ARTS FUNDING | ARTISTIC FREEDOM
ECA's annual conference 2010 will take place in Zagreb 5-7 November and is being organized in co-operation with ECA's member in Croatia HSZU (Croatian Freelance Artists Association).
Is public funding a guarantee for a free and diverse arts scene?
Is the market a possible way towards independent arts and artists?
Although the answers to these questions may vary from country to country due to the different historical and political experiences, the conference will discuss the concepts and analyse the interaction between funding bodies and artists. Is "He who pays the piper calls the tune" a valid rule, or can artists secure their artistic freedom with the help of legal measures such as the droit d'auteur and the armlength principle?
The conference will be opened by the president of Croatia, Ivo Josipovic, composer and former secretary general of the Croatian Composers' Society.
The conference is open to all who are interested parties. Further information will follow in August. To ensure you receive full information as soon as it is available, please send an e-mail to eca@eca.dk
ECA Executive Committee in Madrid
The Executive Committee met in Spain on 12 April. Madrid was the location chosen to facilitate discussions on the possibilities of relocating the ECA secretariat to Madrid. The meeting took place in the offices of AISGE, the Collecting Society of the Spanish Performers that will provide the office facilities. The Federation of Spanish Artists (ECA member in Spain) is at present trying to find the last parts of the funding for the salary of the secretary.
EXPERIENCING THE ARTS | Artists' Contribution to Creative Thinking & European Innovation
MALTA CONFERENCE REPORT OUT SOON
The report on ECA's 2009 Conference held in Malta is currently being printed and will be distributed over the coming weeks.
Bearing the same title as the conference, the 44-page report contains synopses of the presentations delivered by the high-calibre speakers who presented at the event
Edward de Bono’s enlightening expose’ on "The Creativity of Lateral Thinking", to Philippe Kern’s overview on "The Impact of Culture on Creativity", Ion Caramitru’s insightful review on the influence of Romanian Theatre on his country’s society pre and post 1989, and Pia Raug’s proposal to include Artists’ Rights in third level educational curricula. Each speaker added a different dimension to a lively and enriching debate. From the political sphere, the conference was addressed by two MEPs – Maria Badia i Cutchet from Spain and Edward Scicluna from Malta – and by Senator Cecilia Keaveney, Ireland. Each addressed issues of great relevance to the artist from economic and educational perspectives. Equally interesting were the final two presentations, that of authors Ida Marie Rendtorff and Daniel Zimakoff who spoke about the "Reader Meets Writer" experience in Danish schools, and the one by Michael Burke who spoke of the highly successful St Agnes' School violin project that brought music and self-esteem to a socially deprived community in Dublin, Ireland.
For those who were present in Malta, this report will serve as a reminder of a truly memorable event. For those who could not attend, the report will give them a taste of what many described as one of the best ECA conferences ever, in the hope that they will join us in Zagreb later this year.
Recommendations on Mobility | IGBK
German ECA member IGBK (The International Association of Arts) recently published "Challenges for Mobility", a paper with recommendations and further steps on how to deal with mobility problems at EU level and within the member states. The paper is the outcome of the European experts’ meeting on "Mobility in the visual arts sector in Europe", organised by IGBK in Linz, Austria, in December 2009.
The findings and recommendations addresses issues like customs and taxation, supporting schemes and visa regulations. Most of them are valid, not only for visual artists, but for all artistic sectors. The paper can be found at http://igbk.de/message.php?dvopgid=23&lang=de&id=14&lang=de
Platform on Multilingualism
Irina Horea, Romanian member of the Executive Committee represents ECA in the Civil Society Platform for Multilingualism. The participants have now divided in 4 subgroups that are preparing a report with proposals for action that will be presented to the EU Commission in September. The subgroups address Education, Linguistic Diversity and Social Inclusion, Translation and Terminology and Language Planning and Policy.
The translation group, which Irina Horea takes part in, concludes that translators hardly can live on their work, that there are many professional shortcomings caused by the poor payment and the lack of possibilities of life-long learning, professional exchanges, specific tools. To address these problems the strengthening of the ties between organisations, translations centres and factors/bodies that can support these desiderates will be proposed.
Irina Horea points out that the EU's competence in this respect is limited. What can be done however is to waken the interest and attention of national/international bodies to the problems and to the need to support the work of translators.
One aspect that has been intensely debated is the status of literary translators – distinguishing between translators of literature, of any text written in a foreign language, of movie and theatre sub-titling, and between ”professional” translators and those who supplement their income from other sources, and interpreters. In any of the above cases, the situations differ from country to country but similarities are more important and offer at least a theoretical support to a common effort to change the situation.
ECA Among Six Artists' Organisations Issue a Statement on the Gallo Report
ECA supported a statement issued jointly by the European Writers' Council and European Visual Artists on the proposed amendments of the “Gallo Report” on enforcement on Intellectual Property Rights that was discussed on 1 June by the Legal Committee of the European Parliament.
The draft report by Marielle Gallo MEP, recognised the added value of creativity and the need to protect the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of the creative sector and called for IPR enforcement as it stressed the negative impact of IPR infringements not only on the economy, but also on creators and consumers. Several proposal amendments however aimed to weaken the report’s clear denouncements of IPR infringements. The EWC/EVA statement, supported by ECA, recommended that the Legal Committee's members reject these amendments.
The report - adopted with some amendments in the Legal Committee, will on 5 July be subject for voting in the European Parliament plenary session and the discussion has continued with new proposals for amendments. The co-operation among artists' organisations has also continued and resulted in a statement from 6 organisations - ECA is one of them - on 1 July.
In the joint statement it is pointed out that respect for IPR is a prerequisite for authors to contribute with their work to the European culture wealth and economy, that IPR must be enforced in the digital environment also so as to secure proper remuneration for creators, that the alternative reward systems that have been put forward in the debate up to now are inadequate and that more effort must be devoted to awareness campaigns.
The statement is signed by European Writers Council, European Visual Artists, European Federation of Journalist, Society of Audiovisual Authors, Federation of European Film Directors and European Council of Artists. The statement can be found at www.eca.dk/news
Green Paper on the Cultural and Creative Industries
ECA has produced its comments for the EU-Commission's public consultation on the green paper "Unlocking the potential if cultural and creative industries".
The paper can be seen at www.eca.dk/news.
ECA Executive Committee:
Michael Burke, sculptor, Ireland, President
Torben Heron, visual artist, Denmark
Annette Hollywood, visual artist, Germany
Irina Horea, literary translator, Romania
Silvije Petranovic, film director, Croatia
Michael Piscopo, graphic/stage designer, Malta
Ugis Praulins, composer, Latvia
Elisabet Diedrichs, Executive Director
European Council of Artists, Borgergade 111, DK-1300 Copenhagen K, Denmark
phone: +45-35384401, fax: +45-35384417, email: eca@eca.dk, web: www.eca.dk