Highlights of the Rome meeting in May, 2015

During the meeting 5th in Rome partners were introduce to two projects of the GNAM Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, that showed the institution mission will to engage with the public and broaden access.

Participants had an interesting talk with Martina De Luca and Susanne Meurer – Responsible for education services and public relation. Susanne introduced the project:

“The Memory of Beauty”- Guided tours for people affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

A project that introduces modern art to people affected by Alzheimer and on the other hand helps and support family in the care of their beloved ones.

A project that touches social issues and how the museum can play a role in this matter.

➡  Click here for download project power presentation. 

The project was born from an encounter with the MOMA museum of New York:

http://www.moma.org/meetme/index

August 19th, 2015|

Highlights of the Copenhagen meeting in May, 2015

The meeting in Copenhagen raised a lot of questions around the topics of cultural participation and cultural democracy. Organisations are all trying to rethink their role in society and how to manage the relationship with audiences and why. The meeting in Copenhagen was an incredible opportunity to learn how different organisations try to engage with new audiences differently.

The meeting started with an interesting presentation at Nikolaj Art Centre (http://www.nikolajkunsthal.dk/en) with Hilde Østergaard, Head of Learning and Education. 

They are trying to fulfil their ambition to engage diverse audiences. To achieve this mission they are trying to rethink themselves, understand how to do it.

They are trying out different methods like making exhibitions with and for young people together with local artists. The learning team works together with the curator team. As an example is the project ARTREACH – which starts from the young people’s stories.

Where people are invited to give an interpretation of the heritage or co – create with the artists.

We met Irene Campolmi, researcher at the LOUISIANA MUSEUM of Modern Art (http://en.louisiana.dk/). She introduced us to some of the challenges that the LOUISIANA museum is thinking about:

– Rethinking its strategy, structure, mission and engagement with the audiences.

– What is a sustainable museum?

– What is sustainable art?

– What is a research museum?

– How museum co-create with audiences?

– What is the museum role in the 21st century?

The Danish Agency for the Arts / Arts Council Denmark were we met Ida Brændholdt Lundgaard, Senior Advisor & Sidsel Risted Staun, Museum Branch.

The Agency carried out a national survey to understand the state of art of museum in the educational field.

What can we learn from the results to contribute to the development of cultural democracy?

Action points:

  • Identify new professional skills
  • Bottom up approach – focusing on processes not on products
  • Finance learning partnerships
  • Train teachers to use museum in a more qualitative way
  • Recommendations to museum to develop educational strategies:
  • People come to learn new things
  • According they learning style tailor the learning experience, not based on one way of learning. We don’t have a single story

Look on their website for very useful pubblications:

http://www.kulturstyrelsen.dk/videnbank/publikationer/museums-citizens-and-sustainable-solutions/

Moreover the big questions raise by Thomas Henriksen and Marcelo Lerer (CKI & the Secret Company http://www.thesecretcompany.com/tag/marcelo-lerer/) about the role of arts in social change through co-creation with audiences and outreaching strategies.

Presenting the SALAAM FILM & DIALOGUE FILM FESTIVAL (http://www.salaam.dk/english/) and the CARAVAN PROJECT (http://www.thesecretcompany.com/caravan-method/).

An emotional ending took place when meeting with Allan Klie, Theatre director and head of project development KBH+.

KBH+ is an NGO that uses creativity to involve young people with a crime issues.

Now they are developing a project were through teaching cooking with renewed chefs they try to give them other skills to find a job o to develop their business ideas.

Why should cultural organisations be doing all of this?

August 19th, 2015|

Up Skill Cultural Managers – Porto Meeting

What have we been doing in Porto?

Meet the partners and learn why they think exchange best practices among cultural organisations is important:

 

Highlights of the PORTO meeting in March, 2015:

What an incredible meeting in Porto exploring how creativity can support rethinking and reframing problems! Quoting Einstein ‘We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them’.

Such as the Art on Chairs is an example of a collaboration between creative and cultural industries (CCI) and traditional industries. In this case, the collaboration was between designers and 600 local furniture companies. The goal was to assert and consolidate the strategic vision of Paredes as Furniture Design Centre, a place which is capable of attracting people, talent and creative business and of generating value and quality of life. The international event Art on Chairs is a crucial part of this strategy, which aims to join design, creativity and entrepreneurship in promoting a fundamental sector in the social, economic and cultural development of the city.

For more information: www.artonchairs.pt

Or the interesting Oliva Factory, in São João da Madeira near Porto.

Oliva Creative Factory is essentially a business project, with artistic training, cultural activities and leisure playing a major role. Located inside Oliva, one of the former biggest and most innovative factories in Portuguese history, Oliva Creative Factory’s motto is to convert creativity and talent into business. For this purpose, a business hub for the creative industries (design, fashion, software, product design, web design and multimedia, among others) has been created, as well as a business centre for established businesses. There is also a large wing dedicated to contemporary art, with a permanent exhibition, temporary exhibitions, a dance school, restoration offices and a rehearsal room for shows being presented in the city’s major theatre room, Casa da Criatividade. Don’t miss out on:

http://olivacreativefactory.com/wp/

 

Creativity-workshop-2 Creativity-workshop-1

May 14th, 2015|

SPAIN Meeting report

Spain-meeting-3The Upskill’s project 4rd partners meeting took place in Pedro Muñoz (near Madrid), from 16 to 21 October in Spain, hosted by Fundación Iberoamericana de las Industrias Culturales y Creativas. All together 22 participants has come from the partner organisations to try two workshop modules as a part of to know different best practices and also visiting some venues in rural areas knowing a bit about the actual cultural field in Spain.

March 6th, 2015|

An account of Upskill second meeting in London

meeting-london-2Upskill’s second meeting was held near London (United Kingdom) in March 2014 and hosted by Creative & Cultural Skills.

After breaking the ice in Rome, this meeting was the second time that partners had come together to continue their exchange and investigation into training best practice for cultural managers. The focus of the meeting in London was to understand how apprenticeships in the cultural sector work, and the impact they have on increasing young people’s employability.

February 9th, 2015|