Archive för Regional Development

Professor of Cultural Economics, Pier Luigi Sacco, has been widely engaged around Europe as a consultant to governments, local administrators, and cultural organisations on culture-led local development.

His perspective is the system, and he talks about the system-wide cultural districts. The role of culture has changed over the decades, he says, and today the importance lies in the fact that it is system-wide which means it permeates social and economic life in cities and regions.

The worst thing a government can do is to cut in the cultural budget, he said on a conference in Göteborg in February 2012. The longterm effects will be severe for the city, region, and state.

Pier Luigi Sacco has also been engaged in Sweden. In Region of Halland his methods have been tried, and now also in the province of Skaraborg, part of Region Västra Götaland.

Nätverkstan has translated some of his texts, done an interview, and collected all this in a publication published in the end of April. The publication is part of the project Knep and financed by European Social Fund. Keep eyes open here.

In classes we often talk about the importance of a proper ending of a project. In reality this rarely happens. The project is reported back to funders, papers filled in, employment ends, and the project results, people and process just disappear in to the daily work and next steps.

To address this unsatisfactory way of working we last year put an effort into creating a project model, specific for Nätverkstan and our projects. It’s quite simple. Just a lot of questions and things to think of when you start as a project team. Who is responsible for what? Deadlines? Expectations? Decision-making processes? Small and large things to go through to elucidate the project for the full project team.

And of course, the ending. How do you end the project?

Yesterday we ended and celebrated the project Cultural entrepreneurship workshop (Knep) which two years has now come to an end. We still have the final report to write. Despite this, we invited the people around the project, both the project team and the consultants, to a pack-it-together-dinner where we over wonderful food shared goodies and difficulties during the project period, what we learned, what we thought, next step.

From now on this is how we will end all projects. A salute to pack-it-together-dinners!

The new year and our new cultural strategic assignment kick started with a seminar at Vara Concert Hall, focused on the topic of streamed culture, last Thursday. The Swedish government has marked digitalization as an important way for culture to reach a wider audience (read here). Vara Concert Hall celebrates their 10th anniversary this fall and together with Nätverkstan they are now in the process of implementing technology and procedures to start live streaming their events. Their aim is completely in line with the thoughts from the Swedish government – especially to reach people not able to come to the cultural events, in places such as prisons, homes for the old and hospitals.

The first action in our mutual project was to identify and invite the most prominent organizations in the field to a hearing. Our aim has always been to support the small and independent organizations and we are glad that Vara Concert Hall shares this belief. Together, we also believe that sharing knowledge and solutions strengthens the efforts made, and that this is especially true in the complex field of digitalizations where new technology is introduced almost on a daily basis. The procurement of digital services is an intricate matter and smaller organizations often make mistakes in the process – which in turn means that tax money is wrongly spent on expensive and short lived solutions.

The keynote speakers were Urban Ward from Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Ulrik Flood from Digital Live Arena, Peo Thyrén from STIMand Johannes Nebel from Play Kultur. In the audience were representatives from the Swedish Arts Council, Kultur i Väst, Kultursekretariatet i Västra Götaland as well as people from cinemas and smaller cultural organizations. Moderator for the hearing (and project manager for Vara Live Stream) was Leif Eriksson from Nätverkstan.

Magnus Lemark from the Swedish Arts Council remarked that this hearing is a running start for them, as they have just been handed the assignment from the Swedish Government, to help the Swedish cultural sector over the digital threshold. And Johannes Nebel agreed that this kind of meetings to share knowledge is the best way to get knowledge and tackle new complex investments. He also said that the main problem for digital material is distribution, and that Sweden lacks the kind of marketplaces that focus solely on culture. Play Kultur was started with exactly this in mind, to become the first portal for live streamed and archived material on performing arts.

We hope that Johannes last words from the hearing gives echo and they will certainly work inspiring for our own efforts: ”Västra Götaland now has the chance to be the first region in Sweden to show how coordination of digital efforts works.”

Our cooperation with Vara Concert Hall continues, and knowledge produced within the project will be made public in a conference later this fall. But we are also open to smaller hearings in the region and we especially look forward to the 20th of May, when GSO and Play Kultur are hosting a seminar in Gothenburg. Cooperation makes us stronger!

By Carl Forsberg, Head of Medialab and Technique at Nätverkstan

Often debated, and the politicians in Region Västra Götaland love to join the choir, is the relation between the central city or capital and the periphery. Urbanization has made this a burning question. A constant topic on politicians agenda is how to deal with depopulation of the countryside.

The discussion is often built as if the center is in opposition to the periphery. Instead of a perspective of how the two can support each other in development. American–Canadian activist and writer Jane Jacobs (1916–2006), who had a great interest in urban development and communities, wrote in mid 60s about this dilemma. Her main thesis was that cities are the main drivers of economic development.

The June 30th number of Economist puts London on a high as the international hub in UK and discusses its role for development of the rest of Britain. And the lack of appreciation of its brilliance among policymakers.

”Now history is moving on, and the policymakers are messing up.  They could tip the city into a decline without even noticing it, for the ecosystem of a great city is a complex and fragile thing.”

”Stay open to stay great” is the conclusion of the Economist leader article. Staying open means continue to let foreigners and immigrants coming into the country. They have helped built London to the city it is and more help is needed. Building a fortress around Europe doesn’t seem like the most forward-looking idea.

First came shipbuilding. Then came Volvo. Now comes Film Industry to Göteborg.

The text, found on the wall at Gothenburg Film Studios, tells in three sentences the changes that Göteborg, and specifically the North Bank Side of river Göta Älv, has been going through the last forty years.

Shipbuilding was a large industry in Göteborg for a long time and the city was an important international hub for import and export of goods as well as ideas and contacts. Swedish East India Company had its base here and 37 of their ships were built in docks in the city. In the 70s the big crisis hit shipbuilding and many people lost their jobs and the deserted area has now changed into fancy residents. New businesses and centres are created with TV. Radio, IT, and film industry as a growing industry.

Now the car manufacturing industry is in a crisis and Saab sadly had to close down its business last year. Again people have lost their jobs. What will come instead is a question, but also strong in Trollhättan is film, animation, computer games, visual effects and the Science Park.

The impact of these new emerging industries are difficult to define and as hard to nail down into numbers. How can you evaluate and measure the effects of these new more small-scale industries? What indicators are needed? How do our statistical agencies streamline statistics from EU to local level so information can be compared? How do we assure to not only measure quantity, but also qualitative aspects? And how can we be clear of what is not measured, not to loose important aspects of art and culture and leave politicians with only numbers?

This was discussed yesterday at the conference arranged by Region Västra Götaland and CREA.RE with delegates from EU and national, regional, and local level.

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. 

Nätverkstan is running workshops around the Region of Västra Götaland (West Sweden) on The Art of living on Art, a project funded by European Social Fund.

So far the first course, with workshops taking place at four different places in the region with around 8-10 participating artists in each, has ended and a new round of courses started. Last Saturday we had the full-day conference with David Karlsson talking about Cultural Industries, Gothenburg Combo on how they live on their art, and Ulla-Lisa Thordén on selling and pricing with all participants gathering in Vänersborg.

This is the road-trip around the Region of Västra Götaland this fall meeting artists in Skövde, Borås, Ulricehamn, Uddebo, Tranemo, Lidköping, Gerlesborg, Vänersborg. More to come!

Read more here.

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

How can Artists and politicians have a better dialogue? How could they better understand each others working conditions? If you put Artists and politicians together in a process – what would come out of it? The region Västra Götaland started the project Art & Politics in 2003. It is run by Jörgen Svensson, a Swedish well-known Artist, the delegates are both politicians and Artists.

The group meets around 2-3 times a year to discuss issues like: How can it become better for Artists to work in Västra Götaland? How can the conditions for Artists improve in this region? How can Artistic quality be measured in a structure that only measures quantity? How can the process become more accepted, and not only the Artistic product? Politicians are in lack of arguments for culture – how do you find qualified arguments for culture in a political structure where econimc arguments are in focus? How can it become possible for Artists to work as Artists?

Yesterday the results from the work of the group was presented for the Cultural Committee in Region Västra Götaland and hopefully some of the suggestions, like the one of starting a studio consultancy in West Sweden together with municipalities, property owners and Artists to resolve one big dilemma for Artists; axess to cheap studios for their Artistic work.

