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Surrounded by many of the larger banks in the financial district in London, you find the new non-profit contemporary Art exhibition centre Raven Row. It’s quite anonymous; you easily walk by the low building with the white front, but finding it is rewarding. While the banks and financiers are busy dealing with the recession and building trust, the current exhibition at Raven Row is dealing with other processes in society; the disobedience, subversive cultural ideas, the Art that is often on the edge of what is accepted by society.

“A history of irritated material” is curated by Danish curator Lars Bang Larsen, who explains the title as referring to the relation between Art, and social and psychological reality. Video clips of protest marches, freedom fighters, witness stories, and trials are shown in a set of TVs, works of the New York based Group Material is exhibited together with Artists like Swedish Sture Johannesson. His famous poster from 1968 of the naked woman with a hash-pipe in her hand (Hash Girl) is significant for the exhibition. The poster was done for Lund Art Exhibition Hall (Southern Sweden), but the exhibition was never shown. It was accused of being drug romantic and Sture Johannesson himself stole his controversial posters that made politicians see red from the exhibition hall. The Director at the time, Folke Edwards, was accused of being sex and drug romantic just by showing this work of the well-known Artist. It all ended with the Director leaving his job just after a short time on the post.

Perhaps less subversive, but definitely not mainstream were two concerts at Union Chapel the previous night. Two Swedish bands played in the church, built in 1876 to 1877, from 1991 used as a venue for cultural events (combined with worship, baptism, weddings). The two-people-band The Tiny, and then First Aid Kit, two young women of 17 and 19 years old, inspired by the hippie and country movement of the 70s combined with new sound. Both wonderful bands that manage to form Artistic talent into their own music, their own thing. Funny we have to go to London to see them.

A walk by Tate Modern also leaves traces. The Polish contemporary Artist Miroslaw Balka and his piece “How it is” is both overwhelming and scary. The work is a gigantic container placed in the big open hall at Tate. Walking around the container you feel small, yes, tiny, and in one short-end you enter at a large ramp and walk towards the darkness inside. A chill along the spine as scary film-clips of Holocaust where people in masses walked in to uncertainty come to mind, yet when we are walking we are safe. We know that, but still…What will we meet inside? The exhibition keeps itching and irritating the mind the rest of the day.

And among these visits, we do study visits to discuss social entrepreneurship with Ian Baker at School for Social Entrepreneurs, cultural leadership with Venu Dhupa and Nicola Turner, and the development of the workshop “The Art of living of Art” together with Sian Prime.

Read this text by Lars Bang Larsen on social liability. Some links in relation to School for Social Entrepreneurs are found here, here and for reports and evaluations here. Most photos are taken by Helena Persson, a few with Iphone.

We sit right above the swimming pool, in a former swimming hall, for our meeting with Kate Oakley at City University London (UK). The changing lockers are still on the side, but now used as storage of books and documents. It’s nice, somehow. Nothing can be changed in the hall, Kate Oakley tells us. So if you remove the floor the swimming pool is still there. Now neatly covered and transformed to one of the meeting points and reading rooms for students. Kate Oakley is a writer, policy analyst, and now visiting Professor at Department of Cultural Policy and Management. She has followed and written a lot about creative industries and the new British independents, i.e. the small-scale entrepreneurs. We meet her to talk about the Cultural Leadership Programme at the City University and also creative industries. Where is it going?

UK is the cradle of cultural and creative industries, introduced about a decade ago by the Blair Labour Government and their Creative Industries Mapping Document. But what will happen now with the notion of cultural and creative industries? Kate Oakley says, after some thinking, that she sees a division in argument between on one hand “creativity”, and the other “innovation”. This means that you will find those who argue stronger for the Arts and Arts Policy, and those who enforce innovation in the more narrow sense where aesthetics are used to raise value in more traditional businesses. The creative industries managed to show the practice and everyday life of culture and cultural entrepreneurs, something that tends to get lost in this division.

