Cultural sector and the challenges of (post) pandemic reality - PANEL SUMMARY

Keynote speaker:
Krzysztof Czyżewski – Director of the Centre "Borderland of Arts, Cultures, Nations" (Poland)
Moderator:
Robert Piaskowski – Plenipotentiary of the Mayor of Kraków for Culture (Poland)
Panellists:
Monika Grochowska – Deputy Director Adam Mickiewicz Institute (Poland)
Marharyta Zhenchuk – International Partners Manager "Teple Misto Platform" (Ukraine)
Maciej Hofman – Policy Officer at the European Commission's Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (Poland)
Krzysztof Czyżewski – Director of the Centre "Borderland of Arts, Cultures and Nations" (Poland)
Justyna Jochym – CEO of Festivals Adelaide (Australia)

Robert Piaskowski

A talk with the international level institutions’ representatives such as the European Commission or the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (IAM); juxtaposed with ‘small centres of the world’ — the Borderland Centre and ‘Teple Miasto’ platform — future of festivals from ‘Adelaide Festivals’ CEO and experiences of Krakow city.
The starting point for this discussion is a tough one. Why? We stand indeed at the borderline of such often inseparable paradigms in culture as: cosmopolitanism, mobility, international cooperation, the European Commission’s political priorities, culture as a soft power for State and EU policies; or finally the cosmopolitan perception on festivals as social factories and tools for urban policies. All these themes have been present in a discussion with experienced practitioners, so that we could find a common denominator for the discussion on the time of the pandemic, and post-pandemic world design.

We started with Make eARTh Great Again — a film that portrays a street art project by Cezary Hunkiewicz and Anna Bakiera. The film was, on the one hand, a reporter's account from the pandemic-struck Lublin and, at the same time, an important piece, documenting artists’ efforts to revive the city. We owe partners at ‘CreArt. Network of Cities for Artistic Creation’ — a project implemented in the Culture Department of the City of Lublin within EU ‘Creative Europe’ programme — that this work, exposing a link between art and ecological sensitivity, was put together. The play on words in eARTh with capitalised middle ART was introductory to Krzysztof Czyżewski's speech — a practitioner of ideas, an essayist, a translator, an editor and a director. Co-founder of the Borderland Foundation and the ‘Borderland of Arts, Cultures and Nations’ Centre in Sejny. He and the Borderland team opened ‘International Centre for Dialogue’ in Krasnogruda. Such impactful publications as The Path of the Borderland (2001), Miłosz. Connective Tissue (2014), A small centre of the world. Notes of the Practitioner of Ideas (2017), Towards Xenopolis (2019), echoed in Czyżewski’s speech.

At the start, Krzysztof Czyżewski put a thesis forward that culture is at the forefront of civilisation paradigm shift. The pandemic only reinforced all this, that had been marginalised so far by 'market must-haves’ and 'political priorities’ — artists’ counter culture intuitions who work with art, for: social change; sustainable development; interdisciplinarity; and communal integration. ‘The dominance of nationalism and cosmopolitanism has past, now we are facing building a third way — solidarity’. Czyżewski said pointing out to burning problems and challenges singled out by activists, urban movements, circles cultivating the identity of small homelands, and equally important initiatives referring to the identity of deeply rooted communities. He then remarked on his own experiences when working on the European Capital of Culture bid, the Eastern Partnership Culture Congress, Culture Lab Europe and others. Krzysztof Czyżewski stressed that the pandemic fostered atomisation and disintegration, both of life and culture; ‘that culture became a space to express one’s individual freedom, and that individualisation — became a supreme value’. All of this has led to the neglect of a community’s 'connective tissue', that is such form of culture, that nurtures practices and content that significantly contributes to 'gluing' community together.

Czyżewski criticised many forms that culture adopts today. Culture that is superfluous, short-lived, one-off, the 'enslaving quality by quantity', lack of spirituality, the festivalisation of culture, and events far and wide. This is further served by a system of financing projects, grant competitions, as well as a marketing-centred approach to cultural content. In his speech, Czyżewski raised the EC and the EP Cultural Policy — that Europe itself is a project that favours federation of national cultures, rather than culture itself. This was subsequently elaborated in a discussion with Maciej Hofman — Policy Officer at European Commission Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport, and Culture.

