Nurturing - Networks of care through embodied art

Erasmus+ // Participatory art and lived corporeality for building networks of care

Following the Mirmica Developing Body Mind Practices project, Mirmica is committed to a new Erasmus+ project for the next year, which will end in February 2026.

12 staff members are involved in concrete growth opportunities with high accessibility: training courses abroad, job shadowing, teaching assignments, in various locations in Germany, Spain, and France. The thematic focuses are not only somatic disciplines, as was the case with the previous European project, but also the integration of other tools, such as those of audio and podcast creation, and in general the practices of community intervention through the arts.

One of the most strongly felt problems in recent years within the context of Mirmica, in addition to a general landscape of difficulty and indefiniteness for Third Sector organizations, is the high degree of precariousness and risk of burnout for professionals in the sector - especially for those who, in Italy, face complex problems every day in their field of work at a managerial, relational, economic, and institutional level; and often suffer an isolation that is the same as that which characterizes the socially marginalized contexts in which they intervene.

Through a plan of international and local actions, consisting of experiences abroad, peer-to-peer meetings in Italy, sharing of practices, paths, and reflections also in Mirmica's intervention contexts, the aim is to create an ever-expanding platform-network of exchange, care, well-being, and growth aimed at workers in the sector. A point of reference for those working in the field of cultural, artistic, and social training, who can thus find in the association a possibility of permanent and horizontal training, a constant stimulus for innovation, and an antidote to isolation.

In a long-term vision, Mirmica thus becomes a center for co-design, research, and support for professional and community development through the arts and somatic practices. In the meantime, a shared reflection is carried out on what we mean today by the concept of "care" and how this can be a response to individualism, violence, and precariousness.