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.
- Det er veldig trist at fire syriske musikerne som skulle vært i Risør til helga ikke får visum til Norge etter å ha arbeidet sammen med musikere fra Risør og nabokommunene over lang tid, sier ordfører Per Kr. Lunden. Han har brukt kontakter i Utenriksdepartementet for å prøve å få til en ny vurdering av søknaden, men oppfatter det som nytteløst. Men ordføreren er glad for at det likevel blir en flott internasjonal kulturbegivenhet i Risørhuset til helgen.
Kolleger i Forum for kultur og utvikling uttrykker bekymringer for norsk utviklingspolitikk på kulturfeltet, senest i Vårt Land i går. Et hovedanliggende er den reduserte rollen norsk kultursektor har fått i gjennomføringen av politikken. Den andre bekymringen er de dramatiske kuttene i pengebruken gjennom Solbergs regjeringstid. Personlig er jeg mindre bekymret for det første enn det andre.
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Cultural Policy in the Arab Region has just published "Part Three of “The State of the Arts - Current Issues in Artistic and Literary Creativity in the Arab Region” first published at Jadaliyya website - 15/02/2018. Author of the article, Basma Al-Husseiny, will be part of the panel at The International Culture Seminar in Arendal, Norway, on 13th August 2018.
The success of the third edition of Visa For Music, in November 2016 illustrated the growth of this event on the international stage. It became an indispensable international marketplace for World and New Music of these regions, but also a professional platform for the music industry in Morocco and countries of the South.
VFM Ambiance @Visa for Music
The fourth edition of Visa for Music (VFM), organised in collaboration with the Moroccan Ministry of Culture and the Hiba Foundation, will be held in Rabat, Morocco, from 22 till 25 November 2017. This forum is one of the most important opportunities for cultural exchange and networking between musicians, agents, recording companies, artistic directors, cultural organisations, media, trainers and others involved in music in Africa and the Middle East.
On top of a sumptuous musical program, VFM 2017 includes numerous cultural activities such as honorary ceremonies, seminars, workshops and training courses, speed-meetings and a music industry and cultural expo. The official selection for this year's concert program features around 40 musicians/bands plus four DJ artists. You can check here the full list of artists.
This major musical forum is organized by the ANYA organization which is currently a participant in the fifth round of Culture Resource’s Abbara Program which seeks to support and empower independent cultural organisations in the Arab region.
Mimeta is supporting both Visa for Music and the Abbara program.
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Ettijahat-Independent Culture is currently organizing the MINA: Artistic Ports and Passages, which aims to celebrate the work of Syrian artists in Syria and neighboring countries. The art Forum will be held in Beirut from November 30 to December 3, 2017. It will include theatrical, cinematic, visual and musical performances by a number of art projects that have received support from the Laboratory of Arts programme –one of Ettijahat's programmes carried out in partnership with the Goethe Institute.
By Ettijahat
The MINA Forum is a space dedicated to highlight the reality of new artistic practices of Syrian artists who come to present their new works from Syria, Lebanon, Germany and France.
In addition to art performances, and in the presence and the participation of a number of experts, specialists and cultural actors, the Forum presents to its audience a series of open and closed seminars that address the issues of today's artistic practice in the Arab world.
The Forum also includes presentations of artistic projects still in progress by Syrian artists of various specialties, as well as the launching of a book entitled Now Then: Testimonials on Independent Syrian Cultural Work, which include testimonials by more than 80 artists and cultural actors from Syria and the world in cooperation with Mamdouh Adwan Publishing House.
The detailed program of the MINA Forum will be issued in Arabic and English during November.
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Bobi Wine
""Art is the highest form of human intelligense. Our people are slowly embracing that, and art is connecting people". From intervju in "Voices"
It is not often that I meet cultural activists who enter the political system, as Bobi Wine has done with his place in parliament. Usually they stand outside, and see politics as the same affair as Bobi Wine now has experienced from inside. Cultural activists are massively involved in civil society, from where they work for democratization of both society and the political system. The Arab Spring in 2011 is the great example of the group's mobilization power. In Uganda, a similar mobilization is taking place right now. The question here is whether the president stops the music or the music stops him.
