EXPERIENCING THE ARTS
Artists' Contribution to Creative Thinking and European Innovation
ECA Annual Conference 2009, will be held Malta on the 30 October - 1 November. The event will be organised in co-operation with ECA Malta and Hotel Excelsior. Hotel Excelsior, which is in Floriana beside the gates of Valletta, Malta's capital, will accommodate the conference's international delegates and will be the location for the conference. Further information on programme, practical details etc. will be available during the summer. The Excelsior web site is www.excelsior.com
ECA's Annual General Assembly – open to member organisations – will follow the conference on November 2.
Executive Committee meeting in Bucharest
At the invitation of ANUC (the Alliance of Creators Unions of Romania), ECA's Romanian member, the Executive Committee met in Bucharest on 21 April to plan the activities for the next half year up to the annual meeting in November. The Executive Committee also had the opportunity to discuss long-term perspectives with ANUC president, Ion Caramitru.
British ECA member welcomed
The Executive Committee has accepted AIR (Artists' Information and Representation) as member of ECA. AIR, which was formed in 2006, has almost 11,000 members across the visual and applied arts in England and Wales. It provides a combination of professional benefits alongside artists’ events and campaigns including representation of artists’ views to policy-making within Government and Arts Council England.
As AIR has declared their wish to collaborate with organisations for other artists' disciplines on culture policy matters, the Executive Committee considered that AIR is a good option for ECA to be present in Britain, where no interdisciplinary umbrella exists.
You can read more about AIR at www.a-n.co.uk/AIR
The European Coalitions extremely worried
The European Coalitions for Cultural Diversity held a meeting in Paris on May 5, 2009. Reports on the activities and the status of ratification throughout the world etc were considered, but the main issue were the negotiations of a free trade agreement (FTA) between the EU and Korea, which had been planned without taking into account the concerns of the European cultural sector.
In a letter sent to Mr. José Manuel Barroso immediately after the meeting it was stated among other things that
“…these concerns have been expressed to DG Trade and DG Education and Culture on several occasions. The most important one is that both the way this protocol is negotiated and its current content bring culture and audiovisual back into trade negotiations, whereas the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, ratified by the European Community, favours autonomous discussions in these fields. The European cultural and audiovisual sectors are calling for a disconnection of the discussions on the Protocol from the general negotiations of the FTA. Indeed, it is essential to safeguard the autonomy of the cultural and audiovisual discussions so as to protect them from the pressure of other economic sectors whose interest might be to conclude an agreement rapidly, with no due account of the content of the Protocol.”
The final statement of the meeting, where ECA was an observer, has been distributed to ECA’s member organisations in order to be forwarded to the authorities of their respective countries.
The UNESCO Convention: Artists' rights as a matter of cooperation
The Intergovernmental Committee in charge of the implementation of the UNESCO Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions has answered to ECA's letter concerning the operational guidelines. In the letter of 27 February, ECA argued for an inclusion of artists' rights as a matter for capacity building cooperation with developing countries.
The Intergovernmental Committee has invited ECA to present its position at the next committee meeting in June. Due to the financial situation, ECA will ask some of the other NGOs attending to bring our arguments to the committee.
Conference on the status of the artists in Cyprus
ECA was well represented among the speakers at a conference on the status of the artists in Nicosia 14-15 March organised by the Cyprus Professional Artists Association in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. ECA president Michael Burke gave an overview of ECA's activities in the field, while Torben Heron, Kornelijus Platelis and Silvije Petranovic presented experiences from Denmark, Lithuania and Croatia. Representatives for the UNESCO status of the artist observatory and from an EU expert group on mobility were among the other international speakers.
The conference gave a good overview of experiences on providing measures to secure artists and will serve as an inspiration for the efforts to find a Cypriot solution. All contributions will be documented in a report.
The Forum for Culture and Creativity in Prague
Together with a large number of VIPs within European culture policies ECA president Michael Burke and president of the Czech umbrella RUO Simon Pellar took part in the Forum for Culture and Creativity in Prague, which was organised by the Czech EU-presidency the last days of March.
Michael Burke got the opportunity to inform commissioner Ján Figel about ECA's mobility project (4 measures aimed at limiting the consequences for artists of security restrictions due to the development after 9/11), and will now develop the issue together with Mr Figel's staff.
On the opening night Czech artists had gathered for a manifestation against the cuttings in the national culture budget – a paradox in comparison to the high expenses for the forum.
Discussion on artists' basic income as an investment in Malta
Invited by the Philosophy Society of the University of Malta and the ECA Malta chapter, Dr. Vivan Storlund of Finland gave a talk on “A Basic Income – an investment in art and culture” on April 23.
Vivan Storlund advocates a basic income because artistic work is situated in a legal grey area between an employment relationship and entrepreneurship. Although art and culture are one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy there is no direct link between the growth of this sector and the artists’ economic position. These are reasons for compensating artists and a basic income is one way of doing it.
A panel of respondents made up of a sociologist, a lawyer and an ex-minister of culture discussed these issues. In the discussions the idea of a minimum salary for artists was raised.
Vivan Storlund’s website can be accessed on: http//vivanstorlund.googlepages.com
Latvian artists initiate a discussion on Latvia's future development
In order to address the financial and political crisis, Latvian ECA member The Council of Creative Unions has called for a general public meeting on 1 June in the national theatre of Riga to discuss Latvia’s future development. Stressing ‘Values, Culture, and The Future’, meeting organizers hope to bring together Latvia’s creative leaders to assess what has happened in independent Latvia since 1991, and discuss what kind a Latvia they wish to see when Latvia’s observes the 20th anniversary of its restored independence in two years.
The meeting has a historical significance as the Council of Creative Unions was formed on 1 June 1988, at a meeting called by the Writers' Union. This gathering of Latvia’s top intellectuals was the first in Soviet-occupied Latvia to begin a public discussion of Latvia’s true history and lost sovereignty, which soon led to the movements for independence.
In their announcement to the public, the Council states,
“Promises ten years ago to live in an orderly and prosperous European country now reach a new generation, but the promises have been lost behind political excuses about what has not been done. The government makes us worry about our daily bread but the people are losing their need for culture and art. The Latvian language could be threatened by globalisation, because the number of those speaking it continues to dwindle. This may be one of the last opportunities we have get together and have our say – to say that we are not content with the way the Latvian economy is being mishandled, not content with the destruction of Latvia’s culture, not content with losing this historical opportunity to shape our own country.”
ECA Executive Committee:
Michael Burke, sculptor, Ireland, President
Narcy Calamatta, actor, Malta, Vice-President
Zuzana Brejcha, film director, Austria
Torben Heron, visual artist, Denmark
Annette Hollywood, visual artist, Germany
Irina Horea, literary translator, Romania
Harri Wessman, composer, Finland
European Council of Artists, Borgergade 111, DK-1300 Copenhagen K, Denmark
phone: +45-35384401 fax: +45-35384417 e-mail: eca@eca.dk web: www.eca.dk
Elisabet Diedrichs, Director
Pia Raug, Honorary General Secretary