Arts and Cultural Management Conference 2024
HeriACT goes to Vienna for the ENCC-ACMC special panel on cultural heritage
The hospitable Romanian Cultural Institute in Vienna hosted the latest edition of the Arts and Cultural Management Conference ACMC (7-9 November 2024), organised by the ACMC organisation and led by its president and strategy consultant, Dr. Gabriela Mocan. This face-to-face event provided a fine-tuned context for the ENCC-ACMC panel, which focused on transgressive projects and strategies in the field of cultural heritage. The conference was organised with the support of ESACH, Europeana, ENCATC and Dhiamandi, with partners including Salon de la Sagesse, European Network of Cultural Centres ENCC, EUNIC and the University of Vienna.
The entrance of the Romanian Cultural Institute Vienna (photo by Piotr Michalowski)
The conference was attended by 70-80 cultural professionals, seeking for fresh perspectives in arts and cultural management, with a special focus on "Transgression & Collaboration", the annual topic conceived by Yoav Friedman, PhD, ACMC Academic Consultant. The Romanian Cultural Institute is located at Argentinierstraße 39, and this fact also harmonises with the involvement of Panagea, CCIs Hub from Buenos Aires, in the conference preparation. It also follows the idea for the next edition of the ACMC 2025, which will be hybrid, allowing the participation of speakers and audiences from different continents, thus promoting an even wider exchange of thoughts and practices.
The conference explored the dynamic interplay between transgression and collaboration. Transgression, the act of crossing boundaries, challenging norms and disrupting established conventions, is at the heart of artistic innovation and creativity. It is through transgression that artists push the boundaries of their craft, challenge societal norms and inspire new ways of thinking and experiencing. Collaboration, on the other hand, is the act of working together, pooling ideas and expertise to create something greater than the sum of its parts. It is through collaboration that human societies unite, agree, regulate and build the political mechanisms that enable progress and prosperity. Key questions of the ACMC 2024 were:
How do artists transgress established conventions and challenge societal norms in their quest for innovation and creativity?
What forms of collaboration can emerge from transgression? How do artists navigate the boundaries between individuality and shared expression?
How do different artistic disciplines engage with transgression and collaboration? What are the unique characteristics and challenges associated with transgression in each discipline?
The conference opened on the 7th of November with welcoming speeches by Andreea Dinca, Director of the Romanian Cultural Institute Vienna, Emma Gabor, Lead Coordinator and Co-Chair of the ACMC, Founder and President of the Salon de la Sagesse, Gabriela Mocan, PhD, President and Strategy Consultant of the ACMC. The keynote speech entitled "Disruption and reconstruction of collaborative practices in the arts: the case of the visual arts scene in post-socialist Serbia" was delivered by Nina Mihaljinac, PhD, UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy and Management, University of Arts Belgrade. Joana Dhiamandi, PhD, provided a collaborative format in the context of Albania with her presentation entitled "Towards Inclusivity: Mapping Perspectives and Practices in Albanian Art Performing Environment".
Panelists in Vienna (from left to right): Dzina Skuratovich, Sorina Neacsu, Anna Weistock-Mentel, Spyridon Kogkas, Piotr Michalowski (photo by Gabriela Mocan)
The second day of the conference was filled with presentations focusing on the interplay between local creative ecosystems, local communities and CCIs. A special ENCC-ACMC panel was also scheduled during the day. The guest speakers of the panel were: Sorina Neacsu (European Students' Association for Cultural Heritage ESACH/Europa Nostra), Dzina Skuratovich (THINGS /HeritACT project), Spyridon Kogkas (Imagine Heritage non-profit, Athens), Anna Weistock-Mentel (Regional Centre for Cultural Animation in Toruń), and the discussion was chaired by Piotr Michalowski (ENCC network /Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe programme).
The ENCC-ACMC panel description
The panel served as an avenue to highlight strategies for empowering youth and newcomers to cultural management, and delved into the findings of the ESACH network on the type of skills that need to be developed for young professionals to take over the heritage sector. Discussions also focused on existing tools and solutions to bridge people and technology, with a fine-tuned theme of harmonising the latest high-end digital technology with the highest social interest of analogue communities.
In this context, the HeritACT project and its toolkit were presented. The activities, co-developed by THINGS.is, Milan (a partner of the HeritACT project), focus on the novelty of digital tools to support the preservation of cultural heritage, the participation of citizens in the transformation of cultural heritage, in particular towards the New European Bauhaus principles and on the heritage as a vector for Europe’s Triple Transformation (according to the European Heritage Hub). Dzina Skuratovich presented the HeritACT project in its entirety, explaining what kind of skills are also needed to enable the active participation of citizens in the reactivation of local cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible. These would be care for heritage and communities, active listening to the needs of community members, combined with excellent preparation to lead the participatory processes, while the use of technology should be smart and tools should be tailored to the target groups and co-created with professionals & end-users.
The panel showcased projects on cultural heritage with a focus on crossing borders. Anna Weistock-Mentel from the Regional Centre for Cultural Animation in Toruń (member of the ENCC network) presented the project “Invisible Painting. Art Discussion Series”!, a winner of the ENCC 2024 UpGrants competition. Participants discussed the famous painting by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz without using the sense of sight, but through the sense of touch, smell, taste and sound, using methods such as tiflography, audio description, tactile elements and aroma. This project was aimed at both visually impaired and non-visually impaired participants, thus enabling the development of transgressive skills of multisensory and inclusive experience of art. It is important to add that this cultural institution balances the regional perspectives of empowering young professionals in community arts and civic participation, connecting urban and non-urban communities.
Finally, Spyridon Kogkas, through the activities of the non-profit organisation Imagine Heritage, Athens, spoke about the connection between heritage and the memory of trauma in societies, and how the transgressive and inclusive role of the arts can heal the wounds of loss, e.g. through the example of the 2018 wildfires in the Attica Region, Greece, where 104 people were confirmed dead. The visual arts activities conducted by Imagine Heritage - in the form of artistic expressions linked to memory, landscape and loss - contributed to the post-trauma healing process.
Dzina Skuratovich from THINGS.is (Milan, Italy) is presenting the Toolkit of the HeritACT project, co-developed by THINGS.is (photo by Piotr Michalowski)
The conference's key messages were evident throughout. All speakers emphasised inclusion, diversity and under-represented communities. Another crucial aspect is to always remember and give credit to the communities that contribute to the projects developed by professionals, and to feed back to local ecosystems the results of any research conducted. The conference also emphasised the importance of unity through the interpretation of 'local heritage and culture'. In a globalised world, differences should unite us in working together and learning from each other, not divide us further.
In a 1971 debate with Michel Foucault, Noam Chomsky said that “a fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work, for creative inquiry, for free creation without the arbitrary limiting effect of coercive institutions, then, of course, it will follow that a decent society should maximize the possibilities for this fundamental human characteristic to be realised." (The Chomsky-Foucault debate on human nature, 1971). To paraphrase Chomsky, the creative research necessary for free creation can only take place when such inspiring gatherings as the ACMC take place, transforming and amplifying debate, knowledge sharing and mutual learning.
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