ShortCut Europe Warsaw 2011

Culture (not) for all?
Data: October „Cut” / 16-18 November 2011
ShortCut Europe is an international encounter of culture animators, artists, creators and social activists. It is organized since 1996. The conferences are a reflection on the culture in the modern world. They create an international forum for public debate about culture and cultural education and an exchange platform for practical knowledge about cultural strategies and policies. The Warsaw conference will take place during the Polish Presidency in the EU.

It will be an educational congress of culture, international and multicultural, directed to a circle of cultural educators and animators. It will be a forum of exchange of knowledge about culture centres in old and new Europe, and will present the innovative solutions in the field of cultural activity. Finally It will attempt to find a new formula of debate, way of working with good practices and opening to the public, way to move the debate from the boardroom to the living places and to show new joint actions.

 Congress will be accompanied by several modules of activities:

The Congress itself (16-18 of November 2011) will be accompanied by actions and events which will take place in Warsaw during this week, and they will be creative development of the debate’s topics. Congress will be accompanied by the three blocks of the projects (artistic, activation of the cultural institutions and seminar) that will be implemented in October and November 2011 as a form of prologue to the Congress:
I.    Cięcie (Cut)
„Cut” consists of series of artistic and educational open events with the participation of the artists: Paweł Althamer, Artur Żmijewski and collectives  PGR_ART and Vlep(v)net. The inspiration of their artistic activities and workshops is a book by dr. Tomasz Rakowski „Łowcy, zbieracze, praktycy niemocy”. The activities will focus on the creative potential of the excluded communities. The title „Cut” stands for the opposition to some patterns of speaking about peripheral communities as communities „without culture", incapable of action and change.
We have also applied for a grant from the Obserwatorium Kultury [Observatory of Culture] for the project „Unrecognized areas of cultural development. ShortCut/Cięcie: the prologue”, which will be a continuation  of the 5-year ethnographic research and animation projects carried out by dr. Tomasz Rakowski, students, animators and artists in Ostałówek and Broniów near Szydłowiec (the area of high, rural unemployment). On the one hand project will consist in ethnographic research dedicated, among others, to the informal and social activists, self-organized groups. On the other hand it will carry out series of artistic and educational activities in these villages , which will relate to the social researches and ethnographic co-presence. One of the essential element of the project, which arise from the idea of returning to the place of previous activities, is a question about the possibility of revealing the next layers of creativity, as a result of long coexistence of animators and local community and the attempt to understand the role of the  „committed researcher/animator/anthropologist” and identification of the variety of perspectives of „change” that results from that long coexistence of animators and local communities.
II. Open Institutions
Within the ShortCut project we would like to invite all the cultural institutions in Warsaw to prepare a program of actions or a single action, which will be the creative answer to the question of understanding the definition of „open institution”. This question covers two fields of research, on the one hand how to include in the action undiscovered and yet absent group of  recipients, and on the other hand how to go beyond the existing pattern of action, including the attempt to destroy the hierarchical structure between educator and the educatees, the creator of culture and its recipient, and creating a common space of experiencing. The concept of openness will also raise a question about the possibility of the realization of institutions’ mission with the use of educational actions, which will take place beyond the area of the building. Warsaw cultural institutions together will work on this problem, trying to find the way to operationalize the concept of the “openness” and the possibilities to translate it into the practice.
III. Critical Workshops
Limited (sometimes) contacts between the representatives of the scientific and cultural centres  make the staff of cultural institutions relay often, in their actions,  on intuition and make them struggle with a certain complex of being derivative, unable to act, with limited  access to knowledge, difficulty to find an adequate code to talk „about culture” and „through the culture”.  If we assume, that the activity of cultural centres, regardless of the goals and profiles of individual institutions, is one of the voices in discussion about the events taking place today, referring to the latest theories and methodologies of the humanities and social sciences may be useful in setting the issues undertaken by the cultural centres in the broader context of talking about the present: identification of processes of democratization, development of an open society, that is aware of internal differences and which is responsive to the problem of exclusion, redefining the concept of cultural centres and their hegemonic status, the merging of globalization and local traditions.
Working with selected tools from the humanities and social sciences will be helpful in making some kind of „self-criticism” – self-reflection on the meaning of the undertaken actions and choices made in carrying out its own cultural projects. 
The critical workshops are the pilot project of seminars and workshops, aimed to create a common platform for an exchange of the experience for the theorists and practitioners. We would like to invite the representatives of culture centres, humanities and social sciences, especially  social and cultural anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, philologists, etc., whose researches  take up issues which are particularly important  in modern times. The subjects of these workshops will be the issues undertaken in the various panels of the Congress – the participants will be coping with these subjects, using the tools and theories from the scope of the humanities and social sciences. The course of the workshops will be filmed and its effects will be presented at each panel, orienting the topic and becoming the opening voice of a deepened discussion.


