Archive för Cultural Policy

When EU leaders gathers to discuss and form policies for the European Union each participating member is balancing 1) their own nation’s interest and 2) the interest for EU as a whole. In that specific order.

EU leaders have been greatly criticized for not being able to put up a strong and convincing plan for how to come out of the financial crisis and save the euro. The balancing act between the interest of the nation and that of the structure as a whole is, to put it mildly, in conflict.

The discussion in the EU Platform for Cultural and Creative Industries is a miniature of the same problem.

EU Commission invited cultural organizations and networks in late 2007 to form platforms within different topics and policy-areas with the aim of coming up with recommendations to put in to the Commission’s work on culture. Spring 2008 these different platforms started their work.

Through the method structured dialogue the Commission hoped for a better – and more structured – dialogue between the Commission and the different actors in the cultural field.

The platforms have worked very differently. The Platform for Cultural and Creative Industries, a platform formed by around forty organizations, has proposed recommendations for the development of CCI but the road to finally agree on something has been bumpy. Some of the Platform’s participating organizations have refused to sign the final proposition, some have been objecting along the way.

No-one is surprised. Forty organizations representing publishers, audio-visuals, label companies, musicians and composers, architecs, universities and training centres and more gather in this one platform. The needs, structure, possibilities and challenges differ within each of these areas, so much that they can hardly be seen as one industry.

Is it just impossible, then, for the cultural field to agree and in consensus propose  strong overall recommendations to the EU that would benefit the sector as a whole?

Well, it’s symptomatic. What EU leaders fail to do on the large EU level, cultural organizations fail in their particular area. The interest of lobbying the agenda of the organization you are representing stands in the way of the interest for the sector as a whole.

It also needs to be said that the mandate for these platform called for by the EU Commission has been extremely vague if at all existing. The organizations forming the Platform for Cultural and Creative Industries have been working hard and with great seriousness taking the task of forming relevant recommendations.

The reception from the Commission has been lukewarm and the question hangs in the air if they have at all had any impact on forming the new cultural programme Creative Europe.

Still, Xavier Troussard, Head of Unit Cultural policy, diversity and intercultural dialogue, stresses that they now propose more money for the new programme, which of course in times of financial crisis would be an accomplishment however small it is.

It’s easy to in a haste and with frustration draw the conclusion that the actors in the cultural field can’t cooperate. It would be nice when the Commission now aims to evaluate the process, if it remembers to also look at the prerequisite set up for these platforms.

Sometimes the result you get depend on what question you asked.

Reflections from the meeting with The Platform for Cultural and Creative Industries, Brussels, February 6. Read also post here. 

The artist Staffan Hjalmarsson called it ”Five Squares of Sorrow”. He was referring to a report, the index- and indicatorstudy, in a blogpost during the large conference arranged by Region Västra Götaland last year. The study was showing how the Region had fulfilled its indicators within the different focus areas. All focus areas had information and follow-up except one: Culture. This was glowing empty like five squares of emptiness and sorrow. Here there were no ways of measuring, no indicators that could be followed up. No statistics.

The question of how to measure and follow up culture is a difficult one. What is to be measured and how? What should be measured by indicators, what should not? What are the evaluation criteria?

In Sweden two different authorities has been formed for analyzing, evaluating and measure statistical datas of culture: Myndigheten för Kulturanalys (Authority for Cultural Analysis, my translation) and Tillväxtanalys (Growth Analysis). While the former are working for the Ministry of Culture and follow effects and evaluate cultural activities initiated by them, the latter is working for Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communication. Tillväxtanalys is the authority following for example business support activities –  cultural entrepreneurs and businesses also fall under its responsibility.

On EU-level ESSnet-Culture was formed in september 2009 with the task to during a two-year period improve methodology and production of data on cultural sectors and also improve comparability within EU-countries. They have now published a final report from its four different task force areas: 1) update the cultural framework, 2) define cultural economic indicators and cultural employment, 3) on cultural finances and 4) cultural practices and the social participation in the culture.

Region Västra Götaland held last week a first small seminar to discuss statistics and evaluation methods of cultural entrepreneurs. The seminar was initiated by the regional think tank Kombinator. A seminar on the work of ESSnet with invited guests is also planned by the regional office later on this spring.

Read ESSnet report here.

