Blog Culture Matters

Mar 08
Inspiring Face to Face of the Community of Practice ‘Culture Matters’ in Basel

From February 8-10, around 40 members of the Community of Practice (CoP) 'Culture Matters' came together in Basel for three days. After attending the CROSSROADS conference on "International perspectives on culture, art and society", the CoP participated at a SDC-internal Face to Face (F2F) in order to talk about Culture and Development within SDC, operational issues and activities within the CoP. Many fruitful discussions emerged and the members of the CoP had the chance to get to know each other as well as to establish a basis for future collaboration.  

 - by Esther Mühlethaler

Participants of the F2F 'Culture Matters'

 

The F2F of the CoP ‘Culture Matters’ took place within the framework of the CROSSROADS event, which was organized by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia in cooperation with the SDC Knowledge-Learning-Culture Division. Participating at CROSSROADS during the first two days, the present CoP members had the opportunity for individual exchanges among each other even before the F2F started. The whole CROSSROADS event included a variety of panel discussions, conversations and art performances, which brought on stage experts and artists from all over the world. Representatives of culture promotion organizations, curators, scientists and artists from a wide range of branches attracted an equally diverse audience.

Inspiring and lively panel discussions and performances at CROSSROADS provided a basis for debates and experience sharing within the CoP. The panel dealing with the question “How to talk about what no one wants to talk about?”, for example, triggered discussions about the possibilities and limits arts and artists have for a critique of society and for raising awareness on specific topics. Corresponding questions also arose after seeing a strong and provocative theater play about prejudices Black people are exposed to, or a dance performance making homosexuality a subject of discussion in a very intimate manner. Although the opinions about “How to talk about what no one wants to talk about?” differed within the CoP to a certain extent, the group members mostly agreed on the important role artists can play in shedding light on controversial issues and in encouraging social transformation. However, several discussions also displayed the difficulties local political and societal contexts can cause for such critical arts. The importance of distinct and adaptable strategies to make artistic work in general and arts on controversial issues in particular accessible to a broader audience was stressed on several occasions.

Full of impressions and inspiration gathered at the CROSSROADS event, the members of the CoP participated at the SDC-internal F2F ‘Culture Matters’ on the third day. The F2F primarily aimed to encourage sharing and exchanging processes within the CoP, as well as to strengthen confidence in culture work. After an introduction pointing out the history, policy and structural basis of Culture & Development at SDC, the participants exchanged ideas and questions concerning five main topics in the course of a World Café. A first World Café table concerned the question on how to prioritize culture, which allowed to share very concrete field experiences on how to set up and promote culture programs. The monitoring of culture projects and programs was discussed in a second discussion group, while a third focused on principles that have to be specifically considered when promoting arts and artists in fragile contexts. Another discussion group dealt with the complex issue of balancing the aspects of artistic freedom and eligibility criteria in the promotion of arts and artists. The fifth World Café table aimed to exchange on the CoP as such and discussed the function and utilization of different channels of communication as well as the needs and expectations of members of the CoP. Based on these discussions, in the afternoon session the participants of the F2F defined first drafts of concrete guidelines for setting up cultural programs, which will be further refined.

 

Impressions from CROSSROADS and the F2F


It was impressive to get a feeling for how much knowledge and experience exists within the group, and how many ideas and concrete action points emerged during the group discussions. The participants closed the F2F by sharing some of their impressions of the day, naming something they learnt and something they commit to within the CoP. Looking just at a few statements, it seems that the F2F was a success regarding exchange and networking, and also raised awareness about the importance of culture work and cooperation within the CoP ‘Culture Matters’.

 

 

 

Among other things, the intense and very fruitful and clarifying F2F showed the importance of regular personal exchange within the CoP. Peer to peer learning, sharing of good practices and lessons learnt may increase the quality of work of all of us. In that sense, we’re all looking forward to meeting or hearing each other again, be it in bilateral interactions, regional meetings or, at the latest, at the next F2F in two years. 

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