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LabforCulture.org
is a partner initiative of the European Cultural
Foundation
LabforCulture Update LabforCulture is dedicated to cultural cooperation in broader Europe. Through its website, LabforCulture shares information and knowledge about transnational cultural practice; offline, it stimulates certain cross-border cultural cooperation activities, including research and analysis. LabforCulture is very much a partnership project and is jointly developed, funded and supported by many of Europe’s leading cultural organisations. More details can be found at www.labforculture.org and www.eurocult.org/lab. |
LabforCulture
testing phase - prior to going live Spring 2006
In this crucially important stage
of LabforCulture’s development, target user groups from across Europe
(including, artists, researchers, and cultural operators) are testing out
the site in a series of workshops, online surveys and phone interviews.
The results will be used to make the website more user-friendly and
informative.
At the end of January, a one-day event in Istanbul brought together independent artists and cultural agents not only to test the site but also to voice their specific information needs. Other sessions have taken place in Germany, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Spain and Serbia. A workshop was held in Paris, in collaboration with On The Move and in the context of an expert workshop on methods of transferring knowledge around mobility and cooperation in the age of digital spaces. And a testing session will be held in Vilnius this March, in close cooperation with Cultural Contact Point Lithuania (CCPL) and the Lithuanian Cultural Administrators Training Centre (LCATC) |
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New
content on LabforCulture.org
Report - Istanbul’s Cultural Constellation and Its European Prospects LabforCulture commissioned cultural analyst, Dragan Klaic, to report on Istanbul’s key cultural issues, problems and prospects. In autumn 2005, he spent a month there investigating the city’s cultural scene. The report describes the limitations of the cultural infrastructure and the dramatic lack of any EU presence, while pointing to a burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit and a rapidly growing cluster of small-scale artistic facilities. Dr Klaic argues that the renewal of cultural policy would undoubtedly strengthen Turkey’s overall reformist efforts on the road to full EU membership. In particular, he calls for:
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Research
LabforCulture initiates, commissions and co-develops research projects and explorative reports. A Cultural Component as an Integral Part of the European Union’s External Policy? In 2005, LabforCulture commissioned a bibliographic survey and policy review on a possible cultural component to European foreign policy. The aim is to find out whether, in addition to their national foreign cultural policies, EU member states could and would work together on joint cultural actions and programmes outside the EU. Would there be sufficient common ground? Boekmanstichting was commissioned to produce the initial survey; its authors are Diane Dodd, Melle Lyklema and Kathinka Dittrich van Weringh. The survey, which will appear soon in print and online, focuses on the 25 EU member states’ existing documents, regional and intergovernmental agreements, as well as background literature. A complementary qualitative policy analysis involving interviews with selected decisionmakers across Europe is currently being conducted by Rod Fisher and Kathinka Dittrich van Weringh. It will be available in summer 2006. Resources on European cultural cooperation A survey by our G2CC partner, ERICarts, will identify what research resources on European cultural cooperation and mobility are available in various European countries and in different languages. The resources, which include studies, documents, articles, online material, and data collections, will be posted at LabforCulture.org in the Spring. |
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Case
studies map
The LabforCulture.org site will feature a case studies map developed by G2CC partner Fitzcarraldo Fondazione. This map shares information about cultural cooperation projects – what worked and the things that didn’t work so well. It should help and inspire artists, producers, and institutions supporting the arts. An examplary project which helps to provide a new understanding of diversity is Hidden Spirits. This connects remote, often isolated villages and gives them a voice. The first stage of Hidden Spirits put remote communities into direct communication with the world by placing personal and collective memories and stories on the web. 
Members of a multidisciplinary
international team share their professional and human know-how, using art,
storytelling and interactive narratives to collect interviews, sounds, and
images. The results, presented to the local community, enable people to
see themselves and hear from each other as never before. See
www.novakultura.org/belarechka-e.html
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Follow
European debates online
A daily newsletter which follows European debates on sociopolitical and cultural themes is now available online. Editors and correspondents review the most important newspapers from the 25 EU member states as well as Switzerland, and present excerpts from opinion articles, reflections, essays and commentaries, with short introductory overviews. The project is being developed by the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung (BPB), Germany, with LabforCulture as a partner. To subscribe, go to www.eurotopics.net. |
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Have
something to say? Then please get in touch:
labforculture@eurocult.org
www.eurocult.org/lab You can see this Update online at: www.eurocult.org/lab/newsletter Sole responsibility for the contents of this online text lie with the individual authors and the European Cultural Foundation. Views expressed by individual authors do not necessarily reflect the views of the ECF. |
| LabforCulture thanks its supporters: The European Union - Directorate General Education and Culture; Compagnia di San Paolo; Cypriot Ministry of Education and Culture; Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; German Federal Agency for Civic Education; Federal Cultural Foundation Germany (with partner: Deutsches InformationsZentrum Kulturförderung, DIZK); Fritt Ord Foundation; Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs; Polish Ministry of Culture; Robert Bosch Foundation and The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. LabforCulture thanks the partners within the G2CC partnership: European Institute for Comparative Cultural Research (ERICarts Institute), Fondazione Fitzcarraldo and On-the-Move.org. |