Connected Action for the Commons
Under the thematic focus Connecting Culture, Communities and Democracy we worked together with Connected Action for the Commons, a network and action research programme.
Narrating Cultural Impact a Visualisation Tool
Connected Action for the Commons is an action-research programme and network with six cultural organisations from across Europe and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF) as collaborating hubs.
What started in 2013 as a small but ambitious structure of like-minded organisations working in different local European contexts (Chisinau/Moldova, Marseille/France, Botkyrka/ Sweden, Zagreb/Croatia, Warsaw/Poland and Spain), has become a growing influential network of cultural change-makers: a European-wide community that uses the power of culture and creativity to revitalise democracy.
With the hubs forming the core of the network, the community had grown thanks to the connections with and between Idea Camp participants, R&D grantees and other connected actors (individuals and organisations) with whom intense collaborations have emerged.
Our friends from InViable created an interactive visualisation tool to grasp the contents, the growth, the interconnectedness and the outreach of this European-wide community. Feel welcome to explore the tool and get inspired by the work of this growing movement of people.
Main areas of the programme
Each hub partner specialises in an area of work that is making change in their region.
- Culture 2 Commons is a partnership of three Zagreb-based civil society organisations: Clubture, Operation City and Right to the City, connecting civil society organisations dealing with cultural, youth and commons-based issues across ex-Yugoslavia.
- Krytyka Polityczna is active in three main fields: education, culture and politics, working through a national network of activists’ groups in Poland.
- Les Tetes de l’Art specialises in participatory arts projects with artists and communities, encouraging learning and exchange in southern France.
- Platoniq focuses on collaborative creation using ICT for social uses, including running their crowd-funding platform, Goteo, in Spain and abroad.
- Oberliht works to connect dispersed artistic scenes and build an artistic community and communities making use of public spaces, mainly in Moldova.
- Subtopia is a space dedicated to cultural and creative processes and production for professional creatives and start-ups in Alby, Stockholm.
Together we run the annual Idea Camp, by pooling our resources and methodologies ECF selects 50 of the most daring and innovative proposals through an open call process and invites these ‘Idea Makers’ to come and share their concepts at the Idea Camp. Each year the focus of the Idea Camp is slightly different, but always connected to our thematic focus. The location of the Idea Camp changes each year and it is hosted by a different organisation from the Connected Action for the Commons network.
We work with a small group of advisers who input into our work, specifically around the selection of the Idea Makers and the R&D grantees. For further details, visit our Idea Camp page.
Led by ECF together with six cultural organisations from across Europe: Culture 2 Commons – Alliance Operation City, Clubture Network, Right to the City – (Croatia), Les Tetes de l’Art (France), Krytyka Polityczna (Poland), Oberliht (Moldova), Platoniq – Goteo (Spain), and Subtopia (Sweden), the network works on topics such as the Commons, Public Space, Culture and Economy as a group and in their independent, diverse activities. We are co-developing and exchanging expertise and engaging local communities into the work we do. The aim of the programme is to scale up our activities, combine our influence, highlight and connect new practices with European policy makers and gain knowledge from each other.
We have created a new online space where we compile articles and many resources on the subjects of the commons and public space. We will also share news and events coming from the network.
ECF is thrilled to start a new partnership with Eurozine as part of our Connected Action for the Commons programme. Drawing on our common affinities, we launch a new focal point: Culture and the Commons, exploring the prospects for a commons where cultural and social activists meet with a broader public to create new ways of living together. See the most recent posts below:
