It?s not about maps

Paul Coelho, one of the ambassadors for the European Union’s European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008 (EUYID), tells us that, with all that is going on in society around us, we have one bridge left, which is to establish a dialogue through culture. The slogan for the Year is ‘Together in Diversity’, but what do ‘Year of…’ and ‘intercultural dialogue’ mean in the context of an organisation like the European Cultural Foundation (ECF)?

The notion that cultural co-operation and creative activities can bring the people of Europe closer together has been at the core of the ECF’s work since it was established in 1954. A group of national committees known as Fora – reaching from the UK and Ireland to Finland and the Czech Republic – promotes and extends the remit of our work to their networks and feed information back. But the ECF map of Europe is not just in the geographic sense of nations: it extends to the neighbouring regions and areas on the perimeter.

Regions and areas

Bringing cultural people (artists, commentators, NGOs, organisations) from a particular region together to talk about their experiences, hopes, fears and challenges brings a real imperative to the notion of cultural co-operation. For example, a recent workshop for the cultural sector in Tbilisi, Georgia, was an opportunity to gather information about culture in the Caucasus. By running a series of Reflection groups, we gain valuable insights about how things really are, particularly in countries wrought by, or recovering from, conflict. The Balkan Reflection Group resulted in a book called ‘The Heart of the Matter’, a series of essays on the way forward for culture in the region. Another direct result was the setting up of a special cultural fund for the Balkans.

In spring and summer 2007, the ECF, together with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, invited cultural people in Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova to share their knowledge. This phase of the East European Reflection Group mapped the individual forces and dynamics in the cultural field that have contributed, or have the potential to contribute, to societal changes: those that contribute in a positive way to democratisation, modernisation and Europeanisation.

The Mediterranean Reflection process has had a slightly different remit. It culminated in a meeting in Alexandria with participants from 18 countries, including Lebanon, Jordan and France, discussing how artists operate within particular political and legal frameworks, and what their take is on Europe. The aim was to get away from the usual forms of discourse.

Projects that pursue artistic and cultural co-operation in North Africa, the Middle East and Turkey face specific political and artistic challenges for which European cultural people are often poorly equipped politically. They need funding, but they also need open, challenging debates with their partners not just in a national context, but also within the region. The process creates a context of trust and openness in which artists, intellectuals and cultural people set the agenda and pose important questions.

However, certain societies cannot be framed in a national context. The ECF helped to fund the first-ever Roma Pavilion and Armenian Exhibition at the 2007 Biennale, which is historically associated with national pavilions. Presenting Roma and Armenian artistic production in this way challenged the expectations of the public and the art world, and inspired a debate about the nature of a trans-national community.

Crossing borders

Cultural mobility brings a different dimension to the work of artists and cultural organisations, encouraging those in the cultural sector to look beyond national and EU borders. The ECF’s ‘StepBeyond’ Programme offers small travel grants, enabling people to experience, discuss, exchange views and ideas and report back. The StepBeyonders – journalists, actors, artists, arts managers and others – have travelled to 35 countries. New media have also given a new meaning to borders, travel, nations, cultural co-operation and intercultural dialogue.

The ECF has initiated Labforculture.org, an online platform for European culture and the arts with information in five languages and a growing social networking space. Offering up-to-the-minute information ranging from funding possibilities to cultural news, it encourages the cultural sector experiment with online technologies through its open space where people can post blogs, search contacts through numerous online profiles or make an announcements. It is a unique tool for artists, cultural professionals, organisations and networks in the 50 countries of Europe, but it also provides a platform for cultural co-operation between Europe and the rest of the world.

Year of…

The EU Year presents a great opportunity to put culture on the map. The ECF’s contribution includes the ‘Stranger Festival’ in Amsterdam in July 2008. Dedicated to the self-expression and empowerment of young people in today’s Europe, this will show and share their views on the world through video.

Stranger Festival is one of the seven flagship projects chosen by the EU to represent the year. Thirty video workshops for young people will take place in 20 countries. An online video competition will go live in February 2008, where young people will upload their own videos. These will be the starting-point for badly needed debate in a MySpace and YouTube world of ready communication but little analysis. An important component of the Stranger Festival is that the debate will be led by young people themselves.

We have also launched the social networking site, www.Rhiz.eu, where people can share their experiences and stories. The ‘Civil Society Platform for Intercultural Dialogue’ is a partner initiative of the ECF and the European Forum for the Arts and Heritage and is supported by the Network of European Foundations. Its role is to act as a political think-tank, to informally test ideas and tools in relation to the EUYID, and to provide feedback on ongoing projects.

The European story has always involved migration, integration, diversity, difference, but the constantly shifting map, and people and their cultural diversity, have never been of such relevance as they are today. The EUYID brings this issue into focus. The ECF is already developing, for example, an international exhibition on cultural diversity for 2010. The challenge for the ECF and our partners, together with organisations and artists across Europe, is not only to push culture higher up the agenda, but to forge and consolidate links and networks – nationally, interculturally, across regions, and across Europe and its neighbouring countries for the future.