PfC's Choice

Launching a debate on cultural policy development in Bosnia and Herzegovina: an independent initiative in development
Participating to the Policies for Culture meeting in Bucharest on January 28, Aida Kalender has refered to the initiative of the NGO 'Akcija - Agency for cultural development' in Sarajevo, whom she is presiding, to engage in a public debate on the draft National cultural strategy report which is expected to be released soon by the national Ministry of Civil Affairs. "Bosnia and Herzegovina has been among the few countries in Europe missing the National Report on cultural policy in the framework of the evaluation programme of the Council of Europe. It was due to the lack of a Ministry of Culture at the state level, as the result of the Dayton constitution". According to Kalender, "several public cultural institutions at national level are particularly eager to see the National cultural strategy report as it would finally define their unsolved administrative and financial position. The independent cultural sector, with its numerous and diverse cultural NGOs emerged during the 90s in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is also waiting for this report with a high interest, as it should systematically address its position within the cultural system, as well as the public funding opportunities available for its projects". In this context, Akcija aims to put the issue of cultural policy development on the public agenda, as it was ignored and neglected both by the local government and the international community present in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in cooperation with other partners. Akcija is still seeking support for this initiative.
For more information contact Aida Kalender at aida@media.ba. You may also consult the Experts Report on the cultural policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina released in 2002 by the Council of Europe.

 Policies for Culture news

Policies for Culture development meeting held in Bucharest
On 28 January 2006, the ECUMEST Association organised in Bucharest a development meeting of the Policies for Culture programme. It brought together the project initiating and managing organisations (Corina Suteu, Oana Radu, ECUMEST & Philipp Dietachmair, ECF), a small group of experts of the programme (Milena Dragicevic-Sesic, Sanjin Dragojevic) and action projects coordinators (Teodor Celakoski, Aleksandar Djeric, Violeta Simjanovska, Emina Visnic). Following the PfC action projects' network meeting held in November 2005, the current meeting aimed to pursue the reflection on the future development of the programme, with the aim to envisage new ways of answering to present needs and the changing contexts in the countries of the region by making better use of the important experience and knowlege developed in the region since the launch of the programme in 2000. Thus, the Policies for Culture platform aims to provide for a larger space of initiative for the various organisations working in the field of cultural policy in the region, and to represent a space of coordination of their efforts to cooperate regionally in the fields of advocacy support; information provision; training; and research in cultural policy. The participants have agreed on a series of goals connected to these action lines and discussed upon their initiatives and participation as well as their interest in taking responsibilities inside the network, as individuals and as organisations.
More details on the results of this meeting will be soon available on www.policiesforculture.org.

Action projects update: Evaluation of the Cultural Strategy of Timis County under development (Timisoara, Romania)
At the initiative of the Intercultural Institute Timisoara, a process of evaluating the implementation and impact of the cultural strategy of Timis county was launched at the end of 2005 with the support of the Policies for Culture programme. The cultural strategy of the county was developed in the framework of a Policies for Culture action project in 2001-2002 and adopted by the public authorities in 2002. The evaluation process - a pilot one among the many action projects supported by Policies for Culture - began in December 2005 with a survey of the public in different areas within the county, and will continue in February and March with focus groups involving different cultural actors within the counties. The evaluation will be concluded with a case study of the entire process of local policy development-implementation-evaluation, which will be published and disseminated in summer 2006.
For more details contact the Policies for Culture team at info@policiesforculture.org.

Beyond SEE projects page on the PfC website
Since 2004, the Policies for Culture programme has been applying its experience in participative cultural policy-making also outside South East Europe, under the coordination of the European Cultural Foundation. The programme's main target areas for supporting the development of new cultural policies beyond SEE are the countries of Central and Eastern Europe which recently joined the European Union and other pilot regions in the wider EU neighbourhood. Information about these areas of intervention is now available on the programme's website. "Cultural Policy from Amsterdam to Zilina - A new Local Cultural Policy for the Zilina Region" (Slovakia) is the first project listed. Information about other projects undertaken outside South East Europe will be available soon.
Learn more at www.policiesforculture.org.

policiesforculture.org in figures
Since its relaunch in 2004, the Policies for Culture website has registered an important increase of new visitors and subscribers to the electronic publications produced in the framework of the programme. In the last 6 months of 2005, policiesforculture.org had 10490 unique visitors. Two thirds of the visitors are European, out of which almost 66% are from Eastern Europe. Non-European visitors are mostly from USA (80%). The electronic periodicals of Policies for Culture (e-bulletin and InSIGHT) are distributed to a database of 4000 international contacts, out of which almost 450 are new subscribers throughout 2005. Our subscribers come mainly from Europe, with an important number of South East European beneficiaries.

