ANIMATED Museum – Culture Access – March 2010, Workshop 3, Budapest

The 3rd training of ANIMATED took place in Budapest in cooperation with VIVO Foundation and Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art from 4 to 7 March 2010 with the aim of introducing contemporary art to PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS.
The workshop offered a variety of programmes and a whole day conference, which attracted over 70 participants from different Hungarian cultural organisations, public and private institutions, along with the press. ANIMATED partnership guests were also Marina Sorbello, Antje Weitzel, Dorothee Bienert, Mona Jas, Ulrike Solbrig from Berlin and Aleksandra Nalbantova, Zhivka Janakieva-Nacheva, Diana Andreeva, Iveta Koleva, Ivan Dobrev and Georgi Iliev from Sofia and Stara Zagora.
The Ludwig Musem – Museum of Contemporary Art decided on the topic of CULTURE ACCESS as it not only coincides with the core principle of the museum to provide physical and intellectual access to the widest audiences but also fits in with the framework of the Grundtvig programme as part of the Lifelong Learning Programme.
The training has shown us that ‚CULTURE ACCESS‘ is a field of exploration to further explore and with a lot of potential. The topic is related to the broader field of audience development. It is associated with the broader theme of the 2010 theme of the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. Although operating in different organisational forms and with different focus the exchange between Uqbar, Intercultural Consult and Vivo Foundation proved to be relevant and aroused interest. We have found that all three partners have benefited from this direct learnign experience and there is need to follow up on its success.
The programme of the workshop:
On 4th March the group visited two private initiatives, the

„ABILITY PARK“ http://www.abilitypark.hu/home/english/ and the „INVISIBLE EXHIBITION“ http://www.lathatatlan.hu/en, which were examples of cultural entrepreneurship targeted at building on new ideas and trends in modern society. The Invisible Exhibition Budapest is a unique interactive journey to an invisible world, which allows participants to experience how to find their way through touch, sound and smells. The Ability Park - a thematic amusement park – helped the learners to get acquainted with the life of people with disabilities in an interactive and entertaining fashion.

On 5th March there was a whole day conference at Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art. First Ranise Cécile PhD presented on the MEANING OF ACCESSIBILITY for people with special needs in the context of museums along with the current situation of Hungarian and European museums. Her presentation was followed by BEST PRACTICE EXAMPLES shared by: Skanzen Museum (Hungarian Open-air Ethnic Museum) on postgraduate courses offered by the Skanzen (Éva Csesznák); the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest (Edina Deme)
From the Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art Rita Farkas and Henrietta Szira from the Education Department introduced how the museum can solve the question of accessibility. New initiatives from the context of Budapest Museum of Contemporary Art were discussed: the Guided tour for deaf and hard of hearing or blind and visually impaired in cooperation with the Hungarian Federation of the Deaf (Sarolta Dobránovics) and with the Hungarian Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted (Márta Dr Tolnayné Csattos); the guided tour for mentally disabled audiences was presented as a partnership of the contemporary arts museum with a day-boarder home for mentally disabled adults ( Ágnes Onódi). A concert by “Nem adom fel” (rock-group founded by people with special needs) was also part of the programme as well as a guided tour in the exhibition “Transitland” - Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe 1989 – 2009 http://transitland.eu/

On 6th March there was an informal meeting at Gödör Klub. The learners exchanged thoughts on their experience and discussed their impressions about the previous two days by doing an interactive word game. Hungarian and international contemporary artists whose artwork deals with the problems of people with special needs also joined the meeting. Later a partner meeting took place between Diana Andreeva /Sofia Observatory of Culture Economics/ and Peter Inkei, /Regional Observatory on Financing Culture in Central-Eastern Europe, www.budobs.org. The exchange of professional ideas between learners continues in June 2010 in Berlin and Sofia.

VIVO foundation

VIVO Watershed Visual Education Foundation is an organization founded in September, 2001. It concerns itself with museum education. The members of the foundation are students specialized in art history, aesthetics, literature, media as well as a number of foreign languages.

The foundation organizes guided exhibition tours in a number of Budapest’s museums on a regular basis. These guided tours aim to awaken interest in the visual arts among children and adults. Along with expanding a child’s factual knowledge, special emphasis is put on improving their creative thinking. Programs are geared for small groups so that each participant can receive proper attention. This also allows every child to participate in numerous, playful exercises according to his or her own needs. Consequently, everyone takes an active role in the program’s activities.

The activities are approximately one and a half hour long. This enables us to discuss 5 to 10 works of art in detail. In other words, the aim is to encourage quality – and not quantity – based reception of pieces. To help process the material exhibited, we utilize playful exercises, task sheets and other aids to promote creative immersion of the participants. We would like to prove that for the interpretation and enjoyment of works of art – that is to say, for a successful conversation with artistic products – preliminary knowledge concerning the objects on display is not necessary. We intend to provide a number of approaches to children so they might select their favourite interpretation or create new renderings afterwards. Along with all of this, our concern is also to develop the participants’ encyclopaedic knowledge and to point out the connection between factual data, which we believe necessary in order to attain a complex understanding of the ontology of artistic objects.

AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT in CULTURE ACCESS

The Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art and Vivo Foundation decided on the topic of CULTURE ACCESS as it not only coincides with the core principle of the museum to provide physical and intellectual access to the widest audiences but also fits in with the framework of the Grundtvig Lifelong Learning Programme objectives. The training has shown us that‚ CULTURE ACCESS‘ is a field of exploration to be further explored and with a lot of potential. It is associated with the broader theme of the 2010 theme of the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/1905&format=HTML&aged=0&language
While operating in different organisational forms Uqbar, Intercultura Consult and Vivo Foundation the learning exchange proved to be relevant for all three partners.

In the example of the ABITLITY PARK, the roles of educators and learners are reversed so that visitors to the adventure park are trained by qualified people whose ‘disabilities’ are transformed to the positive sign of an ability to share a world of experience otherwise unexplored in public. www.abilitypark.hu/home/english/
The partners/learners analysed methods and possibilities for improving the offer to young and mixed audiences and finding the partners that help expand the portfolio of services in galleries and museums .

BEST PRACTICE EXAMPLES WERE SHARED BY:
Skanzen Museum (Hungarian Open-air Ethnic Museum) on postgraduate courses offered by the Skanzen (Éva Csesznák); the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest (Zoltán Bartos); Ludwig Museum Budapest (Rita Farkas and Henrietta Szira ). The meeting with the Director of the LUDWIG MUSEUM, Barnabas Bencsik, and with the key experts in the educational department among whom Orsolya Barabassy, Rita Farkas and Eszter Arvai was valuable to understanding their EU/local audience development policy. A partner meeting between a representative of the Observatory of Culture Economics Sofia and the Regional Observatory on Financing Culture in East-Central Europe, The Budapest Observatory expert, started an exchange of professional ideas to be continued in Sofia. A guided tour in the exhibition “Transitland” - Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe 1989 – 2009 http://transitland.eu/ was part of the programme.

The workshop offered a variety of programmes and a whole day conference, which attracted over 70 participants from different Hungarian cultural organisations, public and private institutions, along with the press. ANIMATED partnership guests were also Marina Sorbello, Antje Weitzel, Dorothee Bienert, Mona Jas, Ulrike Solbrig from Berlin and Aleksandra Nalbantova, Zhivka Janakieva-Nacheva, Diana Andreeva, Iveta Koleva, Ivan Dobrev and Georgi Iliev from Sofia and Stara Zagora.

CULTURE INNOVATION STRATEGIES

6 - 9 December 2009 - Workshop 2 Sofia Culture Innovation Strategies and Sofia OperatorsOn Dec 7, 2010 an integrated training for culture operators took place in Bulgaria in cooperation of ICC and the Culture Contact Point of Bulgaria. The practice-based exchange involved expert input by ANIMATED on two projects “Transient Spaces” www.transientspaces.org and “Le Grand Magasin”, web: ec.europa.eu/culture/journalists/doc/page34_grd_magasin_en.pdf.
Workgroups were formed in which colleagues from Budapest, Berlin, Sofia and Plovdiv could solve problems of project management and co-operation and creating cooperation strategies.


A Sofia Culture Operators workshop with focus on BG contemporary arts culture managers, visual arts museum and galleries, independent spaces, residencies and informal spaces took place on Dec 8 and 9. The Sofia City Art Gallery and Veska Emanuilova project space presented their current methods of work and the role they play in Sofia as a specialised space for contemporary arts in the absence of a museum for contemporary arts.

Art residencies activities of the Art Today Association / Centre for Contemporary Art – Plovdiv were discussed. The initiator of Sofia Water Tower media arts festival, IME NGO, shared this topic in regards to an international debate on arts initiatives in urban space on June 26, 2010. Studio Dauhaus –initiator of the Sofia Underground arts festival introduced the informal cooperation as a next topic of exchange. The Bulgarian Culture Observatory, promoting research and culture valuation in Bulgaria shared their current findings. An interaction with independent curators from Sofia took place towards the end of the Tuesday programme with a discussion on curatorial exchange networks.

Sofia arts spaces and educational activities in the museum were the key topics in meetings at National Gallery for Foreign Art, Sofia, the Red House for Culture and Debate - Sofia and the National Museum “Earth and People”. We learned that the Ludwig Museum for Contemporary arts could have been located in Sofia before it settled in Budapest and that two public projects in Sofia (launch 2010) may improve the context of contemporary arts musea in Bulgaria. Several projects were indentified as a connecting point between Workshop 2 and Workshop 3 on Culture Access.

