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Studyvisit HKU Masters ’12-‘13 31 January-01 February

Belgium-Brussels

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION  3 

MEETING ENCATC WITH GIANNALIA COGLIANDRO BEYENS  4 

MEETING EACEA WITH DOROTA NIGGE  6 

MEETING DEBUREN WITH DORIAN VAN DER BREMPT  7 

PHOTO ESSAY  8 

 

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Introduction Even though this study visit to Brussels of the HKU Masters 2012-2013 ended somewhat stressful, the program did not have to give way for that at all. The busy and tight schedule suited our intentions to make this trip meaningful and fun, for all of us future Art Managers . In this report we will summarize and briefly reflect on every element of our visit to Brussels. These elements contain the visits on Thursday starting with knowledge-sharing institution ‘ENCATC’, where we had a very personal and intimate meeting. Followed by a visit to the European focused organization ‘EACEA’, which aims for managing funding with a focus on citizenship and youth. We ended this day with a nice dinner and an intensive show at the ‘Kaaitheater’. On Friday we started the day with a rainy morning walk to ‘De Buren’, where we talked about the origin of this platform for debate about culture, science, politics and society in Flanders, The Netherlands and Europe. The second and last visit of our trip ended by having an interesting discussion with artist ‘Frederik de Wilde’, who has a revolutionary approach to his profession and makes bold predictions on how artists can only survive in the future – changing – work field. In addition to these summaries, we try to carry out the atmosphere by showing some pictures in form of a photo diary. This atmosphere was in our eyes very relaxed, interesting and despite the bad weather we had our laughs and inspirations! We would like to give special thanks to Vera de Jong, for her map reading, guiding, and organizing the entire trip. The HKU for this opportunity as a whole, and Rene Kooyman for his brief attend and participation in Brussels itself. Enjoy reading!

HKU Masters ’12 -’13

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Meeting ENCATC with Giannalia Cogliandro Beyens Introduction ENCATC is the only European network organization, which gathers higher educational institutions and training organizations together dealing with cultural management education and training. The network counts over 100 members (HKU is one of them) in 39 countries across Europe and beyond. The mission of ENCATC is to stimulate the development of cultural management and cultural policy in Europe and beyond, engaging and responding to new developments in politics, economics, societies and technology. ENCATC believes that highest standards in education and training of cultural operators are essential to generate knowledge, and to develop new approaches to the transformation of today’s society. Their activities are organised along six complementary core believes to live up to: developing policy, building capacity, sharing knowledge, stimulating research, promoting mobility and communicating

Meeting at ENCATC On Thursday 31st of January we had the first meeting at ENCATC in Brussels with the research and communication officer: Elisabeth Darley. The meeting started with a short introduction about the space we were in and the surrounding area. The office of ENCATC is at the fifth floor of a building, which consists offices from different creative and cultural organisations. In fact, the whole area has been renovated and changed completely over the last 15 years and it has become a meeting place for the cultural sector. ENCATC has got a difficult policy through the differences between the Flemish, French and Foreign ministries in Brussels. ENCATC is a network organisation and state that their core business is to exchange and collect ideas and information. ENCATC exists for many years, but their mission and objectives have never changed. ENCATC is asked by UNESCO and European Council to work together on a program and they are partners for several years. This has given ENCATC some status and results in an advantage when they apply for grants. However, next year a new policy will be presented and ENCATC can only apply for practice based funding. This means they have to change their strategy and their focus will have to be more project based. Fortunately, Elisabeth does not think that they have to change a lot. They can move easily to project based methods and it could be a good transition period to reflect on their current working methods. In this way, it can create new possibilities as well. For example, they are going to look for new partnerships and engage private investors. The member of ENCATC consists of 70% universities and 30% cultural organisations, local authorities or organisations that are interested in cultural management or policy. Their aim is to combine and implement experiences from the practice work field within universities. ENCATC organises conferences on regular basis with about 200 participating members. These conferences are again a method to connect knowledge in a way that people can learn from each other. Additionally, ENCATC works with young students. For example, they hire interns and they organise traineeships (abroad). ENCATC also stimulates young researchers through a contest. All students can apply for the contest with a research about the cultural sector and ENCATC selects one as the prizewinner. ENCATC publishes all gathered information in a book on yearly basis and spreads information with newsletters and social media continuously. Another important task of ENCATC is to reflect on their way of working. They ask for input about and from the working field (their members) continually. They ask to their members what they prefer through surveys, conversations at the conferences and by thesis’s of students. An ambition of ENCATC is to influence the European policy. They would like to influence the developing process and they are therefore lobbying with the policy makers about the cultural program.