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As part of the program of artistic residencies, association L'Art Rue launches a call for applications for the year 2018. Are you a musician, dancer, visual artist, designer, photographer, circus artist, comedian or director, and live in Tunisia? Are you interested in public space and working with people?
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Det er ikke ofte i mitt virke at jeg møter kulturaksjonister som går inn i det politiske systemet, slik Bobi Wine har gjort med sin plass i parlamentet. Vanligvis står de utenfor, og ser politikken som den affæren Bobi Wine nå har fått oppleve innenifra. Kulturaksjonistene er massivt tilstede i samfunnet, hvor de arbeider for demokratisering av både kunsten og det politiske systemet. Den arabiske våren i 2011 er det store eksempelet på gruppens mobiliseringskraft. I Uganda foregår en lignende mobilisering akkurat nå. Spørsmålet her er altså om presidenten stopper musikken eller musikken stopper ham.
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Art Map launched in Rwanda
by director of Ishyo Arts Center, Carole Karamera
Local artists have launched the I Art Rwanda Map, a platform that allows artists to present their art and communicate directly with art lovers inside and outside the country. The site, which was launched on Thursday, already has over 6,000 registered artists, and contains several areas and categories that will help art lovers find the kind of artists they need.
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Projects selected for fifth edition of the Syrian "Research: To strengthen the Culture of Knowledge"
"Research: To Strengthen Culture of Knowledge programme seeks to encourage Syrian researchers in Syria and abroad to prepare objective research papers that are committed to the principles of scientific research in terms of their design, documentation and editing when covering all matters relating to the Syrian issue. Ettijahat's team is keeping track of the researchers' work at all stages and helps them complete their work to meet the publishing requirements. The programme is proud that it has allowed over the past five years a rare opportunity for dozens of male and female researchers to receive the needed training, which has yielded research papers that enrich our knowledge of Syrian society, its cultural heritage and living culture."
Mr. Farouk Mardam Bey, member of the SC panel under the programme's fifth edition.
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I helgen var jeg i Kampala i Uganda for å lansere en bok under kulturfestivalen Bayimba. I boken intervjues femtito ledende personer innenfor kultursektoren i landet. En av dem er Bobi Wine. Wine er en av de mest populære musikerne i landet, og som uavhengig kandidat feide Wine inn i parlamentet i juli år, med en oppslutning på 75 prosent av stemmekretsen. Han er også kalt Ghetto-kongen. Politisk er han på den Museveni-kritiske siden, og er en markert motstander mot å oppheve presidentembetets øvre aldersgrense i grunnloven. I går, onsdag, ble han arrestert i parlamentet.
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Voices, reflections on art and culture in Uganda presents a wide-ranging and well-informed picture of the arts and culture of Uganda. This is a compilation of the thoughts and voices of role-players who have themselves participated in, and contributed to, the growth and development of the arts and culture sector. Explorative in nature, and drawn from interviews with 52 prominent cultural practitioners, it is a reflection on what has happened and what is happening in Uganda, and why. Providing first-hand insight into music, film, theatre, dance, visual art, comedy, literature and much more, highlighting both challenges and achievements, this book is a useful tool to frame the incredible explosion of creativity taking place in this country.
Compiled and edited by Peter Rorvik, the book is published by the Mimeta Centre for Cultural Sector Development of Norway. Bayimba will manage sales and distribution
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New head of the team
Helena Nassif joins Al Mawred from September
Helena’s multi-disciplinary research and career in media and culture extend to the non-governmental sector, the aid industry, television and documentary film production, program coordination and evaluation, training and education, and consultancy. Her work is driven by the desire to understand the impact of the arts and culture in society, and to contribute to its vital role in community building and social change.
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Twenty-five Authors, Fourteen Countries in One Original Compilation
Download the book! HERE
Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights states that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Although a recognised freedom, it is viewed and experienced in different ways, depending on its discipline, the country in question and also historical precedents. Sometimes biased and violated, sometimes honoured and often misunderstood, freedom of expression is much more complicated to explain and defend in practice, particularly in Africa.