Czyżewski named postulates like treating culture as a ‘connective tissue’ or as an art of building ‘invisible bridges’ as remedies for the current urgent challenges. Rather than project-and-grant-thinking approach to culture, he appealed for recovery of slow culture, cultivare and longue durée. For this to be possible, a new quality and dimension of fresh, mobile and sensitive to paradigm change institutions, are needed. Such institutions that will relate their agendas, to a large extent, to sustainable development, nurturing rootedness and community. New culture creators, animators, translators and educators are also crucial, jus as 'artists of the city and of the small homeland'. Culture must turn towards greater solidarity with issues that are instrumental to one’s immediate surroundings but, at the same time, to international perspective. Czyżewski also referred to the important thread of this year's Congress (crisis in tourism). He asked whether long-lasting, meaningful and solidarity-based tourism is possible?

A discussion followed his speech, about culture’s role and function, not only now, but in general, what is there for culture in building resilient societies or cities? A culture that heals and is itself immune to crises? Though fragile, like porcelain, culture gives meaning to individuals’ and groups’ environment, to this multidimensional living and breathing world, without which human existence turns purely biological or purely materialistic.

Following an imposed lockdown and, as it turns out, its severe aftermath, voices were raised in Poland, first and foremost, to unfreeze the economy. Culture has been pushed to the margins, although its share in Poland's GDP is almost 3.5%. It is more than mining and agriculture combined together (sic!). Hair salons and fitness centres were opened quicker than theatres and cinemas. And yet culture is part of the economy. The money it brings is significant.

We asked a question in the discussion: why do we not treat culture as a key space in the discussion about the crisis? What is it really that pushes culture to the margins of economic and political choices. Why is it treated as something extra in life? In recent statements made by politicians, we hear disturbing tones. People of culture are called the 'leisure class', their demands are akin to the 'mentality of a Soviet activist', culture is commonly understood as a kind of entertainment, an addition to life.

Meanwhile, culture is undoubtedly of paramount importance to building the resilience of societies and giving meaning to all other processes that strengthen social immunology. It is prerequisite for building a group understanding of reality, for triggering solidarity, for restoring trust, for arousing optimism, for leading society out of stagnation, out of the sense of threat, hopelessness, and the sense of hitting a dead end. That is why the concept of immunity may successfully be applied to the world of culture. It can be a reference point for many practices, including social communication practices, interpreting the world, making a sense of it, but also for urban planning, architecture, education of the open society, cohesion policy or nurturing diversity of cultural expression.

Marharyta Zhenchuk, outlined a post-industrial spaces regeneration project in Ivano-Frankivsk, (western Ukraine), where she engages in local development projects that facilitate operation of a centre for innovation, reflection on urban planning, art, a place of social education and personal development. All this is happening on premises of an old plant — Promprylad. Next to day-to-day work in the locality, struggling with financial shortages, Zhenchuk uses a specific language exposing 'warmth' as a starting point to describe a 'warm city', warm people, warm relations, local ethics, the language of neighbourly relations — that is natural and devoid of artificiality. ‘Warm’ means that something has an individual character, indicated Zhenchuk. ‘It is by no means an attempt to catch up with contemporary trends, it is about a search for one's own identity and about showing its most positive aspects. If it happens to be a competition matter, then people and businesses only compete against one another to generate more warmth’. This small city, comparable to Lublin, has an incredible energy. ‘Teple Misto’ is a living proof that even in a city without infrastructure, on a small budget, it is possible to create an environment conducive to creativity. This place is narrated by emotions, optimism, a ‘happy place’, and its managers are there to nurture ‘well-being’.

Working in the local area may also run the risk of being locked into provincialism. Loss of ties with the wider context. We asked all the participants of the debate about this.

Justyna Jochym works with a cluster of festivals that have, so far, been jointly branded as ‘The best festival experience in the world’, thus naming the Adelaide Festival in terms of an event-based tourist attraction. Adelaide, contrary to Melbourne, does not have that many stringent pandemic-related restrictions, and has not been so badly affected by Covid. The upcoming festival season will primarily focus on the local audience. The city runs open call for competitions to revive public spaces, parks and gardens, or for projects to decorate window displays for Christmas in local shops. The festivals are becoming a transforming and integrating force in the city to the social dimension, to the identity of southern Australians and to the traditional local businesses, as well as to creative businesses. Justyna Jochym highlighted the work of the festivals around city volunteers, around the responsibility of the festivals for the environment, and around maintaining contact with the world via new technologies.

