Place of Culture - Culture of Place

The congress will take place in Zagreb, Croatia. 15th until 17th November 2012.

The congress will take place in Zagreb, Croatia.
15th until 17th November 2012.

VENUE OF THE CONCRESS:

Public Open University Zagreb
(Pučko Otvoreno Učilište)
Ulica grada Vukovara 68
1000 Zagreb

The Shortcut Zagreb venue is a perfect location. It is one of Zagreb's most beautiful buildings of modern architecture.

Official programme of the Shortcut 2012 congress

ABOUT SHORTCUT EUROPE:

Since 1996, the European Network of Cultural Centres has organised a series of congresses called "Shortcut Europe". These congresses are platforms where experts who work in culture, artists, amateurs and professionals from all over Europe meet in order to exchange their experiences and enhance culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development (by implementing the EU Agenda for Culture that advocates and enhances culture in local community).

Development of new technologies and increase in mobility has made Europe a space with lesser boundaries and with greater mutual connection and cooperation. Since Croatia is about to become a member of that great community, it is necessary that all similar institutions in culture connect and network in order to be able to exchange experiences and strengthen their roles in the local communities in which they act.

GOALS OF SHORTCUT EUROPE:

Implementation of service network for cultural centres, at the European level;
Promotion of intercultural dialogue and partnership;
Acceleration of experiential exchange among the professional culture workers;
Articulation of interest and strengthening of the role of cultural centres at the European level;
Discovering possibilities for financing of cultural centres and their networks.

LONG TERM GOALS
Strengthening cultural centres as the local focal points of culture;
Founding of the Croatian national network of Cultural Centres;
Connecting with other networks in Croatia and with the European cultural and education networks;
Stimulating development of new cultural institutions in the regions where such institutions do not exist.

REGISTRATION

IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN SHORTCUT ZAGREB 2012 
PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO


Ivan Hromatko (Coordinator)

SHORTCUT 2012 Zagreb official website www.shortcuteurope.net (Die Webseite ist leider nicht mehr abrufbar)

PARTICIPATION FEE (25 EUR)
The participation fee is 25 EUR which includes excursions, coffee and refreshments and conference buffet dinner on Friday evening (16th November 2012).

Participants will be able to pay the fee online to a bank account. Also, you can pay it in cash at the registration table.

BANK DETAILS:
Zagrebačka banka d.d.
Paromlinska 2
10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Bank Number: 3234495
VBDI: 2360000
Bank code: 2360000-1000000013
BIC (SWIFT address) ZABAHR2X
IBAN: HR8023600001101429565

HOTELS in Zagreb: 
http://hotel-laguna.hr/en
http://www.zagreb-touristinfo.hr/?l=e&id=49
http://www.hostelsclub.com/cheap-hotels-en-809-Zagreb.html

ORGANISERS:
ENCC in cooperation with
Trešnjevka Cultural Centre Zagreb - Department for sociocultural projects

Park Stara Trešnjevka 1
Tel.: +385 1 3027 411 / +385 1 3024 247,
e-mail: @email
www.cekate.hr
Director: Ljiljana Perišić

PROGRAMME COMMISSION:
dr.sc. Saša Božić
dr.sc. Sanjin Dragojević
dr.sc. Milena Šešić-Dragičević
dr.sc. Daniela Angelina Jelinčić

