Organisers

Ukraine: Encouraging local creativity to support sustainability

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This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

A pancake fair in Donetsk, Ukraine, used the last two days of the Pancake week, an Eastern Slavic folk holiday, to encourage local creativity and teach sustainability as a way of thinking.

IZOLYATSIA_festivalphotos59The organisers of the Pancake Fair, IZOLYATSIA Platform for Cultural Initiatives, had invited about 60 local artisans and designers to communicate with each other and with the local community, to show their products, techniques and hold free workshops for citizens. It became an event which attracted the record number of guests per day — more than 1,500 visitors in three hours.

IZOLYATSIA allegedly received “an ocean of positive responses” on social media after the event, which has inspired the team of organisers to continue this way of giving arts and culture an active role in changes for sustainable societies.

IZOLYATSIA stands for “preservation, cultural replenishment and regeneration”. It is a non-governmental arts foundation located on the territory of a former insulation materials plant in Donetsk, Ukraine. ‘IZOLYATISA’ is the name inherited from the factory.

• Photos from the event

• facebook.com/IZOLYATSIA

• izolyatsia.org

Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.

The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.

Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.
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2nd African Creative Economy Conference

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This post comes to you from Cultura21

The Arterial Network is holding its second “African Creative Economy Conference” on November 14 -16 2012 in Dakar, Senegal.

According to its organisers: “The aims of the conference are to provide practical analysis and reflective overview of the current status of African creative economy. This should help consolidate emergent African expertise in this area while providing critical thought necessary in navigating the unfolding realities the sector is faced with.

The 2012 Creative Economy conference is a rare opportunity that will mark the coming together of powerful debate from across the continent, live and rich provocation from pioneering international practitioners and thinkers, and the unprecedented collaboration of arts institutions from 40 African countries to shape dialogue and a shared experience.

Its main objective is to assess and share research done to date on the African creative economy in order to inform advocacy strategies in support of the African creative sector, rigorously interrogate the available research on cultural themes, provide a platform for African professionals to share their insights on the African Creative economy aspects and to identify areas of further research, links, opportunities and potential relationships.It offers to researchers, artists, civil society, donors and cultural workers from Africa the opportunity to network, get practical analysis and reflection of the African creative economy from an African perspectives and realities.The African Creative Economy Conference 2012 offers two parallel programmes – one specifically exploring up-to-date researches, experiences and debates, the other is a series of practical know how exchange trainings and workshops. The closing gala dinner will be featuring performances from renowned African artists’ members of Arterial Network.”

Conference program and registration on this website

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

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Halesworth in Transition: Uplifting upcycling! Stopping shoppers in their tracks

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On Saturday May 22nd May Halesworth Thoroughfare saw an upcycling event, complete with hand-powered sewing machine converting cloth into shopping bags, companionable knitting of one garment by two knitters, and making logs from old newspapers.

The event stopped shoppers in their tracks. They were delighted to be given (no cost, no strings attached) a cloth bag to replace their plastic ones and many took patterns to make their own. The organisers now intend to continue their bag-making evenings at the Library, helped by the on-the-spot donation of a stunning Singer hand-powered machine by a generous passer-by. Brampton Primary School, who helped make bags for the event, will be continuing their sewing sessions.

Upcycling is a new word for taking old or unused things and making them into something better.

Organisers Halesworth in Transition (HinT) are part of a widespread and growing grassroots movement of people who are taking a positive attitude to preparing for the impacts of climate change and peak oil (when cheap and easy oil runs out).

For this event HinT had gathered material from generous Halesworth people including members of ‘Time Out’, Halesworth library’s social group for older people. HinT volunteers have been sewing up bags in evenings in the library. Brampton’s Primary School, who already have a reputation for their environmental awareness, also helped to make bags in the week before the event.

Every minute hundreds of thousands of plastic bags go into circulation globally. This wastes precious oil, creates mountains of waste and kills wildlife.

Many towns are already affiliated to the international Transition movement. Locally, this includes Bungay, Beccles, Framlingham, Woodbridge, Norwich, and Ipswich. HinT is not affiliated to any political party and is a non-profit-making organisation run entirely by volunteers.

For more information about this event and other activities phone 01986 875323 or email hint@talktalk.net

Was The Wave really the “turning point”?

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Saturday’s The Wave demo saw crowds of up to 50,000 people coming out onto the streets to demand a result from governments on climate change at Copenhagen. That’s not a shabby number, and the organisers deserve praise for getting people out onto the streets in a season which has been unbelievably filthy.

But we have to be honest: 50,000 is a decent crowd. It’s not an unstoppable mandate for action.

In the history of British demonstrations, 50,000 is a medium-sized demo. In the 1980s, at the peak of concern about Cruise missiles,  CND demonstrations attracted crowds of a quarter of a million. The Countryside Alliance’s strangely unfocussed march in 2002 attracted between 400,000 and one million people. The following year’s Iraq march brought between one and two million out onto the streets.

The Director of Stop Climate Chaos called the march “a turning point”. But really, the size of the crowds The Wave managed only underlines again how hard it is to engage the broader public with this issue.

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