In September 2014, Arterial Network, through its Artwatch Africa project, launched a call for contributions from writers, journalists and researchers from across the continent to share their opinions and knowledge on this broad topic. After months of committed work, a collection of selected writings was brought together to produce an original compilation titled How Free is Free? Reflections on Freedom of Creative Expression in Africa.
The free e-book includes emerging and established authors from diverse backgrounds, such as the celebrated Senegalese author Boubacar Boris Diop who contributed the short story ‘Une journée parisienne’ that takes us into the world of the fictional character, Dembo Diatta, who is pushed to the edge after the Charlie Hebdo attack and struggles to hold his tongue with friends he has had for twenty years.
Also included is an essay by the late Chenjerai Hove of Zimbabwe. Titled ‘Beautiful Words Are Subversive, ’ the essay offers the writer’s personal reflections, on politics, what it is to be an artist, his questions and his aspirations:
"Subversive art is that art which makes the viewer, the reader, feel newly persuaded to question the way they have always thought the world is organised, the world of values. To write is to create new values, to move from old spaces into the realm of new spaces of the imagination. A book, and any effective piece of art, searches for new spaces in order to enrich them while at the same time enriching the old spaces by removing the rust of the imaginative spaces of the old."
Freedom and its Limits
The political aspects of freedom of creative expression are discussed at length in the book through a multitude of texts, such as ‘The Art and Artists of Sudan: A History of Harassment” by Mohamed Abusabib or the analysis of Professor Patrick Ebewo that poses the limits of freedom of creative expression when it comes to the responsibilities of artists as public personas, explored in ‘Freedom of Creative and Artistic Expression in the Performing Arts: A Critical Reflection.’
Responsibility is a topic of debate that the South African judge, Albie Sachs, also explores in his contribution to the book, writing that: "In some respects, the conscience of the writer might be more expansive than the limits of the law and even defy the law. In other respects, it’s narrower than the law. In a democratic society that protects free speech and freedom of artistic creativity, you have a general responsibility to stay within the limits of the law. But your responsibility does not begin and end with what is constitutionally permissible. In a society based on the principles of human dignity, equality and freedom, writers are called upon to honour their fellow human beings and show respect for their craft."
25 Authors, 14 Countries
The e-book was produced as part of the Artwatch Africa project that aims to defend freedom of creative expression on the continent, and who better than the artists themselves to share their creative environment, their questions and their experiences.
In total, twenty-five authors representing fourteen countries were selected to be included in the compilation that will be available for free download on the Arterial Network website and through a multitude of different e-reader platforms, such as World Reader. It has been optimised for mobile, tablet and Kindle viewing.
How Free is Free? Reflections on Freedom of Creative Expression in Africa is above all a meditation on the artistic health of the continent, as lived and examined from twenty-five diverse, artistic viewpoints. This publication is a first for Arterial Network and it will be used as a tool to promote advocacy for freedom of expression and creative arts in Africa.
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Det er stor pågang til seminaret «Kunst som sosial drivkraft» 19. august under Arendalsuka. Arrangørene er stolte av å kunne invitere til et seminar med både foredrag og innspill fra ledende aktører i nasjonalt og internasjonalt kulturliv.
Arendal kulturforum, Mimeta, Arendal kommune, Aust-Agder fylkeskommune, Nordisk informasjonskontor og Sørlandets Europakontor har gått sammen om å invitere til kulturseminaret «Kunst som sosial drivkraft» under Arendalsuka.
I løpet av seminaret blir det reflektert rundt hvordan kunst kan bidra til sosial vekst i lokalsamfunnet, og hva som skjer når kunsten er fraværende. Seminaret ser også på hvordan kunst kan føre til økt deltakelse og medskapning og hva som hender når kunst flyttes ut i et offentlig rom. Seminaret har et internasjonalt tilsnitt, og foredragsholdere fra både Norge, Europa og Afrika bidrar med sin kunnskap og erfaringer.
