The European Culture Forum is a biennial flagship event organised by the European Commission to raise the profile of European cultural cooperation, to bring together cultural sectors' key players and to debate on EU culture policy and initiatives. Its 2017 edition will also mark the official launch of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, the thematic EU year devoted to our common cultural assets and all their aspects.
The event, for the first time outside of Brussels, will take place at Superstudio in the booming creative neighbourhood of Tortona in Milan. This extraordinary event venue, once a bicycle factory and then a place for fashion publishing and art created by a renowned Italian art director Flavio Lucchini in the 1980s, will provide an inspiring and thought-provoking decorum for lively discussions, unexpected meetings and fruitful exchanges.
Can culture help to tackle European and global challenges? Does cultural heritage matter to Europeans? How can culture in cities and regions help to shape more cohesive and inclusive societies? Come to Milan to discuss, listen, think and get inspired. Register by 10 November.
Opening session by the representatives of local authorities, European institutions and EU culture ministries
- Tibor Navracsics, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport
- Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament
- Dario Franceschini, Minister of Cultural Heritage and Tourism of Italy
- Indrek Saar, Minister of Culture of Estonia
Among the parallel sessions, on Friday 8 December at 14:15-15:15
Creative Spaces: Reinventing tomorrow’s shared heritage
Creative spaces might vary in size, scope or financing model, but they play a key role to bring communities together, create economic and creative value. This session will present lessons learned and current trends in the sector as well as main recommendations to enable a wide variety of models for creative spaces in the dawn of the 21st century. Practical examples will be drawn from two Creative Europe co-funded projects: European Creative Hubs Network (British Council) and Creative Lenses (Trans-Europe Halles).
European Creative Hubs Network
Over the past ten year we have seen a global development of communities of creative people convening in spaces to invent, to collaborate, to make and to create. These communities form what we now call creative hubs and they represent the creative sector in the dawn of the 21st century.
Creative hubs are platforms or workplaces for artists, musicians, designers, filmmakers, app developers or start-up entrepreneurs. They are uniquely diverse in structure, sector and services, and range from collective and co-operative, to labs and incubators; and can be static, mobile or online.
European Creative Hubs Network is a 2-year project. British Council is leading the work, in partnership with six European creative hubs – Bios in Greece, Roco in the UK, betahaus in Germany, Kulturni Kod/Nova Iskra in Serbia, Creative Edinburgh in UK and Factoria Cultural in Spain – and the European Business and Innovation Network.
The project is co-funded by the European Commission, through the Cross-sectoral strand of the Creative Europe programme, and is part of the European Commission strategy on Culture in External Relation.