The verdict fell heavily yesterday on the two Swedish journalists, Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye, in prison in Addis Adeba, Ethiopia.

They were charged and convicted by Lideta Federal High Court for being terrorists, the most severe of the charges they were accused for. It’s no doubt that the conviction was political, and so the trial.

Johan Persson and Martin Schibbiye are not terrorists. They went to the Ogaden-province to document and inquire about the multinational oil companies work in the area and the consequences of this. It’s a completely closed area, and word is that people live in the most severe circumstances and in complete absence of human rights as well as international law.

The verdict is a clear statement to journalists to keep out, and of course a large threat to freedom of speech and the journalists task as critical observers and reporters. We have seen many examples of this, just recently artist Ai Weiwei’s as well as many other political writers and journalists imprisonment in China. On December 15 Nätverkstan arranged Imprisoned Day in Lagerhuset, an arrangement together with the PEN club, to put the light on imprisoned writers.

Read other posts on Ai Weiwei here, and Imprisoned Writers’ Day here. Also related reflections from an article in New York Times in April this year by Salman Rushdie here. Read todays daily Göteborgs-Posten (in Swedish).

For a long time Region Västra Götaland has been a model region in Sweden with its offensive cultural policy. But what’s happening now?

Cultural critic and Chair of Nätverkstan board, David Karlsson, puts the light on the regional cultural policy in an article posted in the daily Göteborgs-Posten last week.

On Thursday November 17, the Cultural Affairs Comittee of the Region took two important decisions; a new Cultural Policy Strategy, and a detailed budget for 2012. As the Cultural Policy Strategy is a visionary and analyzing document, probably the most powerful cultural policy document in the country, the budget is depressing reading. It shows nothing of the visionary, or interest for the art and culture outside the traditional art form limitations.

The whole question falls back on the leadership of the region. Does anyone know where Region Västra Götaland is heading?

Download the article (in Swedish) here: vgr_debatt.pdf. 

A large international conference was held in Tallinn, Estonia, in October 2011 discussing a paradigm shift in the way the Creative Economy is understood and supported. The conference was facilitated by Dr Tom Fleming with speakers from around the world addressing the role of the creative economy as a provider of growth to the wider economy.

Some of the ideas have now been put down into the document Talinn Manifesto. Download the document here: Tallinn_Manifesto_Re-thinking_the_Creative_Economy_Dec2011.

Read more from our meeting with Tom Fleming in London, October 19 2010, here.

Yesterday, on November 15, Nätverkstan commemorated The Day of the Imprisoned Writer – this annual, international day intended to recognize and support writers who resist repression of the basic human right to freedom of expression and who stand up to attacks made against their right to impart information.

In Lagerhuset, Göteborg, the editor in chief for the magazine Filter, Mattias Göransson, explained the situation for the two imprisoned Swedish journalists Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson. After that we listened to a discussion between the Palestinian/Syrian poet Ghayath Almadhoun and the freelance journalist Mikael Löfgren on the topic literature and politics in Syria. The evening ended with a poetry reading of Almadhouns recently published poems translated into Swedish (Asylansökan, Ersatz förlag, 2010).

Ghayath Almadhoun, describes himself as he ”doesn’t exist”. Being of Palestinian and Gaza heritage but born in Syria, which he later left, he doesn’t have any certificate or paper acknowledging his national status. No papers and no passport. This of course is a dilemma from the Migration Office in Sweden, where he is applying for asylum, who wants to see his birthcertificate to be able to decide on his heritage and by that also if he is allowed to apply for asylum or not. ”I am not learning Swedish until they accept me”, he says with a smile. ”I accept this country, and this country has to accept me.”

The Encatc 19th Annual Conference in Helsinki was focusing on the future this year.

”A wind of change is blowing over our societies and reshaping our political, social and cultural paradigms. Increased urbanization, uneven social redistribution, a digital shift and an array of new audiences accessible mainly with the use of new technological tools – these are motors of change which provide as many challenges as they do opportunities.”

In a mix of key note speakers such as Saara L. Tallas, IKEA Professor in Business Studies in School of Business and Design, Linnaeus University (Sweden); Katri Halonen, acting head of degree program in Cultural management at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences; and Lidia Varbanonva, consultant, researcher and lecturer was mixed with intense group discussions on different topics. Encatc thematic areas had workshops within their specific themes as well as room for young researchers and research presentations.