Download the presentation here (in Swedish):konstpolitik_090827. Read more here.

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.

”Actually, I am keeping the schedule fuzzy”

Actor, filmmaker and entrepreneur Prakash Belawadi present a packed schedule of meetings, as we start a week of pursuing the collaboration between cultural organizations in Västra Götaland, Sweden, and Karnataka, India. The schedule is constantly changing, adding new meetings, moving others to another day, depending on when people can meet us and to achieve the most on days starting around nine, bedtime around midnight.

The cooperation is within several fields; film and film education, media workshops, performing arts, storytelling, and social entrepreneurship. We meet the newly set up government run Film Academy in Bangalore, the Hubba Festival, Suchitra Film Society and Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy, Center for Film and Drama, filmmakers and a poet to discuss the film situation in Bangalore.

A delegation from Museum of World Cultures, Nätverkstan and the Secretery for Cultural Affairs in Västra Götaland are on a five days visit to pursue the cooperation. In October the Göteborg International Film Festival will visit Mumbai and Bangalore and in December the School of Film Directing at Göteborg University will go to Bangalore with the aim of starting long-term cooperation.

On the 25th floor at the Department of Environment we get a good view of the City Hall rooftop garden. It was planted in 2000 as a demonstration project to show how a green rooftop improves temperature and air quality. 20.000 plants were planted, more than 100 different species of native prairie plants known to grow in the Chicago area, to make sure they would endure the climate and the rooftop conditions of being exposed to sun and wind.

The project was a success and the green roof has been shown – and proven – to serve many benefits to the city and the building: It improves air quality, conserves energy, reduces stormwater runoffs and is a sort of self-sustained heating system. When it’s cold it has an isolating effect and a hot summer day it’s cooler inside. But only on the City Council side of the building. In the other half of the building is the County Council and they have decided to not join the project. The rooftop is divided in two halves, one with the green roof, the other without. And the effects are direct. Measures have been done showing the direct benefits for the working environment inside the building of the half with the green roof. One half is the future, the other is left behind.

The initiative has now spread and around 400 rooftops in Chicago have green roofs, Mr Larry Merritt, Public Information Officer at Department of Environment tells us. And also the private sector see the benefits. More an more private firms install green roofs.

Chicago was once called the Green City and during the time Mr Richard M Daley has been Mayor of Chicago (elected 1989) 300.000 trees have been planted in the city. By the end of the decade, the park district each year sowed 544.000 plants, 9.800 perennials, 156.000 bulbs, and 4.600 shrubs (Kotlowitz, 2004). The Mayor has put a sustainable environment high on his agenda and perhaps the largest green project could be said to be Millennium Park. The Park took six years to build, finished in 2004. and is built on top of railway-rails and several parking garages, hiding the still active railroad under a 24.5 acre (97 124 square meters) large green roof. The green gardens, together with a concert hall designed by Frank Gehry, several art works like Anish Kapoor’s ”The Bean” is attracting tourists and has made Millennium Park to be the second largest tourist attraction in the USA, we are told (Las Vegas still holds number one).

An article of  green roof projects can be found in the latest issue of the Swedish edition of National Geographic. Also read National Geographic News about the Chicago green roofs. In the book ”Never a city so real. A walk in Chicago” (Crown Journeys 2004), written by Alex Kotlowitz gives both facts and insights of the city.

The debate on how the south bank of the city of Göteborg should transform, has at times been loud. Göteborg, an old industrial city, has had to deal with major changes the last decades. The city is devided by a canal, and as the shipping industry on the north bank had to close down, telecom and media companies grew up. In the beginning of 2000, changes started on the south bank and a tunnel was built to lead traffic under the city, creating new space on ground. After six years, a new tunnel and the heavy traffic going under the city center, the question was raised: How should the new spaces be used? Ambitious plans were made and a large democracy project to involve inhabitants together with experts as architects, cultural and Art practitioners, sociologists, the South Bank Process (Södra Älvstrandsprocessen) took form. Nätverkstan was involved in the process, in the planning and formation. The results presented by the five different groups showed a variety of creative solutions of how to use the space; housing on different economic levels, public spaces, activity areas and lots of green parts. But then it stopped. The results were never taken seriously, the process stopped and was never put into the formal process of city planning in the municipality. Since then articles, among them a series of articles by the journalist Mark Isitt on how bad city planning in Göteborg works and how the suburbs has been exploited has been published.

