Human Being Creative: making arts and healthcare collaborations work
Presentation to 'Lateral Thinking, the value of collaboration between the arts, health and environment Conference - Glasgow 9th April 2015
Synopsis of the paper is at Conference Paper
Culture and Human Rights
The Wroclaw Commentaries
The City of Wroclaw (European Capital of Culture 2016) asked Andreas Joh. Wiesand (publisher at ARCult Media, Cologne and ECURES SG) to prepare, together with experts in many different countries, a basic handbook - or "concise dictionary" - with the above working title. Co-editors are Kalliopi Chainoglou and Anna Sledinska- Simon, in collaboration with Yvonne Donders; co-publisher and international distributor is De Gruyter (Berlin/Boston). The Handbook covers relevant legal questions as well as main political consequences related to human rights and culture in the wider sense, including: freedom of, and access to, the arts, (old/new) media and heritage; questions of religious and language rights; the protection of minorities; safeguarding cultural diversity; and other issues. More about the Handbook can be found on its project website.
Message from Andreas Joh. Wiesand
No Copyright?
ECURES member Joost Smiers together with Marieke van Schijndel recently published the book: "NO COPYRIGHT. Vom Machtkampf der Kulturkonzerne um das Urheberrecht". At present, the publication is available only in German, an English version is planned. It can be ordered at 9.90 EUR from www.alexander-verlag.com (ISBN 978-3-89581-275-0).
Which system could - better than the existing copyright law - protect the interests of numerous artists as well as the general public in the public domain, a public sphere of creativity and knowledge? The authors plead for radical solutions, including the abolition of copyright, a strategy of social change and, above all, a regulation of present market conditions. A true market should be created, delimiting the forces that dominate it, at present. As a result, they envisage: a colorful, diverse and creative environment which gives many stakeholders a chance while cutting down on the power of controlling monopolies and corporate giants. Smiers and van Schijndel argue that a copyright-free system can work on a commercial basis and show, amongst other issues, how it would apply to the trade with information, patents, medicines and food.
The CRIA Process
A study of ECURES member Jörg Michael Schindler calls for regular ‘Culture-Related Impact Assessments’ (CRIA) on European, national and regional levels: "Kulturpolitik und Recht 3.0", Köln/Cologne 2011 (ISBN 978-3-930395-87-3, order here). With a new, extended English summary of its background and main components, published in the Compendium, the author intends to make this legal and administrative model accessible to a wider European and international public.
Recent Publications of ECURES Members & ERICarts Partners
The Mediterranean Region - close and far away?
Based on representative surveys on intercultural issues carried out in 13 countries across Europe and south of the Mediterranean Sea, the second Anna Lindh Report has been published in July, 2014. ECURES Member Caroline Robertson-von Trotha contributed two of the analytical papers to the Report (see here and here). Inter alia, the author explains how the attitude of citizens to cultural diversity varies between regions in Germany due to the different levels of exposure to groups with migrant backgrounds. While the Anna Lindh/Gallup polling shows respondents' scepticism towards diversity in relation to social instability, there is a definite support for the equality of rights to all minorities in the country.
Culture-related Projects in European Territorial Cooperation Programmes
In most of the 13 Territorial Cooperation programmes financed by EU's European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), culture-related projects play an important strategic role. The ERICarts Institute recently contributed to more transparency in this domain: In addition to advising the SOUTH EAST EUROPE Programme on cultural dimensions and opportunities in the context of the new "SEE 2020" strategy (lead-author: Vesna Čopič), the ERICarts Institute engaged in a larger thematic study: "Cultural Heritage and Creative Resources in the CENTRAL EUROPE Programme". The study has been carried out by ERICarts Executive Director Andreas Joh. Wiesand with Office Manager Olivier Göbel and additional advice from three ECURES Members in the region: Vesna Čopič (Ljubljana), Péter Inkei (Budapest) and Veronika Ratzenböck (Vienna). You can download the Final Report here. The study, which includes a number of conclusions and strategic recommendations has also been a topic in the CENTRAL EUROPE Annual Conference held on 1 July 2014 in Vienna.
Hybridity vs. Dualism
The 6th volume of the series Hybride Welten [Hybrid worlds], edited by ECURES Board member Elka Chernokojeva, has recently been published: E. Chernokojeva, E. / Jacobs, F. (Eds.): "àœber Dualismen hinaus" [Beyond Dualism. Regions - People - Institutions in hybridological perspective], 343 pp, ISBN 978-3-8309-2928-4, Waxmann/Münster, 2013. Questioning "methodological nationalism", it builds on the late 20th century shift of paradigm in the social sciences and tries to develop alternative analytical tools to examine group formation processes, institutions, and cultural expressions beyond essentialist purity thinking. "Hybridology", a new research approach at the Sorbian Institute in Bautzen (Germany), tries to raise awareness of cultural diversity and focuses primarily on the dialogic and processual nature of intercultural encounters. In addition to new findings from transdisciplinary discussions, the 6th volume covers a variety of applications of the hybridological perspective for cultural, linguistic, educational, historical, and minority issues. The approach is exemplified with the Schleife village community in Lusatia, a microregion with a historically evolved network of multicultural relationships, which is currently confronted with the effects of lignite mining.
First Dutch Arts Index
Boekmanstichting (Amsterdam) and the Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (SCP) just published the "Cultuurindex Nederland" in the Boekman Series, No. 97 (ISSN 1571-5949), together with related articles that empirically map the the state of culture in the Netherlands. The Index has been modeled after the "National Arts Index", produced by Americans for the Arts (USA). In two workshops held September 2013 and January 2014, perspectives and problems of an extension of this concept towards a "European Arts Index" have been discussed. An English summary of the results of the Dutch Arts Index can be found here.
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