ECA´s ANNUAL CONFERENCE | 2012
Art as a Bridge Builder
Cultural Diversity in European Communities
10 November | Vilnius -Lithuania
PROGRAMME
Saturday November 10th Best Western Hotel, Konstitucijos Av. 14. 9:30. Registration of participants 10:00 Morning Session: Moderator: Ms. Lolita Jablonskienė, Chief Curator, National Art Gallery in Vilnius Rūta Kačkutė, Advisor to the President of the Republic of Lithuania | Brief welcome Kornelijus Platelis, president of the LKMA – Lietuvos meno kūrėjų asociacija (Lithuanian Association of Artists) | Welcome speech Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, Stage Director, President of ECA | Opening speech Ludwig Laher, Author | Austria’s Mobility Guide for Artists. The UNESCO Convention for Cultural Diversity includes various provisions for intensified international cooperation. On the other hand it is still very hard for artists from many countries to obtain visas for the European Union. The new guide addresses foreign artists and Austrian organisers as well as Austrian embassies and consulates around the globe. It is no compensation for urgent legal measures, but a first step to fight arbitrariness and humiliation. Skaidra Trilupaityté, Art Historian & Art Critic | Émigré or Transnational Art? The post Cold War cultural activities of Central and Eastern European Diasporas in the West have often derived from the actors being emotionally and culturally attached to their homeland. Yet the formation of artistic identity today has less to do with the national “roots” and more with instantaneous contacts and open international borders. Questions of cultural belonging and new migrant flows (looked at through the phenomenon of artistic migrations) highlight problems of cultural citizenship that have become part and parcel in today’s cultural politics debates. Here, the relationship with émigré culture could be an example of possible resolution of differences through multidimensional membership possibilities. Focusing on the Lithuanian return migration and the transnational relations with artists working abroad, the presentation considers the contacts (or clashes) between symbolic homecoming and new challenges of globalization. Gottfried Wagner, Special envoy for international cultural-political projects | ‘Citizen Artist’ or ‘The Art of Difference’ Old Aporetic Arguments and the Future of Europe – From a few references to age-old disputes on art in society to the landscape of needs and expectations today. Birgitta Englin, Executive Director of Riksteatern – Swedish National Touring Theatre | Don’t Worry, Art Rules! Art will always build and break down the way people construct community and cohesion, will always create reason to take part in the process of developing individual capacities to defend, break down or construct communities and cohesion. Our search of challenges and possibilities in building bridges between past and future. 13:00 Lunch 14:00 Afternoon Session: | Discussions in groups / World Café Forum 15:45-17:00 | Final debate and last comments from our keynote speakers 17:30 | A visit to the National Art Gallery, Vilnius 19:30 | Conference Dinner at Best Western Hotel .
