Istikshaf

This project is funded by the European Union

 

The Roberto Cimetta Fund develops partnerships with artistic and cultural organisations in the South and East Mediterranean to strenghten its action. 

The Fund is a member of the « Istikshaf » platform that groups together mobility operators in the region as well as artists and cultural professionals that see mobility and exchange as an integral part of their work.

This project was initiated by the Arab Education Forum and receives the support of the Anna Lindh Foundation. 

Together these partners aim to :
- Develop a platform of mobility operators (funders/programmes) in the Euro-Med Region that support artistic mobility and will organise two meetings to develop interaction between these operators.
- Create communication tools to favour the setting up of collaborative arts projects in the Euro-Med region, through newsletters, publications and web media.
- Increase opportunities for mobility by organising three regional meetings of artists and practionners whose work relies on networking and exchange.
- Favour the emergence of cultural connectors in the arts sector who will respond to the challