Project
10 Years Gulliver Connect
Connecting Artists in Europe, Russia and beyond. May 11 & 12, 2007
Conclusions:
Gulliver Connect is an independent and international platform which supports the individual who needs to define his/her own aims and strategies Gulliver Connect is a vital instrument for the individual to promote international cultural co-operation. Culture is a key to social values in society and therefore should be supported.
Training and mobility programmes for young cultural operators are scarce, although the demand is enormous. Gulliver Connect is a rare example of a truly European mobility programme and should be a role model (or best practice) for programmes to be sponsored by the European Union.
To make the programme more visible for official institutions, a database should be set up and the network of visitors and hosts should be more official.
A work placement should be more than three weeks and it would be better (for instance in case of a festival) to be part of the preparations before the start. You need to have a well described task and not only act as an observer.
A work placement should not have a fixed time table in order to have free time to establish new contacts or do research. The strengths of Gulliver Connect is that it is an open programme, with no strict conditions and no fixed job description but offers tailor made agreements between visitor, host and GC co-ordinator.
A work placement is not festival tourism nor an in-house residency, the time is too short for that. A three month residence means that you have to leave your daily work for a long time and often an organisation is too small to allow yourself such a long absence
Gulliver Connect needs to have active ambassadors (recommendation committee)
Gulliver Connect needs to communicate more and especially to the private sector for private sponsoring. Gulliver Connect needs to be less modest.
Peering between experienced and inexperienced visitors and hosts should be encouraged. An e- newsletter and an interactive website so that former participants can add their experience will help to create a virtual network of GC believers.
Final conclusion:
The programme should continue for another 10 years as Gulliver Connect offers a great opportunity to experience other cultures and to develop personal skills on a local, regional and international level. For everybody involved there is a special task: SPREAD THE NEWS!!!
Concrete promises:
Philip Spedding will spread the news among his colleagues about Gulliver Connect being an example of a true European mobility programme. He will also write an article about the strength of Gulliver Connect and look for opportunities to attract sponsors. He sees possibilities for the British cultural industry to make use of this programme.
Annemarie Türk offers a training course for future hosts in Vienna. She will also discuss with The Board of Kulturkontakt which other possibilities there are for support.
Besides, she and Katerina Dudakova will arrange a meeting with the Central European Foundation in Bratislava, to talk about support (A meeting has been arranged at the 8th of June)
Tamara Arapova will investigate at the Ford Foundation if they are interested to sponsor a programme like Gulliver Connect.
Steve Austen will contact the Allianz Stiftung.
Further recommendations for the visitor:
•- check your own linguistic capability
•- take the initiative to share information
•- keep a pro active attitude
•- discover connections with artists
Further recommendations for the host:
•- give a clear focus on what a visitor can do in your organisation
•- share experiences
•- be ready for international activity and have a strategy about it.
The need for a more framed work placement very much depends on host organisations. Festivals who have a tight schedule need to be very clear what they want. If they want someone to work within the organisation, such a person should be there at least 3 to 6 weeks before the festival starts. But, for example, if a visitor does not speak Russian, while 80% of your colleagues speak no other language than that, you should not offer such a work placement.
If your organisation is too small, or not in the position to guide a visitor through all the possibilities to make a work placement successfully, you cannot fulfil your requirements as a good host organisation. However, some visitors have created a self appointed task, such as a daily bulletin, a diary or a blog, to make as many contacts as possible.
How can Gulliver Connect improve the programme?
Philip Spedding, Arts & Business London:
From the perspective of the UK, there should be ways to find sponsors for Gulliver Connect and he would like to help find the right organisations for it, by writing a letter what Gulliver Connect has been doing the last 10 years and how the programme could break the isolation of British creative industries and art organisations offering an internship to a person from a totally different background.
Tzvetelina Iossifova, Red House for Centre and Debate, Sofia:
It is important to be part of different partnerships and networks and to be connected with the world, especially with Europe. Gulliver Connect should not be too strict. It should remain open, flexible, even the duration should be as open as possible. "We should be better mediators and keep our channels to formal and informal relations as open as possible for others".
Levan Khetaguri, Caucasus Foundation, Tblisi:
The bi-annual Caucasus Fair (next in October 2007) tries to connect artists and cultural organisers from the Caucasus with colleagues from Europe and Central Asia and Turkey. The aim is to stimulate a network there. There is a new generation coming up in the cultural institutions, but they need to be trained and are open to new ideas. Gulliver Connect is a perfect programme to speed up this process. An example (IA): Ketevan Kordzhakia, now director of the National Gallery of Georgia, was in 2001 hosted by Laipa Art gallery in Valmiera, Latvia and hosted in 2006 two visitors from Lithuania.
Annemarie Türk, KulturKontakt Austria, Vienna:
Gulliver Connect is one of her favourite programmes because it is very free and give opportunities for participants to find their own way. Yet she would like to break a lance for a longer period than 3 to 6 weeks and a visitor should really work within an organisation.
Joanneke Lootsma & Ineke Austen
With special thanks to the presenters:
Shioban Wall who benefited of the first time that participants from a Western European country could go east, in her case Azerbaijan. She was hosted by the Open Society Institute Foundation, Arts and Culture Program in Baku. She managed to establish several interesting contacts and could work with different groups of people, artists, art students and children in a school for IDP's.
Ghenadie Sontu had the opportunity to do his work placements in two parts. His host, the Caucasus Foundation invited him to take part in the preparation of the Caucasus Fair 2005, a bi-annual international event, with debates, conferences and performances with guests mainly from the Caucasus region, but also from Western European countries. During his first visit he was involved in the preparation of the event, during his second visit he could be present at all the meetings and performances and could meet all the people in the flesh and had the time to extend his international network, very important for an isolated, political still instable country as Moldova is at the moment.
Oyku Ozsoy is a programme-coordinator of Platform Garanti in Istanbul, the only centre for Contemporary art in a city of 16.000.000 inhabitants, and actually also a portal for all those in Turkey and beyond. Platform Garanti acted for the first time as a host in the Gulliver Connect Programme.
Elke Roelant explained the challenges and problems during her work placement in an isolated region of the Caucasus mountains in Georgia, to catalogue a collection of ethnic and folklore objects d'arts. What she learned from it was to reconsider her own attitude, to learn to be a respectful observer and take your time to achieve your ambitions.
Kyrylo Bulkin confirmed that it might have been better to start his work placement in Novi Sad, earlier than three days before the festival started. But at the other hand, he took the responsibility to gather as many contacts as he could and it surely was a stimulance for his work as it is till today as a journalist at Radio Free Liberty.
Dragos Olea gave a smashing power point presentation of his work placement at Arts & Business in London. For him the period of three months was too short even if he had been doing everything he wanted as in a pressure cooker. Now after two years he realises how much he profited of this work placement in his professional career.