Although the financial crisis hovered above like an evil cloud, optimistic thoughts were exchanged on the future of culture and its possibilities.

Read more of the conference here.

Tom Fleming and Andrew Erskine at Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy has written three papers in a report for Arts Council in UK on what an approach could be for the council in supporting the growth in the arts economy.

The three papers are: The arts economy: Balancing sustainability, innovation and growth, Place, infrastructure and digital: an agenda combined and Towards an arts and creative economy development programme.

Download the report here: creative_economy_final210711.

Nätverkstan met with Tom Fleming in London, read more here.

The Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, now detained in Chinese prison, has continuously been a needle in the eye for the Chinese government.

In his exhibition at Tate Modern last fall, Sunflower seeds, the floor in the Turbine Hall was covered with hand-fired and hand-painted porcelain sunflowers, made by inhabitants of Jingdezhen, once the ”porcelain capital” of China.

The day Nätverkstan arrived to see the exhibition, the museum had decided to close the ability to walk on and touch the seeds. The intention from start was that you should walk among these millions of sunflower seeds, to feel them, touch, reflect. The exhibition was overwhelming, even from the side just overlooking the Turbine Hall filled with seeds.

With the exhibition Ai Weiwei wanted to transform the traditional handicraft to contemporary language. Using sunflower seeds has a political meaning and he says in the film (below) that: ”Sunflowers supported the whole revolution, spiritually and in material ways”. In almost all official paintings of Mao Zedong, says Ai Weiwei, he is surrounded by sunflower seeds, symbolizing all every-day Chinese people supporting the regime.

Ai Weiwei’s work is important, in China and elsewhere. Basic freedom of rights should be guaranteed and he, together with other political activists and critical thinkers, should be freed at this instance.

In a Europe where nationalism and intolerance for differences are growing, it should be on every politician’s agenda to assure the possibilities for artists to work freely and as artists.

Read more on the detention of Ai Weiwei in the Guardian here.

In a letter to the Observer, some of UK’s famous artists within film, TV and theatre send a warning of what the drastic cuts in UK funding to art will do. The main message being that less public money to the art field will have serious effects on British economy. Creative industries have contributed more than 7 billion pounds a year to the economy.

An article in BBC News report on the appeal where Dame Helen Mirren, the actress, are one of the artists stating that investment in the arts brings in (as they put it) ”staggering” return for the country. If cultural policy is dismantled, it will have effects on creative industries and the economy as a whole.

October 20th 2010 was named Axe Wednesday by British press due to the government announcement of massive cuts in the UK budget in all areas of society. Within arts it has meant cuts over all fields within culture, and just the Arts Council England, distributing money to a large amount of arts venues, theatres, and galleries, had its budget cut by around 30 percent.

Swedish Counsellor for Cultural Affairs in London, Carl Otto Werkelid, says in a short interview on the Swedish Government website, that UK is facing a huge tightening of public finances. The cultural field is still holding its breath in the wait of seeing what concrete effects the cuts will have for the arts. The appeal yesterday was perhaps a change in the waiting. Carl Otto Werkelid is talking about a paradigm shift that will have effects way beyond the boarders of UK.

Read the original letter to the Observer here.

Read the article in the BBC News about the appeal by British artists here.

Read the Guardian on the culture cuts here.

Read a short post on the changes in UK here.

And read the interview of Carl Otto Werkelid here (in Swedish).

Over a twenty-years period, the portion of permanent hired ensembles on the theaters in Sweden has declined drastically. Actresses and actors are to very high degree freelancers. In Sweden there are about 2300 actresses and actors, ninety percent are freelancers, ten percent has permanent positions.

On Stockhom Stadsteater (Stockholm City Theatre) the portion of people with permanent jobs have declined from 70 to 20 percent over the twenty-year period, at the same time as the number of plays performed has risen. Benny Fredriksson, the Director of Stockholm Stadsteater, has been seen as the leader of the modern theater in his efficiency, number of plays performed, and not the least, getting audience to come.

The crack in the glamour started yesterday, when the actor Ulf Friberg wrote in a big article in the daily Dagens-Nyheter about the conditions for actors and actresses at Stockholm Stadsteater. He means that the fact that so many are freelancers creates a quiet culture, critics are swallowed in fear you will not get the next job. Mr Fredriksson has drawn the efficiency too far, is his point.

