When Bangalore-based film director Girish Kasaravalli introduces his film Gulabi Talkies at the Göteborg International Film Festival and Museum of World Cultures in Göteborg, he very humbly describes his idea as trying to grasp three processes in India that occurred simultaneously: The war between India and Pakistan that affected the relation between Hindus and Muslims, the change in fishing regulations on the coastal villages in Karnataka, and the introduction of private and public cable TV in villages. He wanted to show the effects of these processes in the everyday life in a small village.

The film is one of the films within the theme Beyond Bollywood at the festival. It has lifted the question of independent film making as such, as well as the Bollywood film industry and the specific situation for filmmakers in India. At the seminar after the show of Gulabi Talkies, Girish Kasaravalli and film- and theatre person Prakash Belawadi discuss the situation in India and point out that a theme like “Beyond Bollywood” creates another misunderstanding. It’s as if Bollywood films are the narrative, everything else is beyond. This is not true, they say. Bollywood might involve a lot of money (often connected to either illegal or accounted activities we learn), but seen in the number of films produced, it’s a small part of films – less than 25 procent – made in India. Yet, it’s seen by the world as the pan-India, while in fact it has very little to do with ordinary life in India.

There is a strong urge for simplicity, for stereotypes. Francis B Nyamjoh, Head of Publications and Dissemination in Senegal, quoted before on this site, writes in Cultures and Globalization: The Cultural Economy, that the global cultural entrepreneurs; the large film, music and literature companies are asking only for stereotypical stories from African scene. They don’t want to distribute alternative stories, since this is said not to sell.

At a workshop in Nairobi last September (look under Kenya) many of the participating writers were saying that if you want to sell, you need to write stories of the Big Five, the largest wild animals in the African wild life. Otherwise no one will invest money or distribute your story. Doreen Baingana, a Uganda-born writer wrote a beautiful story of three sisters growing up in modern Kampala a few years ago. The Tropical Fish has won prizes and can be found on searches on the Internet. Anjum Hasan is a Bangalore-based writer who recently published her book Neti, Neti, a wonderful story of being a young woman in modern Bangalore. So, there Is no need among young women in the world of these stories?

Who is continuously reproducing the need for stereotypical stories? The audience, customers, distribution chains, large global entrepreneurs, investors? Perhaps Internet can be an important tool to change this.

Photos and film: Leif Eriksson, Filmhögskolan Göteborg University.

The fact that the Cultural scene is complex and consists of multidimensional relations, networks, and processes is nothing new. Most people, from Artists to politicians, agree that getting an overview of this area is more or less impossible. On a theoretical and general level, that is. When it comes to writing policies, discussing development of the field, and the role of creative industries, all seem forgotten. The awareness of the complexity goes down the drain. When it comes to policy the consensus around the Cultural field is overwhelming.

What are the consequences? Misguided and ill-substantiated proposals are formed; that, if really bad can endanger the Cultural life rather than catalyze it’s potential. This was evident not least in the work done by The Committee of Inquiry of Cultural Policy in Sweden, and the report presented by them last February.

David Karlsson, Chair of Nätverkstan, puts the light on this in his new book A Cultural Policy: money, art and politics to be published on February 12. David Karlsson was part of the Secretariat connected to the Committee for one year, after which he left because of bad management. The book is in many ways his respond to what should have been put forward in the report on Cultural policy presented by the Committee. But it’s not only that. It’s the first attempt in later years in Sweden of taking a grip of the whole area of Art and Culture.

The fifteen chapters cover a whole range of areas and processes such as Culture, Economy, Industry, Figures, Democracy, Production, Quality…All areas with it’s own complexity, and put together, even more diverse. Together with very concrete examples of consequences for Cultural policy, he reaches his own thesis (a conclusion of a reasoning in the first part of the book, my translation): “Firstly, every political action directed towards the Cultural field, to have any prospect of leading to results, have to build on an understanding of the complexity of the field. Cultural policy needs to become more complicated to be able to operate less complicated. The second conclusion is that a free and independent Art is an absolute condition for all activity within the cultural economy”. This is one reason why it’s necessary to separate Art from Culture and discuss different policy within the different areas.

