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A
memo sent to correspondents, friends and acquaintances of the Budapest Observatory (BO)
in March 2005
The
world is a festival. This less than original statement expressed BO mood in
March, struggling with materials of research on
festivals.
Festivals
interviewed
63
questions were put by professional pollsters to organisers of 238 festivals in
Hungary (plus visitors at 8 festivals), which is bigger than any survey in the
theme we had come across in Ireland, the UK, Estonia, Finland... you have not
informed us about further cases. Findings are being wrapped up for the Hungarian
Cultural Fund but we shall munch on them for a long time.
12%
of these 238 cultural gatherings date back to more than 20 years; another 28% to
10-20 years; quick readers know the rest - yes, 60% were established during the
last ten years. We grew up in a sparsely festivalled world and look, where we
are. It is a global cultural epidemy. No matter how formidably it sounds, in
most cases we felt that each festival (or "festival") has its organic function.
Modern man needs events, and events are framed or stuffed with arts, BO watches
and reports.
Festivals
defined and co-funded
Experiences
collected by IFACCA
for BO from 10 countries on public funding of festivals still need to be
summarised. There are few countries where special channels operate for public
support to festivals.
The
fifth continent excels. Creative New Zealand runs a sophisticated
operation that is characterised by how they define festivals:
"an activity or series of
events that has its primary focus on the development, presentation and/or
participation in the arts; has a programme conceived, produced, curated,
marketed and presented as an integrated package; and occurs within a defined
area/region and within a defined period of time".
Festivals Australia (a special government
grant programme) puts the accents differently, stating that "a festival is
a regular public celebration that is organised by members of the
community and has clear and strong community support".
The
practice of the Hungarian Cultural Fund appears to be unique by
co-funding festivals with the national tourist agency, jointly applying parallel
criteria of the arts and tourism.
French
comedy
Comédie-Française will host 400
top artist and intellectuals of Europe at the
Rencontre pour l'Europe de la culture
on 2 and 3 May. They will, at the initiative of the President of the Republic,
discuss the issues of culture at a time when a new constitution is being adopted
for the Union (and a new seven-year budget,
adds BO), and when a convention on cultural diversity is expected to pass at
this year's Unesco general conference. Invitations have been signed by the
minister and mailed to the invited guests.
Stakeholders
meet in May
Invitations
still pending to members of the forum of stakeholders of the Laboratory of
European Cultural Cooperation (the Lab), preliminarily planned for
4 May in Paris.
Sent out by EFAH secretariat, might be reaching interested parties just before
or after this memo.
Horizon
Budapest
The
conference in Paris is defined as part of a
movement started in Berlin in November. The Berlinerkonferenz lives on, you may
follow actual steps at its site.
As
is widely known, the relay continues in Budapest
in November at the conference Inclusive Europe: Horizon 2020.
In our latest memo we complained about difficulties to identify the right venues
along the Danube. Search stopped at the
Parliament building, this is where the opening session will be held on Thursday
evening, 17th November. Debates will continue on the next two days in
a similarly conspicuous building, the newly erected Palace of Arts.
Co-organiser
EFAH admittedly feels somewhat uneasy in such majestic scenery. There is shared
commitment, however, to ensure that the distinguishing feature of the Budapest conference will
be the plenty of opportunities for intellectual dialogue.
Official
opening of registration will take place in June.
Horizon
Europe
Are
hopes well founded? News in the media do not reflect a rise in economic output
in, or political and civic support for the European Union. No victory without
hope, however, in this spirit was the 70 cents for
culture
campaign launched in March. You may join in with your personal support that is
not restricted to citizens of member states. Increased EU funds are supposed to
benefit a wider geographic space, including all countries in east-central
Europe.
Compendium
enlargement
36
country profiles are available and comparable now at the Compendium of cultural policies
in Europe, including 14 from BO covered region.
It takes long before the European Union catches up with the Council of Europe
(if it wants to), in providing such a useful tool for harmonising a policy area
in member states (if they want to). Hommage à
l'Ericarts.
Mapping
cultural co-operation
Other
obligations have slowed down BO work on the analysis of cultural grants won from
the European Union. Upon the general success of the cobwebs on pages 10 and 11
of our analysis , we continue searching
for visual representation of who does it with whom in the frames of Culture
2000. To illustrate our search, see below how we display the choices to run
joint projects with cultural operations in Romania between
2000 and 2004.
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