 News from the region

Albania: Meeting of the Council of the Ministers of Culture of South East Europe
On 9 February 2006, the first meeting of the Council of Ministers of Culture of South East Europe  following its establishment in March 2005 is due to take place in Tirana. The meeting, marking also the approaching finalisation of the Albanian presidency of the Council, is aimed at drawing an action plan on the basis of the various proposals of regional cooperation projects submitted by each participating Ministry of Culture. Policies for Culture will inform of decisions taken.
For more information contact the International Relations department within the Ministries of Culture of South East Europe.

Croatia: Reduction of the budget for culture in the city of Rijeka
The City Council of Rijeka has decided late December 2005 to diminish the cultural budget by 18%. The reduction refers, above all, to financing of cultural programmes, while the funding available for salaries and infrastructural costs of public cultural institutions remains at the same level. Several independent cultural organisations in Rijeka - among which Trafik, Spirit, Prostor Plus, Ri-Teatar, Film Aktiv and Drugo More - have immediately reacted to this decision. Davor Miskovic, director of the Drugo More Association, which conducted one of the Policies for Culture action project in Croatia, stressed that "the decision is strange, having in mind the unfavourable ratio of funds dedicated to the maintenance of cultural system (salaries, infrastructure) and the funds intended for financing of programmes. Over four fifths (84 percent) of the available funds is spent on maintenance, with the remaining 16 percent dedicated to actual programming". Local cultural organisations were also surprised by the relatively mild reactions coming from local cultural institutions, who have also seen a major cut in the programming funds. They conclude that the management might consider it more important to secure salaries, while they are not as interested as the independent scene in the actual programming.
For more information contact Davor Miskovic at davor@drugo-more.hr.
Source: SEE portal. Excerpts from articles written by Tomislav Domes.

Macedonia: Second workshop in the framework of the project "Strengthening the Local Cultural Institutions"
On 24-26 January 2006, PAC Multimedia has organised in Skopje a workshop on "Management in culture", the second training session in the framework of its 2-year project "Strengthening the Local Cultural Institutions in Macedonia". The course was conducted by Milena Dragicevic-Sesic (University of Arts in Belgrade), with the participation of Violeta Simjanovska (PAC Multimedia) - both active participants within the Policies for Culture network. This training programme, supported by the Macedonian Ministries of Culture and of Local Administration, is targeting city mayors, culture advisors, executive directors and employees in the cultural institutions and NGOs in Macedonia, aiming to introduce this audience to new and modern models of decision making, planning, organisation, management and fundraising.
For more information contact PAC Multimedia at info@multimedia.org.mk or visit www.multimedia.org.mk.

Romania: Public debate on the cultural strategy of the city of Cluj-Napoca
The Municipality of Cluj-Napoca has organised on January 13 a public debate dedicated to the development of a cultural strategy of the city for 2006-2013. It gathered representatives of the local administration in the field, of public cultural institutions and independent cultural organisations, as well as the academic field. The discussions had as background a document drafted by the Local Civil Council (a citizens committee) in collaboration with AltArt Foundation (NGO working in the field of new media) and Babes Bolyai University. It was the first public debate dedicated to this issue, having among its aims to bring to debate key needs and lead to concrete proposals on how to address them. Among them: define priorities for the local cultural development and adjust the funding needs to these priorities; develop management capacities of cultural institutions; develop sustainable partnerships between local administration, cultural operators and business environment; promote cultural cooperation at national and international level. The debate will be followed by a series of written recommendations submitted to the City Council by the local cultural sector in order to be integrated into the draft cultural strategy of the city of Cluj-Napoca.
For more information contact Rarita Szakats, AltArt Foundation, at rarita@altart.org or visit www.primariaclujnapoca.ro.

 Projects and Initiatives

ODA for Democratisation II (Pristina, Kosovo)
The project under this title is a follow-up to ODA for Democratisation I, carried out by Oda Theatre Pristina in 2005. It will consist in open debates on the topic of citizens' involvement in decision making processes for the creation of a democratic society. Staging of two theatre plays and creative writing workshops will also be part of this phase of Oda for Democratisation in 2006. The project is part of ODA's effort to stengthen the independent cultural sector in Kosovo.
For more information visit www.teatrioda.com.

European Cultural Cooperation Survey
The ERICarts Institute (European Institute for Comparative Cultural Research) in Bonn is preparing a survey aimed at collecting information on research resources regarding trans-national co-operation in Europe. The information provided via the online tool created with this aim will be evaluated by the ERICarts team and be submitted to the Laboratory for European Cultural Co-operation (LAB) and selected information will be made available via their Internet Portal now in development. One of the main goals of this survey is to ensure that research conducted in all parts of Europe, especially in lesser used language areas, is represented in the final collection including the main findings and/or recommendations.
For more details and to contribute to this survey visit www.ericarts.org/survey/.

