78 Vasileos Pavlou, Kaimakli
1021 NICOSIA
Cyprus
- Arts
- Democracy and community development
- Environment/Sustainable development
- Heritage
- International/Cultural relations
- Research
UG is registreted as a non for profit company under the national Ministry of Commerce in Cyprus. IT is run by a board of Directors and has about 2 -3 staff employed. The NGO relies mainly on EUropean and national funding for its actions. The Board of Directors and working team shares expertise in architecture, urban design & planning, landscape design, economics, cultural project management, as well as a love for innovation and the drive for bringing about positive change. UG carries an extensive collaboration with artists, academics, NGOs, municipalities, youth groups, and cultural institutions, amongst others. Most of our projects have a tangible result i.e an exhibition or event in public space, a research tat will end up in a book publication , a design workshop with concrete output resulting in an intervention in public space etc.
Urban Gorillas is a non-profit organisation run by a multi-disciplinary team ofurban enthusiasts who envision healthy, creative and socially inclusive cities. It was founded in 2013 and has been very active since in advoacating for sustainbable cities. Urban Gorillas contributes to sustainable urban living by enabling projects and actions that bring new energy and instigate change in city spaces and communities. The team has a vivid interest to transform public spaces into lively, innovative and inclusive hubs, to cultivate civil society and to impact policies. This is achieved by artistic interventions in urban spaces, community engagement, youth education, activism and research into new technologies, and architectural-social designs that can improve urban living. The organisation shares expertise in arts and architecture, urban design and planning, landscape design, environmental engineering, economics, communications, cultural project management, as well as a love for innovation.
URBAN GORILLAS (UG) is an NGO which undertakes creative urban interventions to foster sustainable living, using mixed-artistic practices, social action and community engagement. UG’s activities include the creation of digital and non-digital platforms to facilitate discussions, exchange of views with citizens concerning community-related problems. UG investigate solutions for a sustainable urban future through research-oriented design and creation of new social processes. Using diverse approaches such as co-creating and co-curating with communities and their own methodology of ‘adopt-an-artist’(http://urbangorillas.org/uncategorized/pame-kaimakli-adopt-an-artist), UG enhance the dynamics of public interactions and invest in cultural heritage. Our biggest project to date, the Green Urban Lab was the result of cross sectoral cooperation (universities, municipalities, private companies, international experts) along with participatory tools for citizen’s involvement. A series of public art interventions took place in important cultural heritage sites, involving actors form the wider public sector while raising interest of actors from the private sector. This was the first attempt to raise awareness on public spaces as a commondemocratic platform and was done by the activation of underutilized public spaces through cultural actions and community engagement.
We believe that UG has the unique expertise with its innovative tools of connecting the public using cultural and artistic practises. In addition our main focus in public spaces and our belief that arts and culture should be offered and presented to the wider public to the unsuspected passerby free cost, offers a fresh perspective to the network in adopting aritistic and culture for the society. We wish to share our expertise with the network in Cyprus in an atttempt to examine ways that arts can strengthen the Cypriot society.
We would like to be part of a larger European (and beyond) family as we belief that we can go further if we work together with partners. Throughout our work we believe and acourage collaborations, and apply transverals learning and exchane techniquew eith our partners. We think that the ALF Network offers the ideal ground where we can expand our work, share, exchange, learn and ACT with one another.