PROGRAMM SHORTCUT ZAGREB

PANEL 1
Vjeran Katunarić
Toward the new role of cultural centers: social inclusion and cultural creativity
In a contemporary developmental context, the cultural centres resemble a role which is intended for the culture in topography of city areas that contain clusters of post-industrial (and post-Fordist) service agencies. Art and cultural/creative industries in them are baits for the leftover capital and they brand places in which they reside. However, clusterization of cultural activities in that way has almost exclusively commercial function, even when they create a specific social capital of „mononuclear" networks of contacts and cooperation with various experts, from artists and gallerists to marketing and media specialists. On the other hand, that form of developmental use of culture emphasizes more and more the importance of the local, space, since the actors and activities in cooperation seek to concentrate in the same space, to be close to one another. For the cultural centres in our region, where private business has a minor role in culture then the public sector, more suitable ways of "clusterization", or interconnection of an array of different cultural and other activities in their project whole, should be, in my opinion, searched in the tradition of the European cultural policies of space, or in innovative concepts of development of the public culture.
What I mean by the first notion is the incorporation of cultural centres with their offerings of various contents, this time with the goal of reviving city ambient with new solutions and actors, for which the strongest incentive up today comes from the European capital of culture manifestation. Croatia is a candidate for the year 2020, alongside Romania and Ireland. What would our cultural centres be able to offer for such an eventuality?
In innovative concepts for development of public culture I include primarily the project of the culturally focused development. It is a holistic concept which emerges in several variations. In my presentation I will introduce the concepts of UNESCO and the Council of Europe, as well as (one) concept of cultural governance and a concept that tried to develop itself in Croatia in year 2003 through the Strategy of cultural development in the 21 century.
In any case, in all three forms of fitting culture into development - clusters, cultural manifestations of international significance and culturally focused development there is more and more emphasis on the role of the local space (place) and less on distant networking (space) of actors and activities with similar tendencies and interests. Of course, the latter is no less important in the chain of spreading cultural creativity and consolidation of the social capital, since networking is often a prerequisite for developing new activities in the urban space.

PANEL 2
Milena Šešić Dragičević
Active Citizens and use of local cultural resources: innovative cultural centres
This debate should emphasize the collaborative practices and intersector cooperation - how public culture centres involve citizens and civic organisations into developing innovative strategies...Is there a possibility for connecting cultural centres with different university departments, other cultural institutions, civic organisations in various domains of social practice (culture, sport, social work, education policy and practice etc.). On the other hand, how does the cultural centre map the local resources - creative individuals, entrepreneur initiative, but also material and immaterial heritage - the tradition of the local community. Does he succeed, after the mapping, in creating inclusive programmes which are developed with local partners and which are immanently related to values and needs of the local community.
To what extent, thus grounded in the local resources, the cultural centres can become the centres for production of knowledge, centres for development of innovative public policies in different domains? It would be significant to see can the civic organisations, especially those that are tied to bringing about the "right to the city" or other policies of dissent, expect support from the local cultural centres without whom their results often stay at one sitting or unknown to the general public.
Panellists will give their case studies that will reveal different models and strategic activities of cultural centres in Europe: from those tied to the individual programmes (partnerships in realisation of festivals, city actions etc.), across system partnerships that were conceptualized by the public policy, to the innovative models of cultural centres which connect civic organisations and independent cultural scene into a network or act as platforms for representation of individuals and of organisations of the civic society.

PANEL 3
Cultural Centres and Networking
>tba<

ROUND TABLE 1
dr. sc. Ognjen Čaldarović
Cultural Centers and Urban Regeneration
Cultural centers are very important „places" in urban environment for the efficient regeneration of degraded urban areas. Quarters, neighborhoods, public places and areas, open areas and even streets are very important for social life in any city. The roles of specific formal and informal institutions are also of great importance - they are the nodes of motivation activities that will support many local activities. We should also enlarge the meaning of the notion of regeneration, especially in the urban environment. As a part of a complex process of urban renewal, it represents an important part of the whole process of urban renewal. Apart from regeneration, in many cases a specific reconstruction, revitalization and even „retraditionalization" of specific spaces in an urban area are also very important. M. Castells is right when he explains how important are local places and spaces in the urban environment. „Places" are just ordinary areas where ordinary people live their lives and that are making the possibility to differentiate place from other place, one quarter from the other.
Trešnjevka area in Zagreb represents one of the „transformation areas" in Zagreb and that could be used as an example for different more and less successful solutions. In our round table discussion we'll try to explain different approaches to revitalization, to discuss the notion of the „just city", to the „right to the city" as well as the meaning of substandard housing and areas connected with the perception of „a normal city".