The ones standing with the cap in their hands are the ones creating the content, of without every theater is only an empty shell: The actresses and actors.

We have seen it before. Some years ago a debate roared in Sweden due to the fact that one of the biggest museums in Sweden, Moderna Museet (Modern Museum), didn’t pay the visual artists for the time to put together a new exhibition for the museum. Everyone else was paid. The Director, administrators, guides, and the caretakers. But not the artist. They should be happy to be able to have an exhibition at all at such a prestigious museum. But you can’t pay rent with honour.

It’s interesting in times when the mantra from local authorities to the state, from business life and bureaucrats, even among ourselves within cultural life is: Artists have to know how to price themselves and their work!

For the theater it would be fine if the hourly payment for freelancers covered costs for development, reading and rehearsal. It doesn’t. Instead different competence-programs are started, all with the aim of teaching artists to become better at selling themselves.

When in fact, the present crisis of the theater has structural reasons. It can not be blamed on or solved by individuals. No matter how many entrepreneurial programs we set up.

Creative Industries Development Services (CIDS) in Manchester started in the end of the 1990s as a way to support the bubbling small-scale music life to become more sustainable businesses, build networks and be an intermediary between the city and its cultural scene.

The initiative was taken by Manchester City after a research-report 1997-1999 suggested to start an agency to be the intermediary between Manchester City’s infrastructure for support for businesses and the small-scale cultural life.

CIDS had four assignments when it started: 1) offer business support based on the acknowledgment that the cultural field needs specific competence and expertise, you need to know something of the field to be able to give the right support, 2) provide information and expertise of the cultural sector to the official structures, 3) build collaborations and partnerships with existing infrastructure to provide better and more coherent efforts to the creative field, and 4) to have a representative role and give voice for specific needs in the field into policy- and decision-making structures in the city.

In Professor Justin O’Connor’s report Developing a Creative Cluster in a Postindustrial City: CIDS and Manchester, he points at a few reasons why CIDS, in 2008 finally closed down its activities.

Two processes showed to be difficult. On one hand the notion of ”Creative Industries” which through the slight different connotation towards economic growth in the understanding of ”Creative Industries” compared to ”Cultural Industries” which in the beginning were understood as not only economic growth but also the non-commercial arts and culture. This change in the understanding slowly mirrored the policy and decisions in the city of Manchester, which in the long run made CIDS work with small-scale cultural businesses with specific conditions and in the middle of commercial and non-commercial difficult.

The other was the intermediary role, the balancing act between the city and policy becoming more and more instrumental and focused on economic growth, the other being the situation for artists and small cultural businesses and their specific needs which often didn’t fit in to the overall agenda of the city. The idea of building trust by sharing the same risk as the cultural field and taking a clear standing point for the artists, made the officials look upon CIDS as somewhat a maverick organisation.

It is interesting to see how the hopes for creative industries are growing, at the same time as the official support-structures, indicators and expectations still follow the traditional industry.

Read Justin O’Connor’s and Xin Gu’s report here: manchestercids.pdf.

Three different processes in Swedish contemporary policy coincide and become quite specific during our visit at Gotland: Regionalisation, cultural and creative industries, and challenges for traditional industries.

Gotland, the biggest island in Sweden situated in the Baltic Sea, and of around 57.000 inhabitants, has from January 1 2011 become a region.

Swedish regional policy has been a policy area since the 1960s and was early a tool to mitigate the gap between state and countryside. The process continued and in the 1980s Europe launched the idea of ”The regions of Europe”. In Swedish policy a cornerstone in the regional forming was the official report looking into geographical areas of forming regions and governance of these in the 1990s. Still, in 2011 the reform work is continuing and a lot of question marks need to be solved.

For Gotland with its natural borders being surrounded by the ocean, this becomes very specific. The municipality becomes the region. Two political levels becomes in reality one. In comparison Skåne Region is formed by 33 municipalities and Region Västra Götaland by 49.

Regionalisation has meant new focus and each region has put a lot of effort into creating a distinctive profile of themselves with the aim of creating jobs and attracting new businesses. The regional level has direct contact with the EU level and money and the debated decision in the Swedish Parliament in 2010 to distribute cultural money to the regions through the koffertmodellen (”trunk model”) has been important steps in this direction. The decision means that a ”trunk of money” together with responsibility of cultural institutions and projects are transferred from state to the regional administration levels.

