers as well as open stage evenings ("Open Stage", Jam Session), competitive events (e. g. "Wir lesen uns die Münder wund" literature competition) and networking events,) - local neighbourhood Our headquarters and our team: Our headquarters is in an industrial zone at the periphery of Salzburg, close to Sam, a neighbourhood whose development we support with our program. As a "Verein"/association, we consist of regular members, full members and the board. While these members act unsalaried ("ehrenamtlich"), we have a small employed team and a manager.