ROUND TABLE 2
Dr.sc. Sanjin Dragojević
Cultural Centres and New Strategies of Cultural Development
During their development, the cultural centres have had various functions which determined their agency. At the very beginning, it was the dissemination function by which it was tried availability of different cultural and artistic forms and activities at the micro level, with respect to one of the basic rights in most of the European countries. The second period was, above all, connected with inciting citizens' cultural participation which proved their importance foremost when it comes to the so-called active cultural participation. This was a period of involving large numbers of participants in accomplishing certain cultural programmes. They themselves signalled the care on enhancement and achievement of high quality of life, and they were active in achieving that (one of the elemental) priority of cultural policy. The third period emphasized the importance of supporting certain cultural policies ranging from those national to the local. In that period, they were bearers of cultural changes and cultural development while being centres of artistic practices.
Today they represent, if they are successful, centres of innovativeness and inclusiveness that by their hybrid character of activities, which includes vastly different artistic and cultural areas, enable the support of new cultural strategies. To a large extent, in evaluation of the cultural centres activities there are listed the traditional aspects of their work as well as their solicitation for the intercultural communication and mediation with promoting intersector cooperation and cultural decentralization. In that sense cultural centres receive importance of a destination which in equal extent nourishes cultural excellence as well as new and innovative cultural practices.

ROUND TABLE 3
Saša Božić
Cultural Centres in Transnational Space
Participants of the round table 3 will discuss the role and new strategies for the cultural centres in the time of the degradation of local social ties and the weakening of local communities as well as the creation and maintenance of social connections over long distance and across borders of nation-states. Cultural centres were conceived as a place where local culture and local identity can be created and lived, however the local community loses its cohesion, and fewer people are tied to the neighbourhood and build local social ties. More and more people are interconnected with others that may live not only in different parts of the city and in other cities, but also in other countries and on different continents. Frequently mentioned examples of intense connection and exchange of spatially dispersed people with a modern and cheap communication allows the maintenance of close relationships, despite the large spatial distances. Glocalisation as a broad social process has resulted in, among other things, forming pluri-local social spaces in which cultural centres need to be positioned in a completely new way.

Therefore, the roundtable participants will try to answer questions such as:

How can cultural centres help create new forms of local identities?
How can cultural centres participate in the new pluri-local and deterritorialised social spaces?
Can cultural centres offer solutions, on the local, national and transnational level, to the problems of weakening of localised social capital and social disintegration?

Plenari session
Daniela Angelina Jelinčić, Ph.D.
The Role of Cultural Centres in the New Context: From European to Local Perspectives

„You have to be the change you want to see in the world."
Mahatma Gandhi

Cultural centres are defined as cultural and educational institutions, centres of cultural events in a certain community. They are not prestigious cultural, but multi-use institutions, spaces of reflection of cultural needs in a local community and in the city as a whole. They should be places where citizens learn about artistic expressions for the first time, where cultural participation habits are gained. Therefore, their main expected role today is to offer citizens the possibility of cultural participation in their own nearby community. In this sense, cultural participation is defined as citizens' participation in culture as consumers of cultural activities. Although this definition represents the simplest type of cultural participation, cultural centres in Zagreb do not count big audiences. What if cultural participation is understood as the role of citizens in decision-making in the field of culture? Are cultural centres only providers of services for citizens or can take the role of an active dialogue with citizens according to their cultural needs? Or will they continue with the unclear roles they have today? Can they promote European values and intercultural dialogue in the very micro-space fulfilling their educational as well as cultural missions and gaining stronger cultural policy promotional roles? How will they adopt new objectives set through the new EU cultural programme Creative Europe? Can they adjust their creative cultural programmes to the European objectives and take the opportunity to outgrow their "small" and outdated positions they acquired in a Croatian society today? Can they abandon the feeling of inferiority in comparison to the "real" cultural institutions? What type of restructuring is needed in cultural centres? This Panel will try to find answers to these questions.