So, where is the question of creative industries in UK nowadays? 2010 is election year and it’s always a time when not much will happen. And it does seem like the question has slipped from the Labour’s priorities. The Conservatives, on the other hand seem to show more interest in cultural heritage than creative industries. Maybe the recession has forced other priorities in focus, maybe not enough advocacies and lobbying from cultural politicians on fellow politicians in other areas has been done? An experience from a project in Western Sweden with Artists and politicians show that many cultural politicians feel a lack of arguments in relation to other political areas.

We also meet Nicola Turner at the Arts Council and discuss Cultural Leadership and the Cultural Leadership Programme. Quite interesting.

At Creative Choices website you find After the Crunch, a book trying to put light on these issues, and also thoughts about “So what’s next”. Terry Flew and Stuart Cunningham wrote the book Creative Industries after the First Decade of Debate, and in 2008 you could listen to many of the leading researchers within cultural and creative industries at a one-day symposium at Milton Keynes, “The Creative Industries: Ten Years After”. Nätverkstan was there, read about it here. This facts file from UK Department of Culture, Media and Sports from 2002 might be useful: ci_fact_file.pdf.

The visit to London is part of a study visit done by Kulturverkstan, the two-year Project Management Training Programme, run by Nätverkstan. Photos taken with Iphone.

Last September Department of Culture together with Department of Enterprise, Energy and Communications proposed to put around 70 million SEK (around 7 million euro) in developing the cultural and creative sector 2009–2012. The aim is to create better conditions for entrepreneurs within culture to develop their business ideas (for Swedish readers look here). Exactly how this will be done is still shrouded in mystery. As it seems it will be done in dialogue on an institutional level. But where are the actual cultural entrepreneurs?

In Region Västra Götaland about the same has been proposed by the Secretariat of Culture together with the Regional Development Secretariat (Trade, business and industry development). An action plan has been developed with ideas on how to work with enterprise development within the cultural field.

One idea, on both state and regional level, is that first of all you need to train business coaches in cultural and creative industries in how this field works. The thought is that money is already put into support like incubators, mentoring, coaching to small and medium enterprises, but these hardly ever reach the cultural entrepreneur. A good thought. Of course this support should also encompass the cultural field. But why hasn’t it so far? Well, basically since all the requirements and methods for support, coaching and mentoring are built on the traditional industry. The thought that other conditions and circumstances might be claimed in the cultural field, is often met with a sigh: “Oh, those Artists think there are so special!”. It’s based on a thought that Artist consider themselves as an elite with very special conditions, a notion also found in the report from the Committee of Inquiry on Cultural Policy last year.

It leads to two thoughts. One is that if Artists find that there are specific conditions in running a business within their field, if this is their notion, the only way to handle it must be to find out what bearing it has. The other is that business coaches easily falling into the argument that there is no difference running a cultural business than running something in other areas have probably never taken the time or effort to seriously analyze how it works running your own business within culture.

Just step into any Art Exhibition Hall in any country, like the exhibition now running at Röda Sten by Artist Sislej Xhafa. Sit down in front of his gigantic sculpture of Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi and reflect on: What is the business model behind this Artist? What is the product he is selling? Could he live on that as a business idea, and if not, what are relevant questions and suggestions to help him find ways to live on his Art?

Nätverkstan has the assignment from Region Västra Götaland together with other partners within culture, to put together a program; training business coaches on how the cultural and creative industries work, and how cultural entrepreneurs run their organizations or businesses. We will keep the readers posted on how this will work out.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

New IT-solutions as how to download music and film legally, how to create animated movies with your personal photos, upload videos and cut and add music to it, or streaming a video direct from your mobile to the web, are growing immensely fast. Innovative ideas on what you can do on internet are created and uploaded in a pace that is hard to follow. Is the cultural scene following? Who is taking the lead to explore new ways of communicating, showing, exhibiting, buying, networking with the Artistic scene and cultural entrepreneurs on Internet? What IT-services are needed for the Arts?

Read two articles in the Daily Svenska Dagbladet on Sunday Oct 4, “Den nya IT-vågen” (”The new IT-wave”) and one about the newly produced book “The Youtube Reader” (English) called “Youtube liknar inget vi har varit med om” (free translation: Youtube doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen before).