Situated in the center of the south bank, in the middle of the city close to the river, is the old warehouse (Lagerhuset) where cultural practitioners have been working since 1999. Small-scale cultural journals, publishing houses, photographers, education, medialabs have been housing  in the building, producing culture spread in the whole region. The house is placed in an area, Järntorget, known for it’s entrepreneurial initiatives, specifically cultural entrepreneurs within music, fashion, bookshops, design, film, theatre, dance, coffee shops. It has been possible to find cheap localities and the clusters formed are important networks supporting creativity and drive. But among politicians, it has not always been politically correct. The urge to clean-up the streets (Långgatorna) from unappropriate businesses and renovate buildings, to gentrificate the area, has been strong. It hasn’t happened yet, but is on and off discussed and debated.

The decision made by the Cultural Committee of the municipality of Göteborg yesterday is therefore a break through. The bottom floor of the old warehouse will be transformed to a center for culture, with a coffee shop, restaurant and several stages for different cultural activities and performances. It will, hopefully, become an important center that together with the activities already in the house and around the area of Järntorget will be one key factor to enable the growth of cultural and artistic intiatives.

The transformation has already started and opening is set to January 1, 2010. Read the article of Göteborg in New York Times, published in 2007.

How do we look at work and employment? What is our relationship to working? How does time linger after people left? How do our perception and dreams change as we grow up? Are we prepared to do anything to reach our goals? What is meaningful work?

Skifte is a collective digital exhibition with filmmakers, animators, photographers, artists and poets, who all reflect on the theme work. Nine pieces showing different aspects and expressions, putting forward questions rather than answers. The exhibition is part of Medieverkstäderna i Väst, a collective of digital workshops in Region Västra Götaland, where members are visual artists, editors, photographers, poets and film makers.

Curator has been Stina Karlsdóttir Vestrin, who is also a student at Kulturverkstan. In the folder coming with the exhibition she writes:

”The fact that our work is one of the things forming us, building our identity and creating a community in a social context, we can all agree on, work is a central part of our lives. I would like, with this exhibition, to do some pounces in everyday working life and lift reflections around its structure. What is a job? What is a good job? Why do we work and what makes an honourable day’s work? The same occupation can in some cases be a job and in others not. In today’s society it’s more and more important to be adaptable and flexible on a more and more demanding labour market at the same time as the boarders between working life and leisure is erased. Working conditions is  constantly shifting and each time as its problems to solve.

The war of ants has disappeared from our TVs. The digital era has its own noise, its own war, other ants. Internet is today an obvious part of labour market. Fifteen years ago you hardly knew what it was, yet it has since changed labour for many people all over the world. It also affects those workers who don’t have access to computers. A shift has taken place. Changes can sneak on you slowly without us understanding a shift is on its way. What happens to our jobs? The new is growing out of the old, breaking out from it, against it, want to be free. It is in this contradiction that we find other ways and tramp our own tracks.”

The exhibition will be touring in Region Västra Götaland and is on Internet 25 of April to 24 of May 2009. Look at www.skifte.se and click for English. Download (in Swedish) the catalogue here: skifte_katalog.

The European network Encatc is at this moment putting the last touch to the programme planning for 2009. It’s a programme full of activities, networking and sharing of knowledge. The working group ”Creative Entrepreneurship and Education in Cultural Life” starts the year in Barcelona, Spain, in the middle of January. We start with combining a seminar held by Universitat de Barcelona on innvoation and creativity – yes, it’s a way to start the EU year of ”Innovation and Creativity” – with working group discussions. The programme will soon be posted on the Encatc website.

The idea with the working groups is to share knowledge and experience among professionals within different areas. The working group on entrepreneurship plan to do several different things during the year such as study visits, conference in Chicago invited by our American colleagues, the project Community Art Lab and the web.  Sharing of knowledge is important, but perhaps more so inspiration. Inspiration can take you far, and is a factor for innovative ideas.

To view the image, double click on it. Find the plans: encatc-wgprogramme2009.pdf and the plan for the Community Art Lab: community-art-laboratory.pdf.

