culture Culture: a networked conversation series in 2019
A curated deep inquiry into the most urgent challenges faced by cultural and art collectives across European cities. It aims to offer hosts and participants a local/global platform for conversation and access to useful information and support which tends to be unavailable or expensive. For six months, one question per month will convene artists, activists, cultural workers to a local meetup (a community space, a cafe, or even a living room) where they will engage in constructive conversation and draw points of action for mutual support and collaboration at the equivalent of 3 hours / person / month. The meetups are synchronized to address complementary issues.
Members of the Edgeryders Culture Squad take turns to produce and document the events, connect the local stories into a bigger narrative, and connect participants with resources from our network of thousands of people doing cultural work.
Conversations Format
An afternoon/evening on a chosen topic, at a table conversation with 12-15 participants and possibly one or two guests acting as conversation openers.
- Invited guest introduces the inquiry and launches reflection points for the room.
- Participants offer their personal experience and asks for help as contribution to the theme.
- The group works together to build a set of actions for collaboration that require no more than 3 hours of work and service by each person who wishes to remain connected to the group.
- Hosts document the discussion into online posts and commit to connect it to other city events.
- *Dinner and drinks
The first season of Networked Culture Conversation culminates with a community event: A Performative Dinner to share key findings and celebrate outcomes as we plan for the future.
Starting topics for 2019
- What is an artist place to work from? in Berlin
- What makes a sustainable work space for collectives? in Brussels
- How can arts and culture create a secure environment for artists and citizens to take the lead in the ongoing renovation of civic spaces? in Bedford.
- How to use vacant spaces for social innovation? in Brussels
Benefits for participants:
- Join a process for discovering progressive ways to improve your work in Culture and the Arts!
- Receive high quality materials about the solutions others have found in their city
- Your project and plea featured in a global community of 4500+ like-minded and supporting peers working in culture, on https://edgeryders.eu/culture-squad
- An invitation to join our Performative Dinner in one of the cities, closing the first season of our conversations.
- Good food, drinks, and dinner talks.
Benefits for hosts and producers:
- Build a tight community and make it a resource for new work, projects, collaborations
- Become a cultural network node in your city.
- Learn about community building using an online platform and digital conversation techniques
Where?
We start with Bedford, Berlin, Brussels, Yerevan and Athens.
How to start?
A member of the Culture Squad team or Edgeryders community partners up with an active local group or organisation and asks them to co-host the event. They formulate together the deep inquiry and propose a list of invitees and participants, roll out the invite, meet people and document on edgeryders.eu what comes out of the conversation.
Who’s behind this?
The Edgeryders Culture Squad is connecting groups across Europe and beyond to develop shared practices and deploy art and culture for social change. Due to our geographic spread and using an international community platform, we make it cheap for people to connect in new ways and access resources together.
Want to join the series or know more about the Culture Squad? Introduce yourself in a post here!