Just look at these web-services, the twenty-five Swedish IT-companies mentioned in the article: Spotify, Voddler, Booli, Jaycut,  Videoplaza, Bambuser, Animasher, Agency9, Peeralism, Saplo, Textflow, Pixlr, Soundcloud, Xcerion, Burt, Twingly, Polar Rose, Bloggy, Fileride, Jalbum, Stixy, Momail, Laterthis, Squace, Dashnotes.

We get to see a beautiful piece by choreographer Matthew Ondiege and his four dancers, a dance shifting in pace from fast to slow, from harmony to stress and internal conflicts. He is also working with the group Uwezo Mix Dance Theatre that bring together disabled dancers with other dancers to form contemporary dance pieces.

Visual Artist Mary Ogembo tells us an amazing story of how Art can be sold. A chinese person came across her paintings over Internet, I think it was, and contacted Mary to see if she could buy some. But since Mary is in Kenya, and the buyer was across oceans and countries, this was a bit difficult. And how should Mary verify that she was Mary? So she contacted different trustworthy people running organizations, Art exhibition halls and so forth so that the buyer could get references. An embassy official came to visit her in her studio to see if she existed. And after this process the buyer bought eight paintings, Mary got the money and rolled the eight paintings in packages and sent them across the sea.

Visual Artist Salah Ammar was one of the Artists part of the newly opened exhibition at the Ramoma, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Nairobi. Salah Ammar shows his work, pieces showing that his Artistic career has gone through many different styles. He shows his work with soft and careful hands, and with lots of respect for his viewer. When speaking of his Art his eyes get a spark, you can see that he loves it. He has so much inside, so many colors and ideas that still wants come out, he tells me.

Visual Artist Caro Mbirua shares studio with Salah Ammar and shows a different style of work. She carefully brings out painting after painting with motives hidden in mist, a sort of secrecy surrounding the women in her work. When she describes them, she says “I do beautiful Art”, and we say “you need to be more specific”. But it is really a good word for her work. Beautiful.

And on my bedside table, I have writer Doreen Baingana’s book “Tropical Fish”. An Ugandan writer, twice nominated for the Caine Prize in African Writing now living in Kenya. She wants to start a literary group with writers that can meet on regular basis, discuss literature and support each other in finding new possibilities to live on their writing.

These are just a few of the very talented Kenyan Artists taking part in the workshop “The Art of living on Art” in Nairobi on Sept 7-8, 2009.

I was stunned with what the government official was saying. I had to hear it referred by another person before I believed it.

The workshop days on the topic “The Economy of Creativity” started with a TV-show with well-known actor and journalist John Sibi-Okumu as the presenter. Invited to the panel were celebrities from Kenyan business and creative life. Hip-hop artist Nameless shared panel with business man Manu Chandaria,TV-personality Dan Ndambuki known for his very popular show “Churchill Live”, a representative from the Rugby team, Anders Öhrn from Swedish Institute and the governmental official. It was a talk of the economy of creativity, obstacles and possibilities for creative industries in Kenya, the relation between culture and business life. The governmental official said that a cultural policy is coming and a national endowment for the Arts will be in place, something very welcomed by the Artists in the audience although many afterwards told me that they heard this so many times. And as she talked she was addressing problems in the field, and she explained the problems with something like: “People have an attitude problem” and “this needs to be changed”. People have an attitude problem? A clip will be on youtube soon, so let’s check if she really said this.

After the show, mainly cultural entrepreneurs and some representatives from business life gathered on a one and a half day workshop to discuss how cultural entrepreneurs and investors could empower each other. The thought was that business life needs the creative industries, as well as the other way around. After long and intense discussions and the full commitment of participants acting as investors investing money in cultural projects, it was quite obvious that venture capital and cultural projects and businesses have difficulties finding each other. Investors will not find the opportunities they are looking for in these projects and Artists’ might not be interested in this sort of capital. They just don’t make enough profit to be interesting for the investor and the major drive for the Artists is not profit, but meaning. For a few it might be a way, and for them it would perhaps be interesting to build bridges, but for the majority this is not a solution. It is important, all-the-same, to learn from each other and there are benefits for both business and cultural field to interact more, was a thought from the conference.