Maciej Hofman emphasised the new face of European solidarity, communities’ cooperation, and of setting up the so-called shared places — places that are there for everybody to use in the local communities. He referred to the concept of resilience — that is learning your lessons from all the difficult situations in the past. In the face of a global pandemic, many of us feel that we are facing a new paradigm that has not yet been recognised. Although we try to apply proven methods and, after temporarily defrosting economy and culture, act as if it is business as usual. The world however, in the face of a second global wave, is slipping away, stays out of control. COVID-19  is nothing short of challenges like natural hazards, climatic disasters, wars, but also such challenges as the accumulation of social problems, like the refugee crisis, poverty, exclusion, starvation, unemployment, water shortages, high levels of violence in cities, and so forth. Faced with such challenges, cities and regions try to plan urban development in the spirit of resilient cities concept. And cities will also have to get a grip on this process, because the world is still urbanising at an incredible rate — 70% of the globe’s population will live in cities by 2050. Secondly, climate disaster related threats, and associated with them conflicts over resources, are serious, widespread and growing.

Monika Grochowska from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, when asked how this important agenda for the promotion of Polish culture in the world, functions at the moment, stressed that at a time of mobility restrictions, cancelled festivals and premieres, it is key to manage the network of contacts, arrived at in the past, as the institution’s most important resource.

All panellists recognised that culture is fundamental to renewal, but also that the cultural sector is particularly fragile and full of inequalities. Therefore, so much attention must be paid to it. Even more so, because a pandemic, just as natural disasters, can, in extreme cases, also irretrievably destroy cultural ecosystems. Maintaining their current diversity is so essential. It has been pointed out that 'people employed in cultural sector do not enjoy, even in normal circumstances, the same level of social protection, and the same rights, as many workers in other sectors. Today, we are even more vulnerable because our professions are not seen as necessary'. Experts of the Cultural Alerts, written under the guidance of Professor Hausner, spoke in the same spirit. They have been quoted by Krzysztof Czyżewski. The issue of regulating the status of an artist is not only a challenge that the Polish society is faced with. Indeed, this unregulated status of artists (men and women) is one of the most difficult challenges that the culture sector needs to confront. The current crisis shows how non-resistant the whole creative community has been to a situation in which they cannot create, present, disseminate, and make a living out of their work — mostly in performing arts.

When asked how this crisis can be used in a positive way, all the panellists pointed out, inspired by the opening speech, that through creating common spaces, breaking up the culture of bubbles, through seeking common ground. That would be an answer. Social and ecological regeneration, as well as designing the city together,  were indicated as a positive example. Just like in the case of Promprylad in Ivano-Frankivsk. ‘It is a place where we should build, in a very responsible and loyal manner, common spaces, invented and interpreted through culture, through micro-activities, through continuous linking and merging. Similarly, creativity and regeneration of abandoned places are defined by Charles Landry — the theoretician of creative cities, who had been recalled in the debate. Artistry and imagination — a resource for the cities.

‘The metaphor of warmth — in language and in doing — is very important today, at a time when we have to show at all costs the regenerating role of culture, its important community-and-connective-tissue-building function — but also optimism, so crucial in overcoming recession.’, stressed Czyżewski.

Referring to Czyżewski's speech, Hofman commented on the key European Commission's priorities, at a time when access to culture is restricted, outlining the EU Solidarity Fund, the principles of the European Green Deal, whereby Europe aims to become the first climate-neutral continent, and to become a modern, resource-efficient economy. He mentioned measures to adapt to the EU's digital strategy to strengthen Europe’s position thanks to next generation technologies. He pointed out that an economy that works for people must create a more attractive investment environment and economic growth that will foster creation of high-quality jobs, especially for the young and small businesses. He stressed the importance of social solidarity and the promotion of the European lifestyle. Among the proposals, there was an argument to 'give Europeans a greater voice and protect our democracy from external interference, such as disinformation and hate speech on the Internet'.

