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The discussion of Edinburgh workshop started with sharing practices that are inspiring for the topic of Art and Citizenship. These are just a few of projects, organizations and people that fueled our talks.
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Sean Bradley, the director of Edinburgh Old Town Development Trust, a book editor and an activist talks about changes in the Edinburgh urban fabric and the potential of artistic practices to prevent the gentrification and festivalization of cities.
"Ephemera: theory & politics in organization?" an independent journal, founded in 2001. brings in it's 18th issue an eclectic set of papers that each address a central question: how we can build capacity for living and organising in ways that align better with natural systems and imagine ecologically sustainable and socially just alternatives?
In 2018, Drugo more, an NGO from Rijeka, Croatia whose president is Davor Mišković, one of the RESHAPE advisors, organized a festival and exhibition dedicated to the topic of transnationalism – a social phenomenon which arises from the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states.
This text is a report of a month in Brussels. No more, no less. The report of a month spent walking, talking and observing. At the invitation of Flanders Arts Institute and in particular of Sofie Joye, in charge of Diversity, Urbanity and Emerging Artists.
In this pocket publication Flanders Arts Institute examines new ways of working internationally in the arts. Joris Janssens collects insights and light bulb moments from the research & development programme (Re)framing the International.
Although the professionalization of the arts sector continues to rise, and global budgets for art are also growing, alarm bells warning about the precarious socio-economic position of artists are ringing louder than before.
Fatin Farhat, a Palestinian based cultural worker from Ramallah talks about art sector in Palestine and MENA region, as well as about RAWA, a bottom up funding initiative. Fatin is currently enrolled in the Cultural Policy program at Hildesheim University as a Ph.D., examining the potential of inviting new practices to grassroots cultural initiatives, while highlighting the potential role local governments can play in fostering community/citizen participation and cultural development in Palestine.
The complex uncertainties of our times make engaging with futures increasingly challenging. What could encourage proactive engagement with these challenges? The various approaches to uncertainty found in futures studies offer some starting points; where futures are iteratively imagined, tested, adapted and integrated into everyday experiences, as a continuous refinement of living in the long now.
Katarina Pavić, a cultural worker and activist from Zagreb, Croatia, talks about reshaping cultural organizations: What you do every day is a habit, and then your habits form your character, then your character informs the way you do things and the way you organize. When we talk about reshaping organizational systems — this is how we need to start. We need to start with what we are doing every day and how we are doing things every day and this is how we produce something that is called change or novelty.
Arts professionals think that their work is important for society. Nevertheless, when it comes to defining or formulating this value in concrete terms, most of them fail to do so. Far from being able to establish the relevance of what they do for the people they aim to serve, they often seem to be totally unaware of what is going on around them and little informed on contemporary issues that affect their communities. Cuts in budgets for Culture, shrinking teams and an absurd demand for “doing more with less” have further intensified the disconnect between cultural organisations and society. The uncritical execution of repetitive tasks, therefore, has become a comfortable norm, where there seems to be little place for critical thinking, imagination, creativity and, ultimately, happiness. Can there be a way out from this swamp?
Participation does not imply only joining in the game but also the rules of the game, i.e., the conditions under which the game is played. Understanding these rules and the possibility of creating them make the key difference. Participation in this case becomes a tool for positive changes
This article is intended to provide a brief introduction to working with futures as artists and culture makers. One of the central concerns is how and why Futures can provide useful methods for increasing agency and encouraging co-creation of our collective futures. It is about why futuring is important for everyone, not just corporations and governments. It describes what we at FoAM understand by futuring, our interpretation of the (pre)history of Futures and a few suggestions about where it might be able to take us. It touches on the crossovers between art, design and futures and ends with a proposition for more widespread futures literacy.
This short paper is the result of the opportunity to join the conversations happening at the Reshape Forum in Lublin during the first week of April. It is also part of the wider research I am conducting in the framework of my PhD in Artistic Studies at the University of Coimbra on alternative models of organization and management in the performing arts. If you’re interested in continuing this conversation, do get in touch. The research is funded by FCT - SFRH/BD/136458/2018.