Cultural and creative industries have become a regional development tool in line with regionalisation. At Gotland the regional representatives we meet put forward these industries as one of the focus areas in the growth program of the region.

Three areas are of specific interest: Event, film and design. The question rises of how well anchored these ideas are among the artists? A challenge must be for the regional level to communicate and anchor these ideas among the around one thousand professional artists and 150 cultural organizations on the island who probably have another focus and priority list.

Cementa in Slite is part of yet another process: The changes from industrial to knowledge society. How do you run a traditional industry in a society where symbolic values are becoming more important and production scenes are changing? Structural changes has been present also at Gotland, where the Military Defence Forces during a long time was the major employer, but due to changes in the threat scenario from the east decided to close its activities in 2005 leaving space open and people in transition programs.

Cementa mines limestone and produces 2,5 billion ton cement per year. They are right by the Sea on the east coast of Gotland, with the unique position to have a fairly straight production line from the mines, different refinement processes and directly to the cargo of the ships. Cementa was set up in 1871 as a direct need for producing cement inland in Sweden and not importing it during industrialisation. They have been successful and managed to adapt to different cycles, changes in society, and new competition of cheap production places such as India and China.

Factory Manager Per Ole Morken and Environment Manager Kerstin Nyberg put forward the environment challenges as important and an area where Cementa has put in an effort to show that they take their responsibility for a sustainable environment. And thanks to a research team and persistent work, they can show impressive figures of reducing factory effluents, something you understand as one of the success factors putting Cementa in Slite in focus as modern and responsible factory.

Stina Lindholm at Skulpturfabriken (Sculptorfactory, my translation) is one of the customers of Cementa. A very small customer in the amount of cement bought, but important in her visionary ideas of what can be done with this product. She is a sculptor and designer creating artistic products of concrete. Her ideas have no limits; outdoor benches, candle light holders, bowls, kitchen benches, sculptors, garden decorations. Her imagination opens eyes of the use of the material.

And there are ideas among a group of designers at Grasp Studio, where Stina Lindholm is one, to start something in an empty building close to the cement factory and in, they hope, cooperation with the factory.

If it is true that symbolic value of products is growing along side the production of classical industrial products, such a cooperation could well be the future.

The visit was part of the work of Rådet för kulturella och kreativa näringar (Swedish Council for Cultural and Creative Industries), a fairly newly formed council supporting the Cultural and Enterprise Ministry in the work with these industries. Read more of the Council here.

So

It looks like the politics on creative industries started by the New Labour in 1997 has come to an end. The incentives started in the late 90s were new and has contributed to create a market for small-scale cultural businesses, models that have been exported in Europe, all the way to Shanghai in Far East. UK has long been seen as the cradle of creative industries.

When Chris Smith was appointed by Tony Blair in 1997 to be Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sports, he could continue a process started in the 80s centred around Greater London Council (GLC). GLC described the cultural scene in London as the new ”industry” being important for creativity, social inclusion and economy. It was an attempt to describe cultural initiatives as the new industry and redefine a term first used by the two critical theorists Horkheimer and Adorno. The two were upon their arrival to the US in the 1940s chocked by how popular culture was produced in almost a factory way producing standardized culture goods. It was like an industry, they said in disgust.

The Greater London Council changed the understanding of cultural industries in the 90s, to instead describe the small-scale, cooking, multi-skilled cultural life with a potential and importance for the economy in London. Chris Smith could pick up and continue on this road, creative industries have grown and has become an important part of society and, many reports have confirmed, contribute in a substantial way to economy.

This is an epoch now being buried. Tomorrow (Wednesday, Oct 20) is Axe Wednesday, as it has been called in UK, where the government will announce massive cuts in all sectors of society. TV-news is showing expected figures of 500.000 public jobs being lost. Culture is expecting around 40% cuts in funding.

Two large factors have completely reshaped the scene: The financial crisis and the Conservative government.

The present government is reinterpreting creative industries to mainly concern media, dismantling what most understand as the large contribution of cultural industries; social inclusion, regional development, and labour market.

Several effects are expected in the cultural field, such as a total dismantling of cultural policy where for example the Film Commission has seen its last days, a complete dismantling of the regional level, a probable redefining and change of creative industries, cuts on most cultural development agencies, enormous cuts in the universities which means more focus on employability and less money on research and long-term learning.