One of the other discussions is that of Cultural Production. All Cultural products that can be digitalized will be digitized. These products will be for free (which follows the thought of Chris Anderson in his book Free). Cultural life is torn apart in two areas; one where digital Cultural products goes towards being for free, the other being that productions such as concerts, theatre and dance performances will become more expensive.

Several posts have been written at this site before on the topic of Cultural policy. Look under Swedish Cultural Policy, “Time for Culture”, Culture should mainstream all policy, Art and creative industries, The Creative Industries: Ten years after, and many more.

A stream of people hurries in from the cold through the revolving door. The big staircase in the centre of the Museum of World Cultures is filled to the rim. Everyone sit squeezed together, some stand up in the end of the stairs, others hang around the reeling at the second floor. We are here to listen to the Göteborg-based choir Amanda singing Haitian songs in support of the catastrophe at Haiti.

Culture has the power of gathering people in joy or grief, in hope or disaster. Last week Swedish dailies showed photos of people in Port-au-Prince at Haiti gathering in the streets to sing in an act to find the strength to endure. The event in Göteborg gathered hundreds of people wanting to show their sympathy, solidarity and grief. I wonder at how many places around the world things like this take place right now? Where culture becomes the bridge and channel to get the strength to go on, feel hope, or just mourn.

Downstairs is the last day of the exhibition “Vodou”, the culture and religion based in Haiti, which was brought by African slaves transported to work for the colonial powers. Haiti was the first of former colonized states gaining independence through slave rebellion in 1804. And then run by former slaves. The exhibition shows Vodou to be one of the strong sub cultural forces from which slaves got their collective power to fight their oppressors. Song and music from drums is a strong element in Vodou. In US, the power African Americans got from gospel and spirituals, music in connection with strong religious ideas, played an important role in the change from slavery to civil rights in the late 1800s. At Haiti the Dictators Papa Doc and Baby Doc to run political terror between 1957 and 1986 used the same Vodou.

Song, dance, music. Cultural expressions and collective power. The people leaving the museum after the concert today felt a sense of hope. It was an act of solidarity. In Europe, our Cultural Departments at all levels are working towards a more quantity-based measurement of the results and effects of culture. Results of people’s cultural experiences are to be shown in economic figures. Effects should be formulated in measurable, long-term incentives; they must be quantified. So, how do you measure the effect of this?

Today tickets are released to the next Göteborg International Film Festival, a festival visited by around 200.000 people every year who during ten days go to films, listen to seminars, hang in the festival tent or take part of many of the other events connected to the festival. For a small city as Göteborg it’s quite a thing to host, as said on the festival website, the fifth largest public film festival in Europe. It’s a time when you can see film otherwise not reachable for the public and from all corners of the world.

This year there is a section “Beyond Bollywood”, a very concrete result of the three-year cooperation between Region Västra Götaland and the southern state of Karnataka in India. Bollywood is the largest film industry in the world, economically it’s way past Hollywood. According to about.com, fourteen million Indians go to see these “Masala” films, the films produced according to the format with dance, song, love, a hero and a happy ending. But what are produced beyond Bollywood? What questions are the ones of today’s modern India?

The films showed at this year’s festival aim to show a wider perspective, the other films produced. Reading at Wikipedia, India has two official languages, unofficially up to 300 languages are mentioned. In a republic with over one billion inhabitants, of many religions and beliefs, twenty-eight different states, with an incredible economic growth rate and urbanization that is said to be one person per every other second moving in to the cities, the varieties of stories to be told are enormous. In discussion with filmmakers in Bangalore, the lack of quality film education is put forward as one obstacle as why it’s so difficult for the alternative film industry to grow in India. The festival will be visited by the well-known Karnataka film director Girish Kasaravalli and film maker Prakash Belawadi, where questions like this will be discussed.

For more on the cooperation and discussions on film, film education between Region Västra Götaland and Karnataka, look at the section “India” on this site.

Göteborg University is planning a one-year master on Art an Entrepreneurship. The idea is that students start in Göteborg and do part of the education in Bangalore, India. Hopefully the part in Bangalore would be Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology.

A base for the cooperation would be student exchange, where Indian students go to Sweden and the other way around. For Swedish students there are great opportunities in learning a completely different environment, spend a longer time in a different context to get input about Art and entrepreneurship by mixing the theoretical with social practice.

