Mimeta har i femten år arbeidet med kulturelle rettigheter, som inkluderer ytringsrettigheten for kunstnere. I norsk utenrikspolitikk har dette nå fått en prioritet ved fremleggelsen av ytringsfrihetsstrategien for norsk utenrikspolitikk. Denne ble lansert av Eriksen Søreide i sommer.
Insights into Cultural Policies in Lebanon is a compilation of three studies that offers cultural researchers and workers, as well as others interested in cultural policies, an in-depth look at (1) the Legal Frameworks regulating the Lebanese Cultural Sector, (2) the public financing of culture, and (3) heritage and policymaking in the country. It is groundbreaking in its significant updates on research into cultural legislation, its exploration of essential details needed to understand the operational and budgetary mechanisms of the Ministry of Culture, and its highlight on threatened heritage, especially after the Beirut port explosion of 4 August 2020. The studies are introduced and edited by Hanane Hajj Ali and Nadia von Maltzahn, and were published in February 2021 after a long journey of research, drafting, and updating that began in 2017 by the Lebanese National Cultural Policy Group, with funding from Culture Resource and the Orient Institut.
More details will be announced soon!
Culture Resource in partnership with Kirkelig Kulturverksted (Norway) presents the 20/21 online edition of Redzone Festival from 4 till 7 March, 2021. Redzone is an annual multidisciplinary festival, launched in 2013, that advocates a critical approach to contemporary issues and features artistic works that focus on themes related to freedom of expression in arts and culture. Previous editions of Redzone Festival were held in Cairo, Beirut, Tunis, Tangier and Oslo.
See mawred.org
Bobi Wine i FB melding 6. januar: "- After imprisoning our entire campaign team, today they blocked the new medical and security teams and also impounded the media cars. They said I must go to the campaign alone. They thought that would affect the support we have from the people. This is us going through Iganga on our way to Namisindwa. This is a revolution. #WeAreRemovingADictator
Opptakten til presidentvalget i Uganda minner mest om et folkeopprør. Valgdagen 14. januar utfordrer Ghetto-musikeren Bobi Wine landets regime. Bak seg har Wine stjernestatus og millioner av landsmenn. En etter en tar seg nå over den høye muren av frykt som president Museveni har bygget gjennom 35 år ved makten. Valget trenger internasjonal oppmerksomhet.
The presidential election in Uganda is on January 14, 2021. The election campaign is dramatic. The election could be catastrophic. Museweni has been in office for the past 34 years. Now he is challenged by 38-year-old Bobi Wine. Wine, or Robert Kyagulanyi as he is actually called, became a member of parliament in 2017. He made a name for himself quickly, and already in the autumn of 2017 was he at the forefront of the fight against the extension of the constitutional age limit for the presidency.
Call for applications: October 29, 2020
Submission deadline: December 25, 2020
LINK
The Youth-led Cultural & Civic Initiatives aim to encourage community-based and contextual projects using collaborative approaches and to raise knowledge and capacities of young artists, collectives and cultural operators from underserved areas on the development of contextual work, and community engagement in cultural and civic activities.
The component will offer:
● Up to32 research and 24 production grantsto support youth-led cultural & civic initiatives to implement community-based and contextual artistic production;
● Two Collaborative Laboratorieswill take place consecutively where up to 16 artists, collectives and cultural operators will exchange experiences and raise capacities on cultural and civic project development applying community-based and contextual methodologies; and
● Tailor made guidance, networking and support opportunities will be provided.
Mimeta is now designing a financial response mechanism to the pressures COVID-19 puts on established organizations, platforms and performers within arts and culture. In 2020 we will hopefully be able to provide organizational support to our established partners in MENA and Africa South of Sahara so that they will be able to continue their efforts on behalf of the local arts- and culture sectors.
However, a major part of their latest proposals shows us a need for urgent support of art platforms and artists to enable livelihood and continuity. Mimeta will therefore ask our partners to manage the disbursement of smaller funds toward their constituencies, preferably in partnerships with other leading culture sector development organizations in their geography. Again - this is wat we hope we will be able to support.
In our view we don’t need to launch any innovative approach, as “use this time to develop distant learning and video-concerts”, as this already happens all over the globe, but we are open for proposals - as long as it is a substantially new way to give marginalized people their right bound access to arts and culture.
