Visas / the discordant note

Ole Reitov & Hans Hjorth have released a white paper on visa issues, Europe and artist mobility. Focused primarily on the music industry, the paper hightlights a number of problems faced by creative companies working with artists from non-EU countries. Read the paper here.

ERICarts Study on Mobility in Creative Sector

Check out the ERICarts Institute’s study for the European Commission on mobility incentives in the culture/creative sector. This was not intended to be an audit of all mobility related schemes in Europe, but rather a survey and analysis of the range and scope as well as motives and results of such programs.

During the course of the study, ERICarts collected information on:
* mobility trends in different regions of Europe;
* recent debates taking place within individual countries;
* existing mobility schemes (their objectives, kind of support, target beneficiaries, eligibility conditions and the nature of benefits);
* the main motives for funding bodies to support mobility; and
* the main sources where professionals can find information about mobility incentives or barriers.

UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for Artists

The UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for Artists promote the mobility of young artists in order to enrich their personal perspectives, to enable them to engage in an intercultural dialogue and expose them to cultural diversity. The Program offers residencies to young artists (between 25 and 35 years old) worldwide. It shares many objectives with the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005), which advocates cultural exchanges and highlights creativity and the need for artists to enrich their experience through contact with other cultures. These residencies are catalysts for the development of artistic expression in all cultures of the world. Click here for more information.

EU Culture Ministers Pledge To Boost Artists' Mobility

The mobility of artists and other cultural workers within Europe featured prominently among policy priorities for the next two years adopted by European Union culture ministers. The proposal forms part of a wider set of recommendations for a 'Work Plan for Culture 2008-2010'.

The ministers agreed to set up a working group comprised of national experts to develop ways to improve the mobility of artists and "other professionals in the cultural field". The experts will explore ways of boosting cooperation between Brussels and national capitals, primarily by studying existing national practices to suggest "ways of improving the regulatory conditions and related administrative processes for mobility".

What's more, the working group will "suggest solutions at the national and Community levels" to explore ways in which national and EU-level initiatives could "include mobility in the professional training curricula of artists and culture professionals. Other priorities identified include boosting access to culture by promoting cultural heritage, multilingualism, digitization and cultural tourism.

Ministers asked the Commission to carry out a study on the mobility of cultural workers in Europe by October 2008 and publish recommendations on the feasibility of developing a "comprehensive EU-wide system of information on mobility in the cultural sector" by the end of the year. The Council working groups will meet three times a year between now and the end of 2010, and are expected to submit their mid-term reports by July 2009.

Theatre FIT

The network Theatre FESTIVALS IN TRANSITION (FIT), involving eight festivals in eight European countries, was founded in 2005. Between 2005 and 2006, FIT organized a series of contemporary theatre projects and highly regarded symposia on ‘festival policy′, which took place at all the participating festivals: Homo Novus in Riga, Latvia, Divadelna Nitra in Slovakia, Sirenos in Vilnius, Lithuania, SPIELART Munich in Germany, Exodos in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Krakow Theatre Reminiscences in Poland, 4+4 Days in Motion in Prague, Czech Republic and Baltoscandal in Rakvere, Estonia. Discussions gathered festival programmers, artists, supporters and cultural policy makers on local, national and European level and were focused on the role of festivals as a generator for a European cultural network.

With an enlarged network now involving ten festivals, from 2007 FIT embarks on a new project - a MOBILE LAB for Theatre and Communication. Ten European festivals focusing on contemporary theatre creation have come together to create a travelling laboratory to explore, develop and test drive innovative practices of discourse, critical writing and communication between artists, programmers and audiences in response to contemporary performance. Through carefully developed artistic programs, public discussions, collaborations with the media and Mobile Lab workshop programs for young theatre critics and writers, the project aims to facilitate a deeper and more wide ranging communication around contemporary art to a wider audience.