Living on the Edge #5 in Brussels has so far key major themes we would like to explore.
Development failures
Social and health care failures
Creative industries #fails
This third one consists of including in the event agenda talks, workshops and other events where professionals in the field share their experience with others.
The theme and team building around it is currently coordinated by @Matteo_Uguzzoni.
Tasks you can help with which will get you a ticket to the conference
This team is growing. I wanted to reach out with a few updates. A while ago Matteo launched his intro post speaking up about how running an enterprise in the creative field makes you dependent on public sector money. Then Nadia wrote a piece too, saying we need larger investment in culture as innovation, not necessarily via new policy (too costly) but more through experimentation with well meaning policy makers on our side. Learning faster and cheaper.
On my end, to push this track forward I got in touch with groups who are working for European Capitals of Culture bids (from Matera and Bucharest), and invited them to Brussels. They will be able to talk about reforming culture with one foot in and one out, meaning that they or we (Edgeryders is doing work on this too) are doing work at the intersection of independent and system’s culture, as bridge builders. With @ilariadauria we’ll soon be posting a session description to join the others already in for Brussels.
I think the Lote conference program would benefit from more individual takes. What’s your experience as creative workers? What’s the hardest thing for you, for your project? Above there’s different tasks to choose from and get started. See Kira’s workshop on Destroy your idea as example.
Robert Palmer, leading voice on cities and culture is coming!
Great news today, Palmer (Bob) accepted our invitation to come and share a little about his work over the years. He worked for the Council of Europe in the 2000s as a director on Culture and heritage, and nowadays he’s consulting independently for cities running for European Capitals of Culture, including Matera 2019 and Bucharest 2021, but also for intergovernmental agencies. So he knows about change as seen from different stakeholders povs, which I think is valuable.
I would very much like for us to contribute to shape discussions so that they go beyond Culture Capitals - which not a lot of people care about. Rather, we would learn about incentives and what prompts difft players to take on more active roles as culture makers. Where are we failing and what are ways to cope with failure at system level? (grant financing for example, or breakdown of cohesion and solidarity). Thoughts on how to make the most out of having a culture expert with us?