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When we asked Elisabeth about the current discussion about the cultural and creative industries, she had a clear answer: “I do not see any distinguish between cultural and creative.” Elisabeth does not call herself a cultural manager. She thinks as a cultural manager you can work everywhere, but you should know your specific field. According to Elisabeth, you may have a personal network, expertise, relations, knowledge and preference to one special field, but a manager is a manager. This means that a manager in any field should recognize the duty of a manager as a role in any team or community. Mission and objectives After our visit as HKU master students at ENCATC, we received an email if we could describe our visit in a couple of sentences for their upcoming newsletter. We received the newsletter with information about our visit within a week. The visit has been described positively and again, their members and interested could read about it and see other members in the work field. This shows their transparency as an organization and compliance to their mission and objectives.

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Meeting EACEA with Dorota Nigge The EACEA is the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency of the European Union. It is responsible for the management of certain parts of the EU’s programmes in the field of education, culture and audiovisual, and operates under the Directorates-General of serveral European Commissions.

In our meeting with Dorota Nigge, who works as a policy maker for the EACEA, she explained that the EACEA is currently working on a new program. This program will replace all the current ‘loose’ programs, by developing one general program that will function as an umbrella. This program is, for now, known as the program of Creative Europe, and focus on the economic potential of creativity and culture. The starting point of developing this program is the current treaty. In this treaty is stated that the role of the commissions is to help implement rules for every member state, hence their focus on a more overarching program; Creative Europe. All the other side-activities and focus points will be re-assigned to other programs. An example of this can be found in the current focus on citizenship (cultural diversity, expression, ect), that used to belong to the EACEA but now will be transferred to the new program; Europe for citizenship. This deviation of focus points and tasks is initiated to bring the work of the EU institutions and commissions back to the essentials, and prevent them from overlapping.

Creative Europe is under some discussion, although nobody is questioning the value of it. Especially the idea of a bank guarantee for artists by the EU, raises questions of budgetary kind. Other challenges of the program are indicated in the field of: market segmentation, digital shift, access to finances and the lack of data. The current discussion focuses mostly on defining creativity in order to be able to measure it, as well as not to look at creativity itself, but also take its links and overflows into account.

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Meeting deBuren with Dorian van der Brempt

• A platform for debate and reflection o Dutch cultural house o 1 July 2004- Dutch president of EU, cultural antena for a house

• Dorian van der Brempt (director) was a real opportunist • 150 activities, 13 employees, €1.6 million, 99% subsidised – sharing skills, budget and spaces

o cultural diplomoacy – sharing the WWF space • West pretending they are the creative (better then the east) • In Belgium everyone is a minority – there is a protection reflex from the inside

o Federated country – responsible for culture, healthcare etc • Culture treated gently in NL –

o 1980’s there were two problems: garbage and art • Access to the arts – USA=success vs. Regulation of the arts (Nazi) • Living in a time where everything has to be measured – but why?

o Make wind o Doesn’t have to be big or revolutionary o “pour the wine yourself”

• Marketing – look in the past to see how the future should be! • Professionalization – the thought of high efficiency for low cost

What does the overall organisation want to achieve?

• Culture is best common base for understanding • “healthy curiosity” • don’t just talk, LISTEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

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Photo Essay

 

   

ENCATC‐Giannalia Cogliandro Beyens  

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on our way to the next mee>ng....... 

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a quick cuddle ;‐) 

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EACEA/DG EAC Dorota Nigge  

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and on our way again....... 

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Dinner at the Kaaicafe 

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ANer a long day the evening falls. At "Hostel Jacques Brel" the party is geVng started.... But not before the guys are freed from their cage, thank you Channa. 

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Next morning, back to work. ANer our mee>ng at De Buren with Dorian van der Brempt, we 

had a nice lunch at the Flamingo Bar. 

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ANer lunch ... Mee>ng Frederik de 

Wilde (New Media Ar>st) 

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Time to go home... THE END