- Vi vil få mange internasjonale eksempler på kunstens rolle i det offentlige rom, demokratiseringsprosesser og andre sosialt orienterte prosesser, sier leder for Mimeta, Cato Litangen, som forteller at kunstnere og kulturaktører fra både Tunisia, Syria og Uganda stiller til samtale på seminaret.
Videre forteller han at både Norsk kulturråd, Nordisk kulturfond og European Cultural Foundation medvirker i programmet. Seminararrangørene er stolte over å ha fått dyktige innledere og foredragsholdere på plass, som:
Bård Folke Fredriksen, statssekretær fra Kulturdepartementet
Trude Schjelderup Iversen, kurator i KORO (Kunst i offentlige rom),
Tone Hansen, leder i Norsk kulturråd
Kristin Danielsen, direktør i Norsk kulturråd
Svein Harberg, stortingspolitiker (H) og leder av familie- og kulturkomiteen på Stortinget
Harm-Christian Tolden, kommunaldirektør i Bergen kommune,
Mats Aronsen, festivalleder i Canal Street
Benny Marcel, direktør i Nordisk kulturfond,
Philipp Dietachmair, programme manager European Cultural Foundation
Cecilie Willoch, avdelingsdirektør kulturseksjonen i UtenriksdepartementetJan Jaap Knol, direktør Dutch Cultural Participation Fund
Peter Rorvik, festivalprodusent og leder Arterial network
Faisal Kiwewa, festivalprodusent fra Uganda
Per Kvist, dekan for kunstfag Universitetet i Agder
Ellen Aslaksen, dekan Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo
Sofiane Ouissi, danser, produsent og kulturaktivist fra Tunisia
Abdullah Alkafri, skuespiller, produsent og kulturaktivist fra Syria
I forbindelse med kulturseminraet, åpnes også kunstinstallasjonen «The Pen is Mightier than the Sword» av Chris Swift, som er en hylles til Nelson Mandela på Teaterplassen dagen før kulturseminaret. Det arrangeres også hagefest etter kulturseminaret i Kolbjørnsvik.
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For ytterligere informasjon, kontakt:
- Cato Litangen, daglig leder i Mimeta, mobil 40 64 80 83, e-post: cato.litangenATgmail.com
- Linda Sætra, kultursjef i Arendal kommune, mobil 995 78 303, e-post: linda.saetraATarendal.kommune.no
- Hilde Lona, daglig leder Nordisk informasjonskontor Sør-Norge, e-post hilde.lonaATnordeninfo.no
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Since our inception in 2008, Mimeta has been organized as a limited company with charitable statutes. 1st April 2016, the executive director of Mimeta, Cato Litangen, acquired all the company shares from Strømme Foundation and Vest-Agder Fylkeskommune (county council). As part of this change, Mimeta will move main office to Arendal, Norway, and there will be a new Board of Directors, headed by Mr. Pål C. Cristensen (lawyer). Mr. Anders Holm (civil engineer) and Marianne Woie (senior teacher) will take positions as members to the board. It will be extended by 4 members within short term.
Mimeta will continue within existing mission and main strategy, and build further upon a well established international network. Our work for culture sector development, access to free arts and cultural participation - is based in universal human rights.
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The Press conference for the 5th edition of "Dream City" was held yesterday morning at Dar Bach Hamba. More than twenty journalists were present representing the major Tunisian media:
- Radio: RTCI, MFIs, Shems FM, national, cultural Radio Radio, Radio Kalima el ...
- Television: El Watania 2 Attessia, Telvza TV ...
- Print: The Press, The Daily, Le Temps, El Sabah ...
More than 190 artists and professionals have benefited directly from project interventions. Soleil d'Afrique reached a record of its audience since its creation (over 8320 direct visitors); 29 international artists have been involved.
Very good news for Aadel Essaadani and Dounia Benslimane in Racines, Morocco.
Dounia Benslimane, Racines. Photo: C. Litangen
Seven projects was approved for funding by the UNESCO International Fund for Cultural Diversity (IFCD) this year. "Developing an efficient policy for the promotion of cultural industries in Morocco” was one of them, and Mimeta is in the line of congratulants!
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