Trust the Process | Echoes from Riga - Ep. 1

This episode is a special edition of the Trust the Process podcast, recorded in Riga during the first BEYOND satellite event, which launched the inaugural series of Culture Action Europe's satellite gatherings.

To sustain and nurture the conversations that took place in Riga from 14 to 16 April, we conducted a series of interviews with speakers and participants whose contributions brought the event to life.

This episode departs from the terrain of socially engaged arts. On this occasion, you will hear an interview with Niels Righolt (Director of CKI – Center for Kunst og Interkultur), Rosa Meriläinen (Secretary General of KULTA ry), and Iwona Preis (Director of Intercult), all members of Culture Action Europe’s Nordic Hub, a regional cultural strategy network bringing together CAE members from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

Moderated by Burak Sayin, Founder of Space-Time Works and former member of the Culture Action Europe Board, the conversation explores the origins of the Nordic Hub and looks at the network’s future strategies and activities aimed at strengthening cultural advocacy across the Nordic-Baltic region and supporting artists and cultural organisations in influencing the policies that shape their lives.

If you would like to learn more about this initiative, reach out to Burak Sayin at burak@stw.nu.

Enjoy the episode, and stay tuned for more conversations from the Riga series!

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hello and welcome to Culture Action Europe's Trust the Process Podcast. Nordic Edition Extra. My name is Burak. I'm the founder of SpaceTimeWorks, a research and development firm in Malma. We explore how culture, plays, and people connect. I'm a former board member of Culture Action Europe, and for the past couple of years I've been co-coordinating Culture Action Europe's Nordic Baltic hub. And now we are ready for the next chapter. With support from the Nordic Culture Point, we are launching Culture Action Europe's Nordic Baltic School of Advocacy Network, a long-term network for cultural advocacy across the Nordic Baltic region. We have one mission to help artists and cultural organizations across the region influence the policies that shape their own lives. I'm co-coordinating it alongside three partners: Niels, director of CTI in Copenhagen, Ivona, director of Intercult in Stockholm, and Krista, director of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture in Riga. In this episode, I sit down with Niels and Ivona, along with Rosa from the Central Organization for Finnish Culture and Arts Associations, to tell the background story of how this network came to be and what we hope to achieve together over the next two years. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

We have been members of Culture Action Europe for many, many years. And following the development of the organization very carefully, being engaged in all the activities.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

My name is Rosa, Rosa Merilinen. My organization is Sculta, which is a central organization for culture and arts associations in Finland. I'm doing lobbying in Finland mainly for culture, arts and heritage. And we've been uh activated lately within culture in Europe, and it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Hi, I'm I'm Nils. I'm the director of the Danish Center for Arts and Interculture based in Copenhagen. We work in the intersection between formation of cultural politics, the Ressendetta of Culture in local societies, regional societies, on a national level. We do a commission a lot of research. And I've just like Yvonne, I've been part of Culture Acting Europe for decades and therefore also followed it through several general directors and several changes. And seen it getting increasingly more and more important as a dialogue partner for the European Commission, but also as a dialogue partner for all of us across Europe in our respective capacities as interest organizations or small-scale organizations or policy-making organizations. So and I'm a former member of the board of Contracts in Europe and I'm here because I love it.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Great. We are here with the Nordic Baltic hub a little bit, and you were just telling the story of it. Could you just tell me more about this? How it started since Turin, what happened, and so on?

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Well, yeah, the story very short is that when we had uh the the Beyond the Obvious conference in Turin last year, in the summer last year, uh that was the last of a whole series of Beyond the Obvious concert uh conferences that we have have had every year. Um we took a decision saying, well, we will try to make it a biannual conference. And in the years where we don't have the annual big European big scale conference, we want to create a kind of local anchorage. We will create kind of beyond satellites, smaller conferences, smaller events, where we bring people together in a more regional setting, across borders still, but try to articulate some of the same things, some of the same issues, some of the same agendas that we have on a greater European scale, but discuss them through that lens of the local reality. Right now we are in back here, in absolutely beautiful, lovely Riga in a lovely spring day, uh having that exactly that conversation with Baltic, Nordic, and UK and Irish colleagues. So it's a it's a bit bigger than the traditional Nordic Baltic uh setting, but the Nordic Baltic Cup is basically uh consisting of the uh eight Nordic and the three Baltic states, so it's 11 states and uh autonomous areas that members of Culture Action Europe meet uh normally online. We haven't even been able to meet physically in Lund uh a year ago, uh, to to reflect on where are we going, what are what's the Nordic take on the issues that Culture Action Europe is dealing with? The cultural compass, the formation of new policies, the formation of new uh funding strategies, etc.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

And would like to chip in, like why does it matter the Nordic Baltic cooperation like for you and for us in the cultural sector? And what uh any uh any feelings or any reflections on that? Uh would you like to say some some things about it? Uh Rosa, I'm looking at you maybe.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

You can I I think it starts started so organic and uh easily from Turin. Uh kind of uh uh when there's no not every European state uh around the table, we can choose any table. And um and uh I'm so proud of us because uh you know the Birg song when she sings that I try to organize freedom of Scandinavian of me, that we haven't been over-organizing this, but trying those baby numbers and trying uh what would come up if we try this one like uh this time we we are together with uh with the music uh event. So I think this this works that uh there are a bunch of countries uh geographically uh close to each other, and uh even though maybe the topics are not always so shared, uh uh there is easiness uh in interaction between Nordic and Baltic countries. So I I think that this works.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

And um, even for you, like we've been part of Culture Action Europe uh for a while, and how did it uh develop in in Sweden and in the Nordics from your eye? Like what has happened in the last two years and from for for like from Culture Action Europe side in the north, like what has been happening for you, like as an organization based in Stockholm?