“Innovation has no large-scale production capacity, it happens in the small-scale initiatives”. Bo Öhrström, developer and cultural planner in Göteborg, describes his work finding the “white spots”, initiatives not visible at first sight, in a local milieu. What significance do they have for an area? In 2006 the project Faktor X started, run by Bo Öhrström and Annika Ottosson at the Region Västra Götaland to look into what the X factor in a local context was; what was the factors making some milieus flourish while others didn’t? The “white spots” were of significance, the study showed.  “It’s like looking for the sparrows of the recession”, Bo Öhrström said, and made a comparison when he as a young student were looking for small-scale entrepreneurial initiatives within culture in a time of financial difficulties in Sweden. People around him wondered what on earth he was doing and why he didn’t but his effort into something more lucrative.

Yesterday (Nov 11) the Region Västra Götaland held their first conference with the 49 municipalities of the region invited. 450 people, politicians, civil servants and cultural practitioners, were gathered to discuss and listen to the capacity of culture in the local municipalities and on regional level. The winners of the day were the artists and project managers running projects against all odds, like meeting-places for youngsters in the suburbs that had been put down by politicians, and artistic processes in small cities (around 3600 inhabitants) like Bengtsfors. They were the white spots finally get the spotlight they deserved. Let’s hope it also means some money, so they can continue their work. As the project manager Merima Muharemovic put it on the question of what do politicians need, in form of character or to be good decision makers? “The question is not what they need, the question is: What need politicians do to win my confidence back”.
Read the report from the project Faktor X (In Swedish) here: fyrbodal-faktor-x-slutrapport.pdf.

Should libraries be run as entreprises? And what does it mean for library services if they do? On a conference arranged by Axiell Library Group at Dieselverkstan in Stockholm, librarians from Sweden, Finland and UK have spent the past two days turning and tossing these questions. Examples of libraries that are run with a more entrepreneurial style, as Dieselverkstan in Stockholm, was put forward, as well as examples from London (UK) where changes of libraries has been on the agenda for some time. The goal is genereous opening hours, more visitors and to get people to loan more books.

Perhaps the most interesting and challenging work was done by the Library Manager, Rebekka Pilppula, from Joensuu City Library in Finland. Joensuu is a small region on the border to Russia in North Karelia, with only a about a hundred thousand inhabitants. They are facing a decline in inhabitants, young people move out, the staying inhabitans are just getting older, and unemployment rates are high and growing. The situation for the library was, thus, difficult and they have had a challenge in motivating politicians, renew, and find new ways of being relevant to the inhabitants. They did an amazing job in turning the situation for the library into a positive trend.

Nätverkstan held a contribution to the conference, on the topic ”The interaction between culture and entrepreneurship”. The power point is found here: CultureEntrepreneur081107.pdf, the script can be downloaded here:Library Conference081107.pdf.

”Life is more than shopping!”. We zick-zack the streets of Bangalore in a rickshaw to go back to the hotel and try, like a number of times today, to explain to the driver that we are not interested in going shopping. Every driver knows where the best shopping is, something usually coinciding with where they have friends, and they try to drive us there. Business is made in every corner in this around 10 million-people city. The Silicon Valley of India, as many call it, is full of contradictions.

”One billion people have two billion opinions!”, they tell us at Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy. ”it’s not possible to agree”, they say with a laugh, ”There are contradictions everywhere. Just look outside”. Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy run a filmfestival with films from all over the world, show around 100 screenings a year, have filmpolitical discussions, workshops and, together with this, teach languages.

The film industry in India is, as they put it, a ”Masala industry”. The large Bollywood productions has taken over, which makes it hard for smaller films to get distributed and recognised as an important part of the industry. Together with a lack of strong film policy and also of theoretical framework, analysis and film critics, the alternative filmmaking struggle with difficulties. A start would be to arrange training and education that is not only very practical as today, but also teaches a theoretical framework to give coming filmmakers, producers and editors tools for analysis and context.

We are introduced to the three ways of cooporation you need: 1) internal cooperation within your organisation, 2) corporate and public cooperation (you will need to balance between both these, specifically in the India context), and 3) cooperation on a local and international level.