Description of the Congress’ panels:
1.    The institutions and culture centres in the service of the system and against it.
To understand what are the cultural centres today in the Western democracies and in the post-communist countries, it’s worth to realize how they have been created and which social and political processes they have been based on. In Western Europe culture centres were mostly rank-and-file initiatives, formed from the waves of protest in 1968, which then became established and began receiving public subsidies. Their basis was the idea of an open society in which culture is also asking the uncomfortable questions and challenges the social order. In our part of Europe, culture centres under the noble slogan of bringing the torch of the knowledge to the common people, were in fact a tool of propaganda. They assumed a passive reception of a high culture or actions which imitated the traditions of folk art which, however, contributed to its actual decrepitude. The panel will be dedicated to the presentation of several models of the culture centres in different historical, political and geographic contexts, revealing the importance of external conditions in the creation of certain forms of institutional and non-institutional culture.  Comparison of experiences of the post-Jalta countries, referring to the broader European context and some examples outside the Europe, will allow us to think about functioning of culture as a symbolic way of thinking (in the system or against it). Within the panel we would like to look at the experimental solutions from the „new world”, for example from Latin America (where since the 1960s the culture centres were established in poor districts), Brazil (where the participatory budgets were introduced, they gave the local community real impact on the shape of the budgets for culture).
2.    Culture creates development
We often talked about a culture as a „non-profit” sphere, which does not generate any tangible benefits and which requires subsidies. To a large degree it was due to perception of „development” from the perspective of the modernization changes and the fact that the projects of development programs were carried out mostly by the centres. Some time ago the superficiality of such programs was recognized: they were not based on existing local economic and social conditions; the lack of local „change agents” was noticed. It reformulated the way of thinking about „change” – from the central model to the concept of local development. The importance of grass-root activity of local communities referring to their specifics was emphasized. The importance of culture in the development is no longer disputed, there is general agreement that the culture that goes beyond the existent social order and which activates, teaches innovation and how to live consciously, how to affect your life and reality creatively, and that creates space and conditions for social and economic development. Education, skills, talents, not only gives the individual greater access to „being” in the cultural environment but it also has a specific value, which is more important factor in changing process than capital (in the sense of means of production) itself. It contributes to create a conscious society, reduce social disproportions, creates the intellectual potential of local communities, increases the space of communication and on the economic level – creates cultural industries, job market, changes the image of the regions etc. If we, therefore, assume that for the post-social society – as  its indicated by Alain Touraine, among others -  the culture plays a strategic role in development, it is worth to come back to the question about the meaning of that „development” in the context of building an open, democratic society.
3.    Culture and art in a public space
„Culture and art in a public space” it’s a question about the role of non-institutional culture and art that is happening out of buildings. The growing interest in art in public spaces shows that artists are incessantly looking for new places of communication,  beyond the traditional white-cube space. The so-called „reach out” of the public which increases their participation in the arts through direct confrontation, situating the arts by referring to a specific segment of the urban tissue and experiences of local communities; it will enable to extent the field of interactions between creator and recipient. The artistic transformation of the city, the attempts to „regain” it, ask the question about the importance of this beyond-institutional context of events, namely the importance of the concept of what „public” is.
If, as some of theoreticians say, the essence of public art is to build a public space, the gap of interpretation, which is created by a lack of clear regulations that legitimize that „public” make possible the renegotiation of this concept. Does the public space belong to everyone? Does it belong to you, to us, or maybe to nobody? If I were its co-owner, would I be able to co-create it freely? Does public space can be a field for the equal and free expression, or maybe it is a space subordinated to hierarchy of authority, mechanisms of exclusion?
4.    Culture as a space of freedom and anarchy
Culture as a space of freedom and anarchy is an issue that naturally develops the subject of the panel „The institutions and culture centres in the service of the system and against it”.  The opposition to the mainstream cultural projects in a significant way created the cultural life during the communism. What is the meaning of that concept at the time of building a democratic and civil society? Free market, free trade, free elections, free license, free art, free will… The problem of freedom comes back in a new context and with new questions, showing the modern face of this issue.  The discussed problem of the struggle with the issue of copyrights, the attempts to „release the works” is constantly countered by a charge of promoting piracy. The third sector, by definition rank-and-file and independent, suffers from the so-called „grant-art” which significantly undermines its sovereignty. In what types of actions freedom and resistance is carried out today? Is anarchist subversion still happening on the periphery or maybe it’s absorbed by the mainstream? How the perspective of free culture determines today a question about the culture as a space of the expression of „my” freedom? 