The Abbara program aims to support and empower independent cultural and artistic initiatives and organizations from the Arab region. In this framework, the program is now offering exceptional financial support to cover basic organizational expenses (administrative staff salaries, rental payments, running costs, etc.) to help organizations adjust to the current circumstances and survive at this time of rapid change.
FOLLOW THIS LINK
Art Lives: Emergency Initiative to Support Arab Arts Practitioners. FOLLOW THIS LINK
The African Culture Fund (ACF) launches the Solidarity Fund for Artists and Cultural Organizations in Africa (SOFACO) in order to support the resilience of African artists and cultural actors whose activities have been negatively affected by the COVID-19 crisis. FOLLOW THIS LINK
Culture Resource and the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) embarked on their first collaboration to try and address some of the pressing needs facing the arts and culture sector in Lebanon, at a time when the country is in the throes of social and political upheaval due to nation-wide economic collapse that is having serious repercussions on daily life. FOLLOW THIS LINK
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought all artistic and cultural life outside cyberspace to a halt. It is impossible to foresee, as of yet, how long this will last and what impacts it will have on artistic and cultural practices. The suspension of cultural and artistic activities combined with the economic fallout of the pandemic has compounded the pressures on workers in the arts and culture sector. This is all the more the case in Arab countries which lack cultural policies and governmental and communal structures that support this sector. These grants target artists and writers in the Arab region involved in the production of individual or collaborative artistic or literary projects. FOLLOW THIS LINK
In response to the global health crisis, particularly affecting the cultural sector, Africalia supports artists in their creative dynamics by setting up the "Creativity is life" grants. FOLLOW THIS LINK
Ettijahat has published a series of short interviews with a group of grantees under the sixth edition of Research: To Strengthen Culture of Knowledge. Hinad Alshuhuf talks about his paper Patriarchal Authority in the Cultural Heritage of Jabal al-Arab.
This capacity-building programme aims at providing full-time research opportunities for young Syrian and Palestinian- Syrian researchers (22-35 years old) within the field of cultural studies. The programme seeks to enhance the researchers’ skills, providing them the tools and guidance to accomplish their research project (The programme will probably be their first research endeavour since their academic studies). Experienced cultural researchers, who constitute the programme’s selection committee, will directly supervise the projects.
Pic from Al Mawred, one of signatories of statement
In solidarity with and participation in the popular uprisings taking place across Lebanon against the current systems of power, we the undersigned cultural organizations and structures collectively commit to Open Strike, and call for our colleagues in the cultural sector to join us.
A first of its kind in the Arab region, the Master’s in Cultural Policy and Cultural Management is a two-year program taught in both Arabic and English. It is hosted by the Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Ben M’sik, at the Hassan II University in Casablanca, Morocco. Culture Resource established this program with Hassan II University and the University of Hildesheim in Germany and its UNESCO Chair for Cultural Policies for Arts in Development as a cooperating partner. The program is supported by the Ford Foundation and the British Council.
I work carefully and imperceptibly below the surface when it comes to freedom of artistic expression. Deep down I stand by those who want to break it but remind them of realities above the surface. At the same time, the water becomes shallower. This is my duty as a producer.
(Faisal Kiwewa, Bayimba, Uganda.)
Poster A3 for uploading
Poster A3 for uploading
The short version
Mimetas vision is to give GIVE PEOPLE THEIR RIGHT TO FREE CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS, created on free terms and presented by independent institutions.
Our mission is to support and protect those who want to enhance a culture by aesthetic or intellectual means.
By both our vision and mission Mimeta highlight the impact arts have on developing open societies, including the culture itself and the political spfere.
On the strategic level Mimeta is acheiving results by supporting organisations and individuals who work on behalf of the arts, to improve the sectors´ position on rights issues, in political and legal matters, on professionalism and skills, the distribution of the arts and - in the end - the sustainability of the sector.
We call them the service providers to the arts.
For more information on our priorities and strategic initiatives
Nadia Cherif was given the task of evaluating Mimeta's program for cultural sector development (2020-22. It was finalized in november 2023, and gave good input for next stage. Read here