On the evaluation after the workshop, a few conclusions were drawn to strengthen the creative industries and the awareness of the same. Maybe not so new, but even more strongly:

1. Strengthen cultural entrepreneurs and professional Artists with management tools and other similar skills. Education, workshops and training is needed.

2. Strengthen the creative field as a sector through better organization and structure.

3. Promote the creative industries and show the potential for other fields. Raise awareness with businesses and investors.

The workshop was funded by Swedish Institute and Strömme Foundation, support from the Swedish Embassy in Nairobi,  in the project “Empowering Creators and Investors” run by Pratik Vithlani in cooperation with GoDown Arts Centre and Nätverkstan. Read more under category “Kenya” on the side on this site.

In 1945 dramatist K V Subbanna and his friends decided to start gatherings to share ideas and discuss politics. After Indian independence in 1947, they deepened their intellectual exchange and reflection, started a library, created the newspaper the Ashoka Weekly to spread news on events around India and, later, formed a local theatre group, Ninasam. In the 70s it grew into several different projects as the film society and in the 80s the Ninasam Theatre Institute with ambition to train young people in acting, lighting and directing. Plays put up can be of Karnataka writers as well as of Shakespeare and Brecht translated into Kannada, the language in the state of Karnataka. Today Ninasam is an active cultural centre, headed by Subbanas son K V Akshara. It’s based in the middle of the jungle, in the village Heggodu with around 1500 inhabitants. The library is still there, with an interesting mix of literature serving as base for research for new plays. The one-year diploma course in theatre work is an important part of the center, as well as set up plays engaging the local villagers, who are mostly farmers, in playwright and acting.

The same critical reflection and activist stance we meet when visiting theatre director, playwright, and poet Prasanna in his house. He is dividing his time between the isolation and quietness in his house, surrounded by a large garden with all different kinds of fruit and herbs and with only irregular electricity in the house, with work in the big metropolitan cities of India. His house is filled with books, the stillness is over-whelming; it’s as if you could hear the silence. And we discuss Swedish playwright, theatre and literature tradition. Culture has an amazing way of travelling across boarders, uniting people.

Schedule, Bangalore on the 13th of August 2009:

10.00–12.00 meeting at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology to discuss cooperation on social and innovative entpreneurship, pedagogical and educational ideas, and young filmers. The meeting was held by Arvind Lodaya and Geeta Narayanan, taking part was members of staff of different positions.

14.00–15.00 meeting with animators, among them the Association of Bangalore Animation Industry, the animation education Toon Skool, animation studio Raydrops and Mediateck, and Asian Institute of Gaming and Animation (Aiga). Discussion around possible exchanges between animators in Region of Västra Götaland and Karnataka.

15–18 meeting at Attakkalari with Jay Palazhy and his colleagues. Several performances are planned to come to Vara Concert Hall in West Sweden in March next year. More possibilities were discussed as perhaps events at Museum of World Cultures. We got an introduction of all different projects going on from “teachers’ training” to workshops on grassroot level as well as experimenting performances on movement, technology and lightning. We were introduced to graduating students’ work and were generously shown parts of their graduating performance – impressive work.

18.30–20.00 (we arrived late to this meeting) meeting with filmmakers, film critics, film association, writers, activists to discuss the film scene in India and the set-up of a Film Directing School in Bangalore. Among the participants was well-known Karnataka filmmaker Girish Kasaravalli, giving an idea of the filmmaking in India and Karnataka. Parallell to this, a discussion on how to start a new organization in Bangalore inspired by and in cooperaton with Nätverkstan.

20.00 – all participants from the former meeting continued over dinner.

00.30 Bedtime.

And today, finally, the formalities and final signing and exchange of the contracts between Västra Götaland, Sweden, and Karnataka, India, was done under a formal cermony and press conference in the city of Bangalore.

The contract, carried in a folder marked “Top Priority”, was signed already in spring this year, and finalized today after some months of bureaucratic procedures. In the midst of the overall concern in India at the moment – the Swine flue – the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Mr BS Yeddyurappa, together with his Chief Secretary, Secretary of Culture and Information and many others, took time to sit down with Ylva Gustafsson, Secretary at the Office of Cultural Affairs in Västra Götaland to talk about the cultural exchange between Karnataka and Västra Götaland.