5.    Educational „orientate yourself!” In search of lost audience. 
Every educational action is determined by the certain vision of its recipient – the most important participant in the project, the educational action is taking place not only for him but also through him. But do the cultural institutions think strategically about their recipients? Does the struggle to expand the boundaries of cultural activity kill the potential participants? Who is the „lost audience” that the cultural institutions should regain? It is certainly every recipient that is more or less consciously excluded, for various reasons left on the margins of cultural activity, suppressed and unwanted. It is the one who is locked in the stereotype that the few can act in culture and art is the language of so-called high culture. Another group of lost audience are rebels, those who do not want to squeeze their individuality in the boundaries of behaviour that are more or less strictly determined by the educational project. Finally, lost audience is faithful recipient of a culture, regular participant of educational projects, for whom the cultural institutions do not strive anymore.   The cultural institutions are trying every now and then to regain such an audience. They open themselves to the new recipient, they enable those who exceed the certain limit of age, who live on the periphery, who has low level of education or poor psychophysical fitness to participate and act in culture. But how to carry out the actions directed to the people who so far were excluded, the way that it will not confirm the existing order? Does locating this work on the margin of cultural activity increase their social stigma?  How to carry out projects with these recipients, and not for them or about them? How to transform the traditional model of associate with the culture based on the passive and time-honoured customs in an open, involving, encouraging the encounter, provoking self-exploration form? And finally - how to direct these actions to „everyone”, treated as an every „individual” not as an anonymous member of the community, whose strength lies in a constant discovering of next layers of their own possibilities?
6.    Polish multiculturalism?
In many debates dedicated to multiculturalism, its concept is based on the so-called „real” dimension of social differentiation which results from the different ethnicity or religions. However, as noted by some researchers, multiculturalism also occurs at the level of social awareness, when on the everyday ground people notice differences between themselves and their neighbours, when they notice other values as important. Referring to the terminology of Marc Auge, these are two different perspectives on „stranger”: distant stranger (a representative of a separate ethnos) and close stranger that may be a resident of another district or a representative of a different social group. Also the Polish researchers  more and more frequently refer to the categories of multiculturalism talking about cultures of different environments or social classes, that are displayed in the specific character of the communication form, different symbols or models of behaviour considered to be „their”. Such an approach seems to be particularly relevant in the description of the homogeneous culture, as is the case of Polish culture. The recognition of its heterogeneity – for example in relations to the issue of social promotion – will also  show some form of asymmetry, that is contained in the relations between these cultures, different ways of „practicing” their own model of the world. This issue is an important challenge for cultural education, because the various cultures do not constitute closed wholeness. They function among others and against others, trying to define its borders, constantly merging, aspiring to them, or collide with each other, they tend to confrontation.    
7.    Culture networking.
If we assume that each culture institution function not in isolation, but in social and cultural network, the participation in the public discussion about their assignments – along with other organizations and in relations to them – it seems a natural consequence of adopting this model of participatory culture. What is even more important, the culture sector is an area susceptible to threats, it constantly struggles for the „visibility” and hearing its voice. What role in the quest to strengthen ideas supported by individual organizations play the establishment of various cooperation platforms? At what level the cooperation can work out and what goals can it set? How to create a network, which, based on real interactions, will contribute to real change. This subject will be discussed on several levels: from cooperation at the macro level (international networks representing specific types of cultural organizations) through the micro levels – national and environmental networks, aiming at attaining the common goal. The possible forms of cooperation: geographical, structural, inclusive, exclusive etc., will be discussed on the basis of experience of already existing platforms. These diagnoses will be a contribution to the Polish field, where the idea of networking is still treated with mistrust, arising from the strong „competitive thinking”, weakness of self-organization or difficulty in translating ideas into practice. Examples of young initiatives in this field will determine the discussion about the need and possibilities of creating a nationwide network of culture centres in Poland.