Will this mean that we see the end of creative industries?

Interviews done in London, 18-19 October 2010, a project commissioned by Region Västra Götaland (Sweden) to do a small knowledge and research survey. Interviewed were Paul Owens at Burns Owens Partnership, Tom Fleming at Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy, Sian Prime, Director of MA Creative and Cultural Entrepreneursip at Goldsmiths University, and Gerald Lidstone, Director of Institute of Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths University.

The urge to measure culture and all its aspect is growing. Everything that can be put in figures should be, seems to be the new motto. Qualitative arguments for why to put money into culture seem to have less value, quantities instead more. An instrumentalization of art and culture has been blowing as a wind over policy offices. Culture should be good for something, and it has to be proven.

In Sweden a range of public authorities or agencies offer studies and observations, the most used is probably Statistics Sweden, who produce statistics of most things in society. The problem with culture is that it has traditionally  fallen into the same category as sports, which is a much larger area and therefore the more specific knowledge of culture disappears. Instead other authorities are taking this role, such as Swedish Arts Council, Swedish Arts Grant Committee,  SweCult, and of course universities and many others, that has the ambition to also put figures into a context. The difficulty is still definitions, validity and reliability, and a vagueness is there. Is these facts trustable? Have the right thing been measured? A classical problem in any research, but with huge consequences for a small area like the cultural field.

Since some years cultural observatories have grown around Europe, some independent, but most connected to the public authorities. Many of them struggle with challenges such as: Who is the actual audience for the produced statistics? Should there be a common framework for these observatories? How do they cooperate and how do we deal with differences in methods, measurement, definitions?

These questions were discussed in Bilbao recently, where University of Deusto together with Encatc initiated the project and think tank The role of Culture Observatories in the Future in Europe.

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?

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.

Cultural journals have probably never before gotten such media exposure as they have now, thanks to the Cultural Bill presented by the government last week. The Bill propose changes in funding and a new defenition that will severly curtail the number of cultural journals to only include those that write about the Art forms (in difference of today where they include topics like society, critical analysis, feminism etc). Yesterday several of the large dailies in Sweden published a declaration written by heads of cultural pages in the dailies and editors  of cultural journals stating that the state can never dictate the content in a journal and the importance of having a societybased cultural debate in Europe.

In the daily Göteborgs-Posten, the article looked like this. Read also a comment on Newsmill, written by Olav Fumarola Unsgaard (somtimes a writer on this site). Read the former Cultural Minister’s reply here. More articles in Dagens-Nyheter, Aftonbladet, Svenska Daglbadet, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, Göteborgs-Posten, Expressen and Helsingborgs Dagblad. All these in Swedish.

For an English website on journals in Europe look at Eurozine, one of the representatives signing the call. A former post on this topic, you find here and here. And download the following document for information of the production support for journals in Sweden (in SEK): kulturtidskrifter-beviljade-produktionsstod-2009.

Swedish Government recently presented the new Culture Bill with suggestions of changes in the national cultural policy from 2010. The suggestions follows to some extent the work done by The Committee of Inquiry of Cultural Policy and their report presented earlier this year (read more here and here). Some suggestions were expected as the transition of responsibility from the state to the regions, where regions and local politicians are expected to take a larger responsibility of culture in their areas of responsibility. The suggestion has been criticized, mainly with the question of who does then take responsibility for a cultural policy equal for all citizens? The risk is that every region will act differently, some politicians put a lot of money to culture, while others in other regions will put less to Art and culture.

One worrying point in the new Culture Bill is the suggested changes of the support to cultural journals and literature. One of the basis of Swedish democracy is the many voices expressed in the myriad of cultural journals. They concern society, Art, literature, environment, human rights, feminism and all sorts of topics. Some of these get support from the state to secure their publishing, with the argument that many voices are important in society. The changes suggested by the government threaten these journals existence. Not only by cutting funding, but also by the suggestion to change the definition of what can be seen as a ”cultural journal” from a more general definition including societal journals to one more specified focusing on the Art forms. Will be interesting to follow.

Many newspapers and journalists have of course reacted of this. Read some of these (in Swedish) in Göteborgs-Posten, Expressen, and for a long list of points made look at Föreningen för Sveriges Kulturtidskrifter (FSK).