The discussion also touched on the issue of global communications. How, in a world with no mobility, can we maintain contacts, exchange knowledge, cultivate contacts with audiences? I asked Monika Grochowska, ‘Does this mean that we will travel less, share less, co-produce less, make more careful choices about the FB check-ins — here today, there tomorrow?’ While describing the most important IAM's projects in the world, she mentioned that the Polish voice is audible in many international Think Tanks, congresses and internationally-recognised reports.

Among the conclusions to focus on the locality, on the immediate surroundings, lurks the danger of praise for provincialism, a kind of closure in one's own bubble, 'it seems to me that in many situations we are still not sufficiently connected with the world idea circulation, with cooperation, understood as the transfer of ideas, as a policy of knowledge-sharing and learning. There is still a lot of marketing language in cultural communication strategies, more than deep reflection on reality.’, Jochym said.

Krzysztof Czyżewski pointed out that Europe is still an unfinished quest. We follow a little bit in the footsteps of Vincenz, Roth, Stempowski, Giedroyc, Venclova, and Miłosz, above all. Europe of national cultures, not the culture, a project still not finished.

Tourism was last to talk about in our debate. The pandemic has stopped tourism in its most dangerous, unbridled, quantitative dimension, i.e. billions of travelling people. Many people lost their jobs, hotels are empty, historic cities that relied on tourism for income, have become ghost cities before our eyes. How should tourism be reborn, and how should we use culture to create policies that are more balance oriented? Krzysztof calls this a long-lasting, profound, solidarity-based tourism. The interviewees stressed that in a modern and sustainable tourism strategy, customer relations and conflict management, will be an integral part of tourism policies. Residents themselves will turn out to be the most crucial resource in tourism.

In this part of the conversation, I presented Kate Raworth's ideas for Amsterdam, where she proposes doughnut economics — quality based tourism, tourism that feeds on frequent re-visits, on locality as a measure to develop, on meaningful resident – tourist relations, on the balance of all the elements, on ecology and global responsibility. But tourism is also about responsibility for local economy and about the value we attach to a sector that generates so much financial, promotional or employment assets, After all, so many people in our city, depend on tourism for livelihood, including culture.

Amsterdam has announced a doughnut model, i.e. to build a city that is immune to all shocks and crises the future might hold. 'We are on the eve of building important tools for relaunching our cities so that it is not this impossible gallop any more. The answer is our revival of the locality, a turn towards the natural cultural landscape of the city, reconstruction of ties, local patriotism, support for local businesses and book stores. Restaurants are good for tourists if they are also good for the residents’.

Justyna Jochym stressed the need to implement the UN Agenda 2030 and warned against the temptation of many institutions to return to bad habits. ‘A lot is being said that it is impossible to return to the pre-pandemic world, but when I watched, few days ago, a report from Wuhan by one the most popular vloggers, the world returned to its pre-pandemic rhythm there. China quickly recovered from the pandemic, closed itself off even further from the surroundings and, at the same time, made radical adjustments, including in its own policy on the use of renewable energy sources. ‘What do you think should be a lasting change in our approach to culture and how should the activities of our institutions and cultural leaders be redesigned?’ — this question was answered by the majority of panellists by referring to the organic work, work on micro-communities, they also evoked innovations in culture, in management, in financing methods, going beyond the horizon of ad hoc projects.

‘You never want a serious crisis to go to waste’ said Rahm Emanuel when referring to the 2008 Recession, and citing Sir Winston Churchill, who said ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’. Churchill uttered this in the mid-1940s, when World War II was raging at its best. Finally, lets ask what should not be wasted in this crisis? Most people answered — this calm reflection on the world, the ability to work together in the slow mode, with no growth, quantity, mass, and scale imperatives. It is important to calm down on a personal level and on the level of restructuring institutions so that they are more networked and environment friendly.

CONCLUSIONS:

Among the questions being asked today, it is particularly important not only how to survive the current crisis, but also how to define ourselves in the aftermath of the crisis, how to maintain the level of the successes achieved in the past, the level of funding to date, how to put the pandemic experience to good use. The questions are all the more important because culture in the coming months will, to a large extent, be a space of great experimentation, not only at the level of content, but also as far as management models are concerned. Many institutions had to switch to remote management, project-based management, managing change or processes redesign overnight. Endorsing this course of action is extremely important.