Participants to the ANIMATED Sofia Meeting: Over 35 participants from Sofia and Bulgaria representing over 25 different arts organisations benefited from this direct exchange. ANIMATED guests were Marina Sorbello (uqbar e.V., Berlin); Antje Weitzel (uqbar e.V., Berlin); Wibke Behrens, Neue Gesellschaft fuer Bildende Kunst (NGBK, Berlin); Orsolya Barabassy and Rita Farkas (Education Department, Ludwig Museum, Budapest); Petya Koleva (Intercultura Consult, Sofia); Lora Dimova and Todor Gadjev (Intercultura Consult, Sofia); Yovo Panchev, (Studiodauhaus); Iliana Dimitrova (National Academy for Theater and film arts, Sofia) ; Dr. Maria Vassileva (Chief curator Sofia City Art Gallery); Yana Kostova, (Bulgarian-German Cultural Centre, Plovdiv), Jacob Racek, (Culture manager Robert Bosch Stiftung); Nia Pushkarova, (IME arts initative); Irina Moutafchiеva, (National Gallery for Foreign Art); Diana Andreeva and Prof. Bilyana Tomova (Observatory of Cultural Economics Sofia ); Galya Dimitrova curator and Tzvetelina Josifova (Red House for Culture and Debate); Jivka Janakieva-Nacheva (National Museum “Earth and People”)

Intercultura Consult ICC

Intercultura Consult ® is a private initiative active in the field of arts and culture cooperation.

Since 2004 our partners and clients are public organisations, creative professionals and teams in Bulgaria and in Europe. ICC is a partner in international and intercultural projects. In Bulgaria ICC will offer you a purpose-built intercultural strategy and targeted project development. In Europe ICC can develop a project-based international team.
ICC offers the know-how, skills and techniques of experts in: • Arts education and training • Culture & Cultural policy • Creative industries • Languages, media and design

address&contacts
Edison 1 A - 6 Str. 1111 Sofia, Bulgaria
E: info@inter-cultura.eu W: inter-cultura.eu
T: 00359 (0) 884198354 F: 00359 720 620 14

uqbar e.V.

The association uqbar – Gesellschaft für Repräsentationsforschung e.V. aims at promoting contemporary art and culture, above all implementing, supporting and hosting projects, which dedicate themselves to the research and promotion of experimental, interdisciplinary artistic and cultural practices in the international context.

The activities of uqbar are based on project fundraising, networking, and international cooperation. Uqbar has been beneficiary of grants by the European Commission, Culture 2007-2013 and Culture 2000; the Danish Arts Agency; the French Embassy in Berlin; the German–Czech Future Fund; the Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin; the Italian Cultural Institute; the Venetian Region, Italy; the mobility fund Movin’ up, Torino; the European Cultural Foundation.

The name “uqbar” was taken from a novel by the writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). In Borges’ novel the word “uqbar” is an entry in a fictitious encyclopaedia. The word is a construct, a letter combination without meaning, used by the author in order to show how knowledge and meaning are constructed. The problem of the constitution of meaning, signification and interpretation is central to the discussion around the term of the representation. Representation in the broadest sense means a switching procedure, which functions through references and replacement, and is an integral component of each art form.

The association uqbar - Gesellschaft für Repräsentationsforschung e.V. (en.: Society for Representation Research) was registered on 20 January 2004 into the register of associations in Berlin, Germany (Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, Nr. 23 104 Nz). The association is classified by the German fiscal authorities as non-profit and for public benefit.

PROJECT SPACE | uqbar

In spring 2007 cultural producer Dorothee Bienert, Dortje Drechsel, Marina Sorbello and Antje Weitzel have opened to the public a project space in Berlin-Wedding, a multifunctional space for exhibitions, meetings, presentations, seminars, conferences, screenings and workshops, featuring Berlin based and international artists.

Board of management / Curatorium

Dorothee Bienert, Dortje Drechsel, Marina Sorbello, Antje Weitzel

Address and Contacts

Schwedenstrasse 16

D - 13357 Berlin/Wedding

T + 49 (0)30 460 69 107

projectspace@uqbar-ev.de

http://projectspace.uqbar-ev.de

About ANIMATED Learning Partnership

ANIMATED is a project resulting from the cooperation between Intercultura Consult (Sofia), uqbar e.V. (Berlin) and Vivo Foundation (Budapest). The ANIMATED partnership shares best practice encouraging communities to participate in innovation through culture.

Culture operators from Bulgaria, Germany and Hungary are involved in this capacity building project on programming learning and creativity. The object of exchange are work methods engaging communities to participate in the multicultural, creativity economy of Europe.

ANIMATED intensifies collaboration among EU cultural sector professionals. Dissemination activities involve learners from the local stakeholders. Mobility-related workshops enhance the dialogue between public, non-governmental and citizen level stakeholders of culture.

The ANIMATED Learning Partnership is a 2 years project (2009–11) funded by the European Commission, Education and Culture DG, within the framework of the Grundtvig Lifelong Learning Programme.