Project objectives:
•    exchange of knowledge about the institutions and cultural centers in Poland, Europe and rest of the world, including the practices of the countries of the Eastern Partnership, an inspiration for Polish centers and cultural institutions
•    popularization of good practices in cultural education
•    growth of the competence of the creators of culture, strengthen the participatory potential among the participants in cultural events
•    explore  the cultural potential of the excluded and marginalized communities
•    launch a nationwide network of cultural centers
•    developing recommendations on local cultural policy for the organizers of cultural institutions
•    discussion on the possibilities of increasing the competences of  culture institutions’ staff with the use of interdisciplinary tools from the fields of art and science

Target groups:
•    cultural animators, educators, social activists from Poland, Central and Eastern Europe, the EU working in institutions, non-governmental organizations, independent initiatives
•    academic circles interested in cultural education and animation
•    local government, politicians
•    journalists writing on social affairs, culture and art
•    cultural activities’ participants

Project team:
•    Marcin Śliwa - The Mazovia Region Centre of Culture and Arts
•    Ewa Chomicka - The Mazovia Region Centre of Culture and Arts, coordinator of the project
•    Anna Halbersztat
•    Katarzyna Kułakowska

Advisory Board:
•    Prof. Marek Krajewski – Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
•    Dr Tomasz Rakowski – Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw
•    Katarzyna Mazurkiewicz – National Centre of Culture
•    Wojciech Ziemilski - performer

Consultations:
•    Magda Materna - Open Art Projects Foundation
•    Monika Weychert-Waluszko – Forum of Culture Creators and Animators in Toruń/TVP Culture/ Foksal Gallery

Organizers of the project:
The Capital City of Warsaw – Culture Department / Leszek Napiontek
The Mazovia Region Centre of Culture and Arts / Marcin Śliwa
National Centre of Culture / Katarzyna Mazurkiewicz
European Network of Cultural Centres / Andreas Kaempf
The Ochota Cultural Centre / Bożena Majewska
House of Culture "Dorożkarnia" / Maryna Czaplińska

Under the Honour Patronage:
The Minister of Culture and National Heritage, The Mayor of the City of Warsaw, Marshall of the Mazovia Region, Polish Presidency in the Council of the European Union

Project Coordinator:
Ewa Chomicka
(0048) 22 586 42 21
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