Culture Lab Europe

The European Cultural Foundation, Rijeka 2020 European Capital of Culture, Krytyka Polityczna and ZEMOS98 invited everybody to apply for participation in Culture Lab Europe. The event was planned to take place in April in Rijeka, Croatia, but was transformed into an online event in June 2020 due to the Covid-19 crisis. In the week from 22 to 28 June, several live events took place online.

You can find the online programme, the participants, and background information here.

We were looking for cultural activists and mediators who are

engaged in initiatives that create spaces for solidarity and public debate, and who are keen on European collaboration.

engaged in non-partisan initiatives that provide digital or physical space for citizens to share ideas and engage in debate

well connected to relevant (local) communities and stakeholders such as decision-makers, educational institutions or media

committed to sharing their knowledge and experience and working on collaborative projects with peers from across Europe

Culture Lab Europe was a unique opportunity to

be inspired by initiatives tackling the pressures facing European societies

build connections with other cultural change-makers across Europe

develop initiatives contributing to a European space for public debate, fostering solidarity amongst people living across our continent

meet funders and be part of their initiative for European public space.

All across Europe, citizens (including those who are not formally recognised as such) are realising they are not alone and are organising their communities. They are creating new online and offline spaces where working together and generating solidarity is what matters. In these spaces culture functions as a language to describe reality, to express feelings and opinions. Culture works to strengthen social ties and helps to imagine alternative ways of living and engaging with others in understanding, trust and peace. Connecting these spaces will provide crucial infrastructure for a cultural movement that can reclaim European democracy.

Culture Lab Europe has been set up as a live platform to strengthen this movement. Cultural activists and mediators established connections with colleagues from across Europe and worked on common initiatives that can strengthen European Public Space.

Fifty cultural activists and change-makers explored ways to collaborate on initiatives to strengthen European Public Space. In the week from 22 to 28 June, several live events will take place online. Culture Lab Europe provided a safe and inspirational working environment based on principles of free and open culture.

Culture lab Europe is part of the project Culture for Solidarity, a 2.5-year artistic investigation into the root causes of fragmentation in Europe. It is co-funded by the European Commission’s Creative Europe programme. The aim is to encourage greater solidarity, by highlighting cultural practices that bring unusual groups of people together, connecting these practices and scaling them across the continent.

#spacesforsolidarity

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