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| Participants at the Radius of Art conference in Berlin |
Attended by over 250 artists, policy makers, researchers, educators and funders from around the world, the conference sought to open an international dialogue on the effects of art and culture on social transformation. Panel discussions, workshops, and artist presentations addressed four themes—Art for Social Transformation, Public Art, Art toward Cultures of Sustainability, and Cultural Policy Strategies and Funding Structures.
I was
fortunate to be able to attend with my colleagues from the German Commission
for UNESCO and to present on a panel on artists at risk with
my former colleague from freeDimensional, Todd Lester.
Several key questions emerged over the course of the two-day conference: What power relationships precondition the funding and support of socially-engaged art, particularly when dealing with North to South development and cooperation policy? How can we talk about arts in the public and political sphere in a language that is understandable by all its agents and stakeholders? In a time of urgent ecological and social problems, what role does creativity play? How can policies and funding structures be supportive without risking limiting art’s existence to a prescribed set of functions? At times, the questions in the air and the diversity of both perspectives and positions of the attendees, resulted in (for me) disorienting cacophony.
But there were also many moments of clarity, inspiration, and new ideas, particularly through the intervention of artists, curators, and cultural managers from around the world, sharing their creative practices.
I learned about projects taking place in some of the world’s most marginalized communities: From Villa El Salvador in Lima, Peru where Arena y Esteras has been using street art and performance to overcome the fear instilled by years of guerrilla and military fighting; to the Jenin Refugee Camp, where The Freedom Theatre empowers Palestinian youth and children to express themselves through theatre, and create new realities for the future. Other artists were responding to political and environmental issues through their own creative processes, like Rajkamal Kahlon, whose recent work addresses the deaths of prisoners held in U.S. custody; or Public.Art.Ecology., a series of site-specific projects that questions the development paradigm in India.
Underpinning
the conference was the UNESCO Convention on the Diversity of Cultural
Expressions (2005). As President of the Heinrich Böll Foundation Barbara
Unmüßig signalled in her opening remarks, the conference represented a “promise
for the future to work together to put the Convention into practice.” She noted
that despite culture’s recognized role as the forth dimension of development,
not enough new practices have been generated to accommodate and promote it.
The role
of the 2005 Convention was taken up again during Thursday’s plenary session titled
“Good life in times of cholera and other turbulences – what role for cultural
governance?” The panel addressed the importance of cultural policy and public
funding, particularly in developing countries. Ole Reitov, Program Manager of
Freedom of Musical Expression moderated a lively discussion between
Bangladesh’s State Secretary for Cultural Affairs Suraiya Begum, and Christine
M. Merkel, Head of the Division of Culture at the German Commission for UNESCO.
According Ms. Begum, “Government cannot make culture, but it can facilitate it.
To do this, you need infrastructure, home grown and simple solutions.” When
faced with the age-old question of whether culture should receive funding over
other pressing social needs, Ms. Begum insisted that it was not an either or
question, but a matter of finding ways to do both.
“Good life in times of cholera and other turbulences” and
other Radius of Art conference sessions are viewable here. This blog entry was excerpted from an article I wrote for the website of the German Commission for UNESCO.
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