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Well, I think that um when I am trying to uh think back, uh the Nordic hub started already in Malm. Uh that uh the this this this there was the last day there was uh like Brax organizing all the people from the Nordic countries outside the the building of the venue, and I realized that we are quite many and I didn't know people, which was a surprise. Are you also from the Nordics? And then the idea of meeting each other in a smaller circle appeared very attractive, which means that we suddenly realized that we have a lot in common, that we have an opportunity to speak about culture politics, which Culture Action Europe is all about, also from the regional level, but regional, meaning the big region of the Nordics and Baltics, which naturally connected to the Nordic group. And I think that that I wouldn't like to lose the international perspective, which we started with for many many years ago in Culture Action Europe, and which we are working with very intensively. But the national hubs will bring the smaller perspective which possibly is missing during the big conferences because we are always speaking about big politics, the European politics, the the world politics, Europe contra other continents, uh culture, culture politics in in our continent. But what happens in the regions that is possibly missing, and there is a need of bringing it on the table to add to the European politics to build that big puzzle because we are working locally, which means regionally, that is a very complicated story, but uh as in all European projects, we are working locally, right? So we are working in a local perspective, bringing it to international here, it's the same.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Great. So like you brought the gave the context a bit, and now we have actually quite local regional activities coming up that expects uh like we have two and a half years to work together. So what does future bring? Uh, what will bring for us, then is and I will ask the same question. It's the same for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

That's uh but I think the the the immediate the immediate future um brings the opportunity of us the Nordic Baltic without our British friends, but just the the eight countries and the three autonomous areas to work closely together within that framework of Contracts in Europe. But it's it's basically a Nordic funded to a 30-month project we have been able to get, which allows us to bring professional, culture professionals, professionals, professional artists, culture workers, us in the in in the Nordic Up, the members of the Nordic Up, which is, I don't think we've said it, 16 different organizations, together in the sense that we will create four learning labs, four learning laboratories where we will have conversations on, we call it an advocacy policy and advocacy school. And and we will basically talk about advocacy and policy making, policy in the making, what is need to be done, how can you do that as a cultural professional? So we will bring people who are interested but insecure about how to do it into that framework. We will basically educate what we also hope will be future colleagues as members of Culture Extra Europe, but bring it to Denmark, we will bring it to Nuke in Greenland, we will bring it to Stockholm, and we will bring it to Latvia. No, Cortex, uh, in the in the last uh session. So we will have four labs uh as opportunities to bring people together, and we will keep it small, meaning we will keep it relatively tight so that it can become learning labs, and we will try to establish that as a kind of framework that we also hope that we can keep keep running for a longer while and it's been funded by the Nordic Culture Point. They found uh sufficient amount of money to make it make it realistic that we can do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I think that that is a wonderful idea, those learning labs uh to uh because it's uh it's difficult to organize uh uh a Nordic Baltic um meeting which is which is really for all. But when when we have like several learning hubs, it's uh easier for for example I I think of my member member organizations, if they are like representing museums or libraries or or move theaters, they can choose well this learning hub sounds like there's something for me, and of course when now everybody has a like um lack of resources, you must pick the event which is really for you, and then when you come together and and learn, well I didn't actually know beforehand that I can learn of all of these perspectives. I think this is uh this is going to be huge and small at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Well, we um actually brought some people to this course, so to say, this educational activity here in Riga, and uh I am uh looking at the faces, I am having the conversations, those people, most of them, they didn't have a contact with Culture Action Europe before, and everybody is like, wow, this is this really existing? So I realized that not everybody knows what Culture Action Europe is doing. The existence, even if you are working so much, the existence of Culture Action Europe is not really known. So I hope that with this educational activity at home we will be able to reach even more organizations as the politics are not only national, the culture politics are so much international. So even if the the the culture politics are the definition in Europe is uh that's this is the subsid subsidiary principle that culture is national, it's not, it's not, and I think that we should really fight for this and let's start from the local level even more than we've been doing it before.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

And I have to say that I'm I'm really proud of Culture Action Europe. Uh it's uh easy to say uh in in Finland that we have an outstanding uh European organization Culture Action Europe and uh which is doing uh um professional advocacy and uh within the political processes and and make making an impact to all those uh relevant discussions there is in Brussels. So uh I think the Culture Action Europe and thanks to you who have been in the boards and uh deeply in the in the in the culture action Europe decision making, that uh the whole work seems to be so strategic and uh like a you are choosing your battles wisely and I'm I'm really admiring Lars Ebert. Uh he's doing great work.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

I think that's I I'm also a big fan of Lars um and Natalie because they they're running it in very much uh as a couple, you could say. Um they're covering different fields, but they they they in a way they they they form a very, very beautiful strategic image. Because I think that that is what they're doing. They're kind of pushing the uh I think even the Commission realizes this by now, that they're being challenged and they're being pushed very softly, but they're being pushed towards the value systems. That was also one of the issues today. And those value systems have to reflect, you know, the sector and the overall value systems of the union, and I think that's super interesting. And Lars and Natalie has been have been able with with the help of the board, both when I was there, but especially the the personal board, uh they've been really, really good in also reaching out to the right people, finding the right associates, finding the right collaborators, finding the right structures to be able to highlight the perspective of Culture Action Europe as a membership organization. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

And I've been trying to do I've I've been trying to be a good member uh in uh in Finland when uh Culture Action Europe asks us to as members to uh spread the word uh within uh our government, our parliament, uh within our commission and our members of European Parliament. I do it immediately because I know that that that's how it works. When uh when the central organization asks something, you do it. And then we are powerful together.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

And that was it. Thank you for listening. For more information on the network, head to Culture Action Europe's website. And if you're a practitioner or a culture enthusiast who wants to get involved, just reach out to me at burrok at stw.nu. Good night and good luck.