Euro-Mediterranean Forum of Arts for Peace
Bari, 23rd-25th May 2008
From the 23rd to the 25th of May 2008 the Euro-Mediterranean
Forum of Arts for Peace takes place in Bari (Italy), with the
support of the FEMEC (Euro-Mediterranean Forum of Cultures) and the
Euromed Platform, in collaboration with the Italian Foreign Minister
and the Region from Puglia.
The FEMEC is a network that gathers individuals and operating structures
in the sectors of artistic creation as well as research and reflections
in cultural fields. The Euromed Platform is the civil society’s
instrument to represent individuals, operating structures and networks
within the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.
Filippo Fabbrica (Love Difference project manager) has participated
in this forum, that gathered artists, young creators, cultural operators
and alternative creators who were from the Euro-Med countries in order
to guarantee a north/south and gender balance. The initiative has collaborated
closely with the XII edition of the Euro-Mediterranean Biennial of Young
Creators.
The objectives are to establish an efficacy and practice models for
artistic exchanges and to create instruments for a cultural partnership
that is according to the specific needs of the Euro-Mediterranean Region.
The topics discussed:
- contemporary artistic creation, visual and performative arts and new
technologies
- visibility of contemporary creation within the Euro-Mediterranean
space
- financing
- the right of culture, liberty of creation and artist’s and art
pieces’ mobility, exchange and co-production
Several contributes have been presented such as Judith Neisse’s
study on how civil society introduces contents to the work of political
decision-makers and what contribute could the artistic sector and the
improvement of artistic and cultural mobility give to intercultural
dialogue.
:: read
the paper (PDF)
Mary Ann DeVlieg, general secretary of the “International network
for contemporary preforming arts” talks about the need of the
Euro-Med to support and develop contemporary art and exchange, since
the west lately is discovering contemporary Arab art, but not the critical
and explosive one.
:: read
the paper (PDF)
N. Galesne investigates the increasingly deep fracture separating the
civil societies from the media and the lack of shared information tools,
which would allow a circulation of knowledge in Europe and in the Mediterranean
under various forms of artistic creation.
:: read
the paper (PDF)
O. Chenal opens the discussion for the independent artistic spaces,
professional platforms and regional cultural networks that have been
growing in North Africa and the Middle East and how those who have to
overcome many daily obstacles, face bureaucracies, take political risks
and sometimes even physical can supported by the European and international
networks and cultural agents.
:: read
the paper (PDF)
The participants agreed that art and culture are not only human rights, but should be accessible to all disregarding any consideration of race, religion or sex. Therefore the capacity and possibility to interact with the Other, with the different, are inseparable from freedom (expression, creation, movement or information). Art is therefore not only an instrument but mostly an environment.
One of the principal elements is the concept of contemporary, which is since long ago linked to the West. Now the non-western artists are raising subjective questions about the reality and producing deeply political works through their interrogation about both the past and present of our societies. In that sense, the contemporary is characteristic of all cultures, especially in the Southern shore of the Mediterranean.
Supporting contemporary creation in the Euromed region (productions and coproduction, the circulation of works and movement of artists, exchanges and networks) means reducing creative forces’ drain from our countries, strengthening the democratic dynamics, opening societies through the emergence of new publics and promoting mutual comprehension through mobility.
:: Agreed Conclusions for the
third Euro-Mediterranean Conference of
Ministers of Culture, Athens, 29 – 30 May 2008
:: download
the PDF (English)
:: telecharger
le PDF (Français)