The virtual world and hybrid forms of doing things are increasingly gaining value. We are becoming aware how non crisis-resistant are those institutions that have not yet invested in their on-line presence content-wise. This is a huge opportunity: new competences, digital repositories, digitisation of collections, in-house teams for audiovisual production, experiments with formats. The Internet up to day treated mainly as a space for marketing and information dissemination, can be an important source of innovation and can bring additional income for culture. And it needs to be given more credit. In Krakow, we are investing in our own PLAY Krakow platform for aggregating cultural content produced in the city. The platform is to be complemented by an audiovisual fund allowing institutions to plan the registration of worthwhile projects. It will be increasingly important to use the space creatively and to build a more resilient, hybrid infrastructure in the future. We can see on the example of almost every utility building how, in a situation of limitations, some buildings — built on a grand scale, but non-resistant to climate and pandemic crises — become useless. Spaces built with future crises in mind, which can be multifunctional and shared at the same time, will become increasingly important. A growing role of common spaces, neighbourhoods, parks and squares is a real eye-opener of this time. Paradoxically, the crisis is helping the deglomeration of culture and boosts culture's role at the micro-community level.

Since the structure of our world is so networked, the condition of the cultural sector may also depend on networked cooperation mainly. We need to be responsible for one another. This aspect has its international dimension, because it is good to share knowledge and to be in contact with the cities facing similar challenges. It also has a local dimension. In recent months, we have seen extraordinary things in Krakow: large institutions and small foundations giving up part of their resources to support smaller players. This is an important trend, when previously competitive circles, organise something together, postulate, act, and build platforms for joint selling their produce.

With the inefficiencies and limitations in current systems of culture financing (limitations in the acts of law), specialised agencies that work within a given area of culture, plus such informal cooperatives as mentioned above, will play an increasingly important role. The creation of networks, associations, consortia will be crucial to maintaining the connective tissue of the cultural sector. Innovation in this area should certainly be encouraged.

People of the culture sector have a huge role to play. We need their involvement in redesigning the world, in discussing how to overcome dependence from geopolitical and climate changes, how to deal with a world that has suddenly become less secure but perhaps more open than ever. It is easier for us to connect with an expert from Brussels and Adelaide festival CEO — thanks to the internet tools. More and more questions become significant: how to be locally responsible, yet globally connected. How to inscribe the potential that the technology can offer into the operation of institutions of culture, with the need to build live contact, at the same time; how to function in a competitive world, with the constant risk of future pandemics. How can we build the resilience of our cities and the openness of our societies through culture or finally, how can we preserve the diversity of culture forms in cities and, at the same time, use its enormous power in reconstruction processes? These are some of the challenges facing the cultural world and cities in the coming years.

Culture provides society with an operating system shaped by collective memory — the memory of all adopted strategies, and created on the basis of these strategies principles, including moral principles. Everything that we will work out now, will determine whether our city will be immune to all current, and all future crises. Healthy, resilient cities, have strong city authorities, who are able to respond to changes, as well as, culture, where people feel responsible for the common good, and for one another.

Therefore, culture is essential for resilience.

Robert Piaskowski
Lublin, October 2020

Krzysztof Czyżewski

Culture spearheads civilisation paradigm shift. Covid-19 only reinforced all what had been marginalised so far by ‘market must-haves’ and ‘political priorities’ — artists’ counter culture intuitions, artists who create art for social change, sustainable development, interdisciplinarity and for consolidation of communities. The dominance of nationalism and cosmopolitanism has past. Now we are about to build a third way — solidarity.

Culture's problems and challenges (as identified by city activists, local homelands movements, ECOC, Eastern Partnership Culture Congress, Culture Lab Europe, etc.):

• atomisation and disintegration of both life and culture;
• individualisation — individual freedom as a supreme value;
• ‘connective tissue’ disease;
• casual culture: superfluous, short-lived, one-off, with quantity over quality servitude, culture with no spiritual dimension;
• ever dominating projects and grants;
• festival and event-like nature of culture;
• high number of events — multitude of events and their mass character prevail over cultural substance;
• culture closed within the boundaries set by narrow identities, and appropriated by ‘my-ness’ with related to it, cultural exclusion of ‘non my-ness’;
• Europe of national cultures, not of the culture.