On-The-Move project: development plans for 2006
IETM, PEARLE* and On-The-Move, (including partners the Finnish Theatre Information Centre, the Goethe Institute, Visiting Arts and Relais Culture Europe) have applied to the EU to organise a year-long project in the framework of the '2006: Year of Mobility". The proposal consists of a legal and fiscal hotline on mobility issues (PEARLE*), commissions to young artists to make digital portraits and mobility stories, and a major conference at the end of the year bringing together IETM members, cultural networks and public administrations to discuss mobility in the performing arts.
For more details on this project watch www.on-the-move.org.

 Upcoming Events

April 19-23, 2006: IETM Annual Spring Plenary Meeting (Istanbul, Turkey)
The meeting is part of a larger concept and event - IETM at Culture Forum Istanbul: "Margins of Europe" - co-organised with Avrupa Kültür Dernegi (European Cultural Association) on the 19th of April. In addition, IETM is working with many associated partners and colleagues from the EU, candidate and neighbouring countries as well as Turkey. The one-day conference on April 19 will address various cultural issues in Turkey and Europe, such as cultural history and developments in Turkey, the development of its cultural sector, the image of Turkey in Europe and subjects about the culture in Europe such as recent cultural dynamics and developments. The conference will be followed on April 20-23 with the usual format IETM meeting: various working groups on artistic disciplines, arts and society, audience development, arts and development, arts and digital technology etc; training sessions; project presentation sessions, along with the performance platform focusing on the Turkish performing arts scene.
For more information contact office@ietm.org or visit www.ietm.org.

July 9-11, 2006: 32nd Conference on Social Theory, Politics and the Arts: Comparative Perspectives on Cultural Policy Change (Vienna, Austria)
Social Theory, Politics and the Arts (STP&A) is an annual inter-disciplinary gathering of researchers, policy makers and practitioners that highlights current and conceptual issues in the development of cultural policy, theory, and arts administration practices in the US and abroad. The main theme of the 2006 conference is "Comparative Perspectives on Cultural Policy Change", including policy transfer and policy learning. The event will be organised in conjunction with the 2006 Association of Cultural Economics International (ACEI) Conference and hosted by the Austrian Society for Cultural Economics and Policy Studies (FOKUS). It will be followed by the 4th International Conference on Cultural Policy Research that will take place in Vienna on July 12-16 (previously announced in the e-bulletin).
For more information contact Margaret Wyszomirski, STP&A Conference Chair, Ohio State University, at wyszomirski.1@osu.edu or visit aad.uoregon.edu/specialevents/stpa/stpa2006/.

November 17-19, 2006: Berlin Conference in the framework of 'A Soul for Europe' initiative (Berlin, Germany)
Following the 2004 Berlin Conference for European Cultural Policy, this new event planned by the initiators of 'A Soul for Europe' initiative is intended at assessing the progress made so far in harnessing culture for the development of a united Europe and at drawing conclusions from this. The conference will be rounded off by a cultural summit that will address the problem of integrating the work of the cultural, business, political and social sectors. Another project currently in development within the framework of 'A Soul for Europe', in cooperation with the ECUMEST Association, focuses on the experience and practices in the region of South East Europe and how they could contribute in advancing the argument of "Culture for structural development". The experience and lessons that might be learned from various cultural initiatives in SEE - seen as 'agents of change' in their own contexts - can be highly beneficial to the EU policies concerning regional development, as well as to placing culture stronger on the development agenda of the countries of South East Europe within the process of their accession to the European Union.
For more details on these and other projects in the framework of 'A Soul for Europe' initiative please visit www.berlinerkonferenz.net.

 Opportunities

April 24-29: Bratislava Spring Academy: Strategic Development for Art Organisations in Changing Environments
Application deadline: 6 March 2006
The European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam) and the Foundation - Centre for Contemporary Arts (Bratislava), in collaboration with the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (Bratislava), are organising the course under this title, taking place between 24-29 April 2006 in Bratislava. The programme is designed for art organisations from Central, Eastern and South East European countries, as well as from Western European countries, aiming to provide participants with a set of strategic management skills which will allow them to analyse and successfully develop their organisations, steering them towards structural change as well as operational and financial sustainability. Among the lecturers will be several active members of the Policies for Culture network such as Milena Dragicevic-Sesic (University of Arts, Belgrade), Sanjin Dragojevic (University of Zagreb) and Teodor Celakoski (Multimedia Institute, Zagreb). A number of scholarships are available for SEE selected participants.
For more information and to dowloand the application form visit www.eurocult.org or contact Kristina Paulenova, at kristina@scca.sk.

