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A memo sent to correspondents, friends and acquaintances of the
Budapest Observatory (BO) in April 2003 - a one-word e-mail (‘unsubscribe') will
save your PC from us
Dear Colleagues,
Never exceed 900 words or else your e-bulletin ends up un-read in
the trash bin. And if you are after a busy month? Well...
Kosovo twists
Last year the culture ministry of Kosovo invited a team to
prepare a draft strategy for culture, with the help of Council of Europe
experts (hence BO involvement). The draft put the target extremely high, among
others in stripping the ministry from many functions, proposing to leave these
to bodies selected from the cultural community. A two-day conference was held
early this April; its participants voted for the status-quo in most structural
issues, in effect re-installing the monopoly of the ministry administration. An
article in the leading daily paper later revealed that the partisan attempt of
the draft to diversify decision-making was felt by cultural actors as an effort
on behalf of the ministry(!) to increase bureaucracy, which was successfully
thwarted.
Maybe. Though I felt differently. But two days is too short to
interpret aims and motivations properly.
e-circle
Culturelink
hosted and co-organised this year's Circle Round Table late this April in
Zagreb, in the subject of culture in the electronic age. It demonstrated the
best traditions of Circle: sniffing in the air for a topical theme, bringing
together researchers, practitioners and administrators, detecting specialists to
speak on selected issues and finding sponsors to provide good facilities.
Few recent cultural policy documents manage to fully reflect the
impact of the digital age. The conference brought to light segments of culture
that have been fundamentally changed by the internet, or were born as a
consequence of the world wide web. As time went along, copyright and licences
were mentioned more and more frequently, apparently among the trickiest issues
in the near future.
If downloading the conference reader at http://www.culturelink.org/eculture.html
is beyond your patience or capacities, beg Culturelink
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for the Introduction prepared by Ritva, which is in fact an executive
summary.
Fossil or adept survivor?
The Interarts - EFAH project on cultural cooperation in Europe
took up much of BO memos (and BO time) lately. The working sessions in
Barcelona, early this April, suggested success, although at the expense of much
further work on behalf of Interarts staff (and outside helpers like Jerry) on
the 7th floor with a nice view to the sea.
The discussion confirmed our sentiments that bilateral cultural
cooperation agreements between governments are not entirely different from
species that have survived climatic changes. These high level diplomatic
instruments, and the cultural exchange programmes derived from them, thrived
best in the mid- and late cold war climate. They fulfilled important functions
then in making passages through the iron curtain and in making nation states
co-operate with each other culturally.
Yet the national reports, dutifully provided by 31 contributors,
also revealed that in this changed world, essentially multilateral in
character, the exchange programmes between couples of cultural ministries have
maintained some of their appeal, and it would be too early to advocate a
totally new paradigm.
Lessons to
draw and convert into recommendations to the EU Commission? BO is as curious
about the outcome as you, dear reader. We shall let you know (anyway, we owe
several messages in the subject).
The social dimension of European
cultural policies
BO postponed a long-planned research on socio-cultural activities
and institutions in Europe for sake of our contribution to the previous
subject. But for the next couple of months this will be our main work. As
usual, you may receive personal messages in the subject.
Instead of defining the issue, now you will learn in what way the
survey will be different from previous concepts. The main emphasis will be on
examining ways in which cultural policies and institutions try to contribute to
preventing and reducing poverty and social exclusion in various European
countries.
By this shift of accent BO wishes to bring this survey closer to
a related European project, coordinated by researchers at the University of
Northumbria.
More money from businesses to
culture
BO takes part in another exciting project. Visitors to the site
of CEREC, the network of organisations that promote cultural sponsorship in
Europe, actually find no member from east-central Europe. There are plans now
to set up one organisation in Hungary, which will fulfil such functions and
aspire to be eligible for CEREC membership soon. The initiative came from the
Soros Foundation, in order not to leave a vacuum behind.
One publication
In different meetings and in different countries, representatives
of quite diverse groups of cultural players have been telling BO, basically the
same thing: "to solve our problems, we need a law". The same happened to Delia
Mucica and she wrote a booklet in response: "Cultural legislation: Why? How?
What?" Easy to read, and covers almost the entire scope of actual issues in
cultural policy.
The full text is on the Council of Europe portal: http://www.coe.int/T/E/Cultural_Co-operation/Culture/Assistance_&_Development/S.T.A.G.E/Publications/mucica.asp#TopOfPage.
Do not hope to find or download the 69 pages easily. Try to get hold of a copy.
One seminar
Prospects are good that similarly digestible thoughts can be
heard in live performance on 15 May in London, with heavy-weight experts on
stage, chaired by Miklós, BO founding president. Title: "What values
underpin cultural policies in Europe?" For more, contact
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.
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