Answers to problems, challenges:

• culture as ‘connective tissue’ — the art of building ‘invisible bridges’;
• slow culture — cultivare and long durée;
• new, agile and sensitive to paradigm shift culture institutions;
• interdisciplinarity — towards a holistic approach;
• cultural ecology;
• deep culture — open rootedness and community of sustainability;
• artists of the city and of the small homeland — new way of culture’s animation;
• small centre of the world — soft power;
• Europe as a cultural project;
• culture of solidarity.

Culture versus Tourism:

• Is long-duration, deep and solidarity-based tourism possible?

Krzysztof Czyżewski
Lublin, October 2020

Marharyta Zhenchuk

Background of Teple Misto platform

The "Teple Misto" platform was founded in Ivano-Frankivsk in 2014 as a citizen-led initiative to develop the city and sustain social transformations. Since than we have two ongoing local grant programs. Overall, the platform has implemented over 400 initiatives of various formats and scale in different sectors.

What makes our efforts bold and ambitious is the fact that Ivano-Frankivsk is one of the smallest oblast center in the country (equivalent to stolica województwa) that according to Ukraine’s development trends shouldn’t have much promise to its residents. But by pulling together efforts of residents who care, take responsibility, we are proving the opposite that there are resources to implement projects that are acknowledged in the country and beyond.

One of the most famous projects is the Urban Space 100 public restaurant in Ivano-Frankivsk. It was funded through 100 donations of 1000 USD each.
80% of its profit is channeled into local development through grant program. We’ll celebrate its sixth anniversary in coming December.

More than a year ago Urban Space 500 had opened in Kyiv. Inspired by our experience, a group of activists in Minsk launched similar project called ДБАЮ.

Urban Space was selected, and its stand is presented at the Living the City Exhibition in the former Berlin-Tempelhof airport. The only project from Ukraine among other 20 countries.

And the very challenging task that Teple Misto has taken along with other non-governmental partners with zero state support is Promprylad.Renovation project.
In 2017 Charles Landry – a key-note speaker of another Congress’ panel discussion - visited the Promprylad site and made his comments that turning the remnants of big manufacturing facility in the city center into creative innovation center would boost local development and set an example for others. In 2018 we rented and renovated one floor, in 2019 bought out the controlling share of the facility by raising 5 mln USD from 400 social impact investors.

In a nutshell we anticipate to raise 30 mln USD to turn 38 000 m² into the innovation center that would set 30% of its premises for public functions focusing on art, urbanism, informal education and new economy, as well as channel 30% of its profit – forecasted 1 mln USD -  back into community, which includes sustaining operations of public functions where culture-related activities have the crucial share and value.

Consequences of the lockdown

From the perspective of the work done by Teple Misto civic platform, lockdown definitely put on hold the majority of the activities maintained by the organization. Witnessing the ambiguity of the situation and reluctant to stay aside of the events (or rather the absence of them), the team launched community support initiative – Anti-crisis Fund to combat COVID-19 consequences that entailed partnering with other groups and Ivano-Frankivsk City Council to raise funds and in-kind support to provide vulnerable (low-income) groups (families and elderlies) with first needed products, supplies for hospitals: protective wear, sanitizers, equipment; restaurant food to ambulance workers during their shifts, as well as educational online events. During the first few months of the lockdown it turned to be an inspiring venture that with time as the logistics of the lockdown settled and the lockdown restrictions got looser, the need for it faded away, though it was a best practice example of collaboration efforts that gave people hope and news project ideas.

Overall new circumstances caused by the restrictions forced to rethink the needs of the environment and consequently to assess the value of the activities of the organization for the urban community and set a ground to experiment with the formats of these activities. The horizon is both provoking and scary as there are no ready-to-go solutions. The new formats are being tested and the intrinsic human desire of unity, collaboration, solidarity have been brought into the spotlight of the discussion and may provide a genuine vector for our further development. And thus, caused by COVID-19 pandemic, new circumstances may be not that much intimidating. Time will show.

Marharyta Zhenchuk
Lublin, October 2020