May 8-14: Cultural Transitions in Southeastern Europe: "The Creative City: Crossing Visions and New Realities in the Region" (Dubrovnik, Croatia)
Application deadline: 20 March 2006
This year's postgraduate seminar organised by the Department of Culture and Communication of the IMO - Institute for International Relations (Zagreb) in partnership with a series of partner universities in the region of South East Europe, will take place from 8-14 May 2006 at the Inter University Centre (IUC) in Dubrovnik. The seminar will focus on the impact of creative industries on urban cultural development models and cultural policies, and on regeneration of SEE cities. The programme of the seminar is based on lectures, presentations, workshops and discussions dedicated to issues such as: models/approaches to creative industries and urban cultural development; case studies of the cities in the region; urban cultural policies and their implementation; position of civil society organisations in the urban development, etc. This interactive seminar is aimed at postgraduate students, experts in the field, local decision makers, journalists and professors interested in cultural development from the region.
For more information and application forms contact Jaka Primorac at jaka@irmo.hr or visit www.culturelink.hr.

On The Move: Training oportunties on 'mobility, intercultural competence, cultural cooperation in the ages of digital spaces'
In 2006, On the Move (OTM) intends to expand its number of potential trainers and set up a network of trainers approach. Corina Suteu (independent consultant and trainer, president of ECUMEST) will supervise and assist a newly-selected team (3-4) of trainers to comprehend the perspective and philosophy of OTM, to be able to use the elements of the training sessions she held in 2005 (in Helsinki & Bucharest), and guide them to create their own specialised training packages. The first training of trainers session will take place on February 10 in Paris, following which the trainers will be official ‘On The Move’ trainers on ‘mobility, intercultural competence, cultural cooperation in the age of digital spaces’ and can conduct training sessions in your country upon request.
For more details watch www.on-the-move.org.

 Publications & Information Resources

The 7th Edition of the "Compendium of Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe" is online
New information and data on cultural policies and trends from 38 countries is available from January 2006 on the Compendium website. Among the updated profiles of SEE countries, new data is now available on: provisions for cultural minorities and "Cultural Attitudes and the Consumption of Cultural Goods" study in Bulgaria; new technologies and cultural policies in Croatia or the impact of the opening of negotiations for full EU membership on the cultural sector in Croatia; specific legislation concerning the film fund in Macedonia; emerging partnerships and collaborations in Serbia and Montenegro.
For more details visit the Compendium website.

The Emerging Creative Industries in Southeastern Europe
December 2005. Culturelink/ Institute for International Relations, Zagreb, Nada Svob-Dokic, editor. The new Culturelink publication is a collections of papers from the course "Managing Cultural Transitions: Southeastern Europe – The Impact of Creative Industries" (Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, 8-15 May 2005). The publication is structured on several thematic chapters - creative industries in SEE, cultural exchange and cooperation in SEE and cultural cooperation contexts. It features articles written by active scholars and researchers from the region, among whom Aldo Milohnic (Slovenia), Milena Dragicevic-Sesic (Serbia & Montenegro), Corina Suteu (Romania/France) or Lidia Varbanova (Bulgaria/Canada).
For more details write to clink@irmo.hr or visit www.culturelink.hr.

New Territories of Art
2005, by Fabrice Lextrait and Frederic Kahn; Jean-Michel Place, editor. This book, released late January 2006 at Mains d’Oeuvres in Paris, treates about the industrial spaces, the laboratories and the transitory spaces as essential to the experimentation of new practices and cultural policies. The publication gathers the reflections of more than 80 operators (artists, project coordinators, intellectuals) working in these 'New Territories of Art', which could be of interest to those SEE projects or initiatives developed in or targeting similar spaces.
For more details and to order the book visit www.jeanmichelplace.com.

2005 Arts & Cultural Policy Research Directory is released
December 2005. The Center for Arts and Culture, CPANDA, and the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton have recently released the 2005 Arts & Cultural Policy Research Directory. Envisioned as a means to map current research in the field and to identify areas of overlap as well as existing gaps, the directory compiles results of a fall 2005 survey shared with numerous individuals and institutions involved in cultural policy research. The questionnaire was designed to capture recent U.S.-based projects, publications and events that are both research-based and policy-focused. The survey is of relevance to those SEE researchers and practitioners interested in learning more about the cultural policy research community in USA and its current projects and concerns.
Consult the directory at www.culturalpolicy.org.

Papers of the workshop "Methods – research projects on art-society relations"
January 2006. Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto and Artfactories have organised on 27-29 January 2006, on the occasion of ArteFiera in Bologna, the second edition of International Workshop Methods – research projects on art-society relations. The workshop’s intention was to undertake a survey of the methods and processes developed through artistic projects aiming toward social transformation. The workshop made a comparison between artistic experiences with the theoretical and practical objective of interaction between people and social contexts. Projects that start from specific social problems and, through a network of community and public and private sector bodies and institutions, realise new sites and platforms for reciprocal exchange and dialogue. Among other participants, the event brought together organisations from Macedonia and Romania.
Consult the papers of the Methods workshop at www.cittadellarte.it.