The Belgian group of artists called Berlin has done a beautiful portrait of the small city of Bonanza in Colorado, USA. The former prosperous gold city in the mountains is now a sleepy town of seven year-round inhabitants. Five projectors, one for each of the inhabitants, show an hour of interviews and clips from everyday life. It goes slowly from the ideal place for the soul to intrigues between each and everyone. And they have hardly ever spoken to each other.

The performance is beautifully done, with the projectors and the small model of the city. The dramaturgy is clever and the result is a portrait of the city and it’s people from different angles and with only the voices from the inhabitants. It shows the possibility of the artistic competence of trusting the process rather than the goal. To arrange the process in such a way, that when putting the pieces together you put light on something bigger, not otherwise visible. In today’s discussion of the creative cities, transformation, urban challenges and intercultural dialogue, this artistic competency is both very important in understanding society and can be used as a tool for change.

Bonanza is shown at the Göteborg Dance and Theatre Festival, running from August 15-24, one of many interesting performances all over the city. Bonanza can also be seen at Youtube.

”Heeey, let’s see who we got here….” the hip-hop performer on the Californian hot spot Venice Beach looks around ”Now, who do we got here…I like all people, no matter what color of the skin you have”. He takes another glance and starts moving around, pointing with energy at the crowd slowly gathering with some hesitation. ”White people”, he shakes a man’s hand ”Black people, just like myself. Ahhh, asian people…Welcome!” He throws a great smile at an Asian guy ”And Mexican people” looks around again and put out his hand for another handshake ”and Mexican, Mexican and Mexican again…many Mexicans” A smile, the crowd is giggling ”You’re all very welcome to my show!”

Mexican people holds California under its arms. And you find them everywhere; in the crowds on Venice, at construction sites, as nannies, cleaning hotels, running Mexican foodplaces, pruning treas at vineyards, emptying trashbins, cleaning pools, driving taxi. Mexican immigrants represent the largest immigration group in United States, according to statistics. For many the situation is difficult, especially for those who came over illegally somewhere along the 1,125 kilometer long boarder between the US and Mexico. Between 1990 and 2002, the legal population from Mexico roughly doubled, while the undocumented population grew by 165 percent. In 2006 more than 11,5 million Mexican immigrants resided in US. Most came to California, Texas, Illinois and Arizona. As long as Mexico has a high unemployment rate, people will continue to try their luck in the larger country in north.

The average Californian inhabitant pay the paycheck to her Mexican poolman with one hand, and with the other put up a warning finger as she talks with friends of what will happen if Mexicans continue to come to US in the same speed. And as they drive in cities and on streets with spanish-sounding names, probably more the heritage of the Spanish rule than the Mexican, they don’t take notice of the spanish-speaking people struggling on the highway side cleaning it. It’s one of those contradictions where in the mid eighteen hundreds, Mexican Governement for a short period of time ruled California and gave away land to the California Mexicans to settle. They lost their land fairly quickly and today, immigrating to the US in legal ways has become nearly impossible. Ilegally, people still try, even though it’s a life-threatening action. Most of the boarder is an unwelcoming desert, where you without water have no chance to survive. The American Governements solution to this problem and to stop the constant flow of people illegally climbing over, is to build an even stronger and higher fence along the boarder.

Mr McNulty from the Americans for the Arts said on a seminar earlier this spring (read here) that 40% of all small businesses in the US is formed by immigrants. In Sweden the figure is about the same. If a country would like to promote entrepreneurship, taking care of the multicultural society seems to be one way of making sure that new businesses will start. For a country with economic crisis, as America is in right now, new small businesses can be one way of creating new jobs and hope for the future. Immigrants have a key role in this. Mr McNulty was very clear on what he saw as necessary, and asked ”What blocks need to be removed in your society to welcome these people?” What blocks need to be removed? Not, as in the case of the American and Mexican boarderline, the building of new ones.

Read articles ”The Great Wall of America” in Time, June 30 2008, and ”A turning tide” and ”Living together” in The Economist, June 28-July 4 2008.

At Migration Information Source researchers, policy makers and journalists write on immigration trends in the world. Read ”Mexican Immigration to the US: latest estimates” and Mexican Immigrants in the US.

Also watch the movie ”Babel” directed by Alejandro Gonzáles Inárritu, which deals with this issue.