Maja’s day starts early, at around nine o’clock in the morning and continues until late evening. She walks up and down the beach, trying to sell her things. She is one of several vendours doing the beach-walk in Palolem, India, everyday. “Do you remember me?” is a common opening question. “Would you like to see my things?” and “Very cheap!” Everything is sold; pirate copies of movies and music, bracelets and necklaces, stickers, beach doties, do Henna, manicure, pedicure, pinapple and coconut and much more. Many, as Maja, come from Rajasthan and travel in the beginning of each season  on the three-day trainjourney to Goa where the tourists are. They stay 6-8 months away from family and friends to earn an income and then go back.

Tourism is the prime industry in Goa, handling, according to wikipedia, 12% of all tourist arrivals in India. In 2004, there were more than 2 million tourists reported to have visited Goa, 400.000 were from abroad. The goal of 2020 is, says today’s Goan issue of The Times of India, to improve infrastructure such as roads and carparks, but also to change focus from only sun and beaches to promote the local agriculture, food and culture. A necessary thing, if, as said in the article, Goa want to be able to compete with other tourist attractions in the world such as Thailand and Malaysia. But with tourism travels problems such as drugs and prostitution, and worries are put forward that a whole genereation of Goan youngsters are lost in drug trafficking.

The pros and cons of tourism has been put forward in the local papers the last two weeks, very much triggered of a story of a young Russian girl being raped in Goa by a policeman. The story was lifted in the papers with the headline: “Is Goa safe for tourists?”. Today’s paper pose a retoric question: “But are Goans safe from tourism?”

New job opportunities are created and formed. The old one changes. The young man at the bar in Palolem used to as a kid run around an almost empty beach, where the only industry was fishermen. Now he works at one of the popluar hang-outs at the beach. And Maja, 37 years old with most of her family left in Jaipur, Rajasthan, has during the past five years done the journey to reach the tourists and business opportunity. How many foreign workers that reach Goa each season to work is hard to find an exact figure of.

How do deal with tourism is a delicate question. An interesting reflection of African cultural production and what attracts the global cultural entrepreneurs is written by Francis B Nyamjoh, Head of Publications and Dissemination in Sengegal, in “Cultures and Globalization: The Cultural Economy”. Somehow relevant in Goa.

The 11:th of December was Nätverkstan the proud host of Nurope. Nurope »is a mobile philosophical laboratory for reflection on the challenges European leadership is facing in the creative tension between business and art». The Gothenburg session gathered an audience of 20-30 participants. The speakers was David Karlsson from Nätverkstan who talked upon the topic »Cultural Policy in a Global World? Experiences from Sweden». In the afternoon followed a discussion on the topic »The Art Firm and Cultural Entrepreneurship Case: Nätverkstan Kultur i Väst». It was a honour for Nätverkstan to be the host of Nurope and we will hope to participate in Nurope again.

By Olav Fumarola Unsgaard

Olavs presentation is available as a pdf for download.

long-tail-nurope

More about Nurope:

http://www.nurope.eu

Satyajit Ray, the very well-known Bengali (Indian) filmmaker (1921-1992) says in his book first published in 1976, that he learnt one lesson of film making. It is “(…) by far the most physically demanding of all activities that are dignified by the epithet ‘creative’”. ”The whole process takes place in three broad stages: writing, filming and editing”, he writes and continues: “All three are creative; but while in the first and the third one uses mainly one’s head, the second calls for the use of all one’s faculties - celebral, physical and emotional - going full steam at all times.”

Somehow our meeting at Toonskool, the education on animation, is about this. It’s about film making with animation, where you need several skills: craftsmanship of animation, cinema and film, filming, lighting, editing…Toonskoll started in 2004 and is India’s first degree programme in animation we are told. They have around 1000 students around India and the school is about the Art of animation. The focus is on the Artistic side and they even offer a course in acting so the student will better understand movement on stage as they animate their films. The concept is a lot about “learning by doing” with the idea that you learn from your mistakes.

School of Film Directing in Goteborg has prolonged ideas of starting a school of animation in Sweden, and in the light of Toonskool, this seems necessary. How else will the field of animation evolve? Tarik Saleh, a film maker in Sweden, just launched the first full-length animated film in Sweden, Metropia (see clip below), a great piece of work. But how do you get more people involved in such risky and difficult projects? How do you make sure that skills are there for future projects?

An interesting discussion where film making, film directing and animation films seem very close in the thinking behind the making.

The visit is part of an exchange set up by Region Vastra Gotaland and Karnataka. Read o former post on animation in West Sweden and the making of Metropia here.

Gunilla Bursteadt and Leif Eriksson from Film School of Directing in Göteborg are discussing film education in Bangalore with Prakash Belawadi, filmmaker, and N Vidyashankar, Suchitra Cinema & Cultural Academy. What should an education look like with the aim of educating independent filmmakers in the Indian context? How do you secure a multi-level and cross-cultural approach in education?

The visit is part of the exchange between Karnataka, India, and Region Västra Götaland, Sweden that started in 2007.

Archana Prasad, an Artist in Bangalore, has been extremely active the last year. It started about a year ago when she was having her first single exhibition in Bangalore and confronted the lack of Art spaces. There was no good Art space around at a decent price. She had her exhibition, but out of the experience grew a drive to find solutions.

So she started, together with colleague-Artists, a series of initiatives. Jagaa, described in the former post, was one of them. What if you could build a movable Art space and use empty spaces in town to temporarily put it up? The solution was one architect with a piece of land and a construction-site solution of an open gallery. The construction fits into one container when taken down into pieces and takes about a day to put up.

Together with a collective of Artists, she started another gallery, Samuha, where they shared a space to put up exhibitions. Just recently the Artist Raghavendra Rao had an exhibition called “Between Yes and No”, where poetry met performance and movement. Archana is also releasing a web-based journal starting next week, Art and the City, where the Art scene in different Indian cities will be analyzed.

Another interesting space is 1 Shanti Road, an Artist led initiative that is a venue for exhibitions, seminars, debate, space and incubator of experimentation of contemporary Art.

At 18.30 Bangalore time, people from three different places in the world; Göteborg, New Dehli and Bangalore, opened a communication with each other. Through shouting into a well.

Mandana Mogghadam, based in Sweden is the Artist behind the project. If you shout down to a well it echoes and sounds like you get a respond. What if someone was on the other side hearing your shouting and responded? What if we could communicate through the soil to the other side? The idea is fantastic and also reminds me of the tail as a child in Sweden that was said when digging in the ground. If you dig long enough you come to China.

In Bangalore the well was built by local expertize at the Jaaga. The gallery is in itself an interesting story. It’s built as a construction-site, open-air, with recycled billboards as walls. The grounds are lent to the Artists running it by the Archtitect V Naresh Narasimham who runs an architect firm near by and owns the land.

At the end of the evening a group of people from the native tribe Adivasis, situated in the central parts of India. They live in poverty and face two different threats, one being they are constantly abused by other groups and don’t get the justice they have a right to, secondly by governement who is trying to solve a growing middle class in India by taken on traditionally farming and forrest land. The performance was part of a round-trip to engage people from all over India in their fight. An interesting mix of Art, global communication, social practice and activism at an open gallery for anyone to drop in to.

The visit is part of the exchange between Karnataka, India, and Region Västra Götaland, Sweden that started in 2007.

“There is something furiously wrong with the University!”

On the seminar “Education in Cinema: a framework for studies and skills training” in Bangalore on the fourth of December, cinema and film education was debated. There is a need for film education with a holistic and artistic point of view, not only the handicraft on how to handle technical equipment, one statement was. On the other: Why make a dichotomy between commercial films and non-commercial? Is one more valuable than the other? And finally:

The Film Academy had invited in association with Centre for Film and Drama, and the showcase was the Film School of Directing at the Göteborg University. A unique example of film directing education also in Sweden, and it has been very successful. The audience, with representatives from film society in Bangalore, University,  animation, film associations and filmmakers, agreed  that there is a need for an education similar to the one in Göteborg. The debate was rather on who should take this initiative and why on earth has the University not taken it already? It’s their job to provide good education with different content, but they haven’t done anything so far? Prakash Belawadi, well-known filmmaker and theatre person in Bangalore, is straight forward in his opinion and with persistent states the above quote.

There is a balance between creativity and academy, is the experience from the Artistic faculty in Göteborg. A balance that is difficult sometimes and the only way to deal with it are to guarantee Artistic quality and always keep close contact to the Artistic practice. Not so easy, when you simply get caught up in the structures of the academy as a headmaster or lecturer. As the old saying that you suddenly defend the structure you were opposing once you work within it. It’s difficult to stay oppositional or even critical within the system.

The visit is part of the exchange between Karnataka, India, and Region Västra Götaland, Sweden that started in 2007.

Vienna-based Artist Oliver Ressler just released a video-installation exploring the question: “What is Democracy?”. Well, it’s actually not the (one) question, but two, he states on his website. One is focussed on how the parliamentary respresentative democracy and the conditions around, the other is encircling other options. What would a more democratic system look like? Artists and activists representing eighteen cities around the world have been interviewed since 2007, everything recorded on video.

The installation consists of eight videos: 1) “Rethinking representation” (16 min.), 2) “Politics of exclusions” (23 min.), 3) “Secrecy instead of democratic transparency” (13 min.),  4) “New democracies?” (23 min.), 5) “Is representative democracy a democracy?” (22 min.), 6) “Direct democracy” (22 min.), 7) “Reclaiming Indigenous politics” (18 min.) and 8) “Should we consign the Western democracy model to the ash heap of history?” (13 min.). The installation has been launched, and started of in Berlin. At the moment it can be seen at the Biennalie de Lyon.

We need to think outside the box, we are told. Especially in times of crisis. Be creative. You are in a box, just go outside it and you will find new solutions. It’s a statement often presented to cultural entrepreneurs and institutions as an answer to lack of funding. You have to cooperate, look for co- funding bodies, sponsorship. Just think outside your normal structures and you will find new partners, new possibilities and, finally, new money.

The Norwegian Consortium Koenigsegg Group yesterday officially withdrew their offer to buy Saab Automobile with their factory placed in West Sweden. A devastating decision for Saab, who now stands without owner, and for West Sweden, where a lot of people already lost jobs due to the crises in Volvo and Saab. Another 8000 jobs are threatened in the region if Saab has to close down, a figure states in Dagens Nyheter.

“We are in desperate need of fantasy” a comment states in today’s daily Göteborgs-Posten. David Karlsson, cultural journalist and Chair of Nätverkstan, continues, “Only a vivid cultural life can give us the durability needed to survive when hurricanes are sweeping away the Saab factory and jobs”. The crises affect cultural policy and culture. We need literature, film, theatre and the cultural expressions more than ever when, as in a crises, identity is lost.

Cultural industries are growing, this is where jobs will be created several reports have stated in recent years. Yet, the governement is responding by putting billions of SEK into infrastructure; roads, railways, maintenance.  Isn’t it time to think outside the box?

Devdutt Pattanaik has the fantastic titel of being Chief Belief Officer at Future Group in Mumbai, India. His idea is to look through the lens of myths to understand our different ways of thinking in business. The logic of behaviour in decision making, relationships with customers and stakeholders, are done differently depending on beleifs and myths. Not suprising, but the base of many misunderstandings in cooperations between East and West, Indian and western companies.

Which is the better way of running business? To try to answer this, Mr Pattanaik answer, is leaning towards fundamentalism. This can’t be answered. But realize, his point is, that your truth is a subjective truth and will be different for other people with other backgrounds and myths. It affects not only the relationship with other business colleagues, but also the market behaviour, customers, business ideas and so forth. Understanding this is fundamental in running business.

The seminar is posted on ted.com.

“Responsibility for non-materialist values in the public spaces: Why, Where and by Whom?” was the title of an interesting discussion on religiousity, spirituality, public spaces and religion hosted by the Museum of World Cultures in Göteborg today.

The problem statement as a starting point for reflection was this: “Modernist theories of development predicted that secularization would eventually lead to the disappearance of religion. Today we are rather witnessing the opposite.” The seminar started with a filmed dance performance, “Defensa – Tesoro II“, choreographed by Eva Ingemarsson, where the dancers reflected on dialogue and spirituality (look on the clip below). Later during the seminar this was also showed in live performance. Another way of adressing these intriguing and global questions, where other senses are used rather than the rational thinking.

The combination was interesting. As always more questions than answers were raised, which was also the point. One question resting is: How is our public space used for non-material values? Art and culture deal with symbolic value and often request (or just take) a space in the public arena for Artistic expression. Although authorities have a tendency towards more and more regulations of public spaces which makes access difficult.

The Artist Mark Brest van Kempen, in San Francisco, has done a beautiful piece at the University in Berkeley called “Free Speach Monument” (1991) which puts the light on spaces for free dialogue and thinking. A reaction towards the regulations of public spaces is, for example, the movement Reclaim the Streets. The thought of public open spaces as the arena where people can debate, discuss, reflect and as the base from which democracy is built, need perhaps new oxygen?

Download the programme here: programme-and-background-material.

In the new book “At lede kunstnere mm”, twelve Scandinavian cultural leaders are interviewed in their roles as leaders. Uwe Bødewadt, Museum- and Cultural Director of Det Kongelige Bibliotek (The Royal Library) in Copenhagen (Denmark) has led the interviews together with psychologist Anders Risling on how it is to lead larger Artistic and cultural organizations. Uwe Bødewadt puts forward a row of questions in the beginning such as: Can you at all lead Artists? What happens when different cultures meet intimately, argue and create conflicts? Is it possible to find another bottom line than profit maximization? How do you act as a leader within a room of political influence, constant media attention and a deceitful audience?

The twelve leaders reflect in a very personal way on their thoughts and experiences as leaders of larger cultural institutions. Well-known people such as Museum Director Sune Nordgren, Theatre Director Susanne Osten, Film Director Lone Scherfig, Rector Poul Nesgaard and more.

The book is in Danish and can be found here.

For those of you curious of what we do at Nätverkstan, download the following pdf: this-is-nv or click on the images below.

Here we describe some thoughts and points of our activities. Gives an idea. This whole blog is about leaving traces of our activities, seminars we go to, meetings we attend, projects and workshops we run or are being part of, reflections and thoughts. Nätverkstan is based in Göteborg and work on national and international level.

Four conference days filled with seminars, working group meetings, worksops, study visits and meetings in Barcelona just took place at the Encatc Annual Conference.

During the talk between Isabelle Schwartz from European Cultural Foundation, Angels Margarit from Angels Margarit Dance Company, and Angel Meastres from Transit the role of cultural managers were tossed and turned. What is the role of cultural managers? Is it only a role mainly having Artistic production on one side and management on the other? On other point put forward was that of representation within the EU-institutions and funding. The Artistic point of view is not put forward in an organized form, since the organization among Artists is quite week. The publishing house, recording companies, film industry are represented and have organisations that lobby for their interest, but not the Artists. That is more on individual level. There is an interesting balance between framework and independence, something Angel Meastres put forward, and where is the cultural manager? They are mainly emphasizing ideas and how to find money, not society and building infrastructre. Something to consider in educational programmes around Europe.

A visit at Can Xalant showed an Artistic collective, Transit, running residency-programmes, workshops and exhibitions. An old farming house, owned by the municipality, now embedded and surrounded by larger companies and industries. Their deal was quite unusual. The municipality set up a competetion to find who would get the possibility to run the building. Artistic groups sent in their proposals of activities and ideas. Transit won and had now built an infrastructure, programmes, activities and resiencies. Now it’s time to apply again, with a new application. Their time run out in December, and they will get the decision…in December. January 1 they are supposed to continue with programming if they get money, if not, they are supposed to leave the house with everything in it. Either step on the gas pedal or brake.

So, how do you plan a serious and sustainable organization under those conditions?

For the conference programme, look here. Nätverkstan took part in two presentations: 1) the working group meeting “Creative Entrepreneurship and Education in Cultural Life”, download the pdf here: encatcwg_barcelona-oct09. , and 2) the dialogue on “How to detect creativity potentials in the digital environment” together with Jordi Sellas i Ferrés at, among other things, RBA Audovisual. Download the presentation here: encatc09-presentation-oct-09_2.

Listen to a conversation on how some cultural organizations in USA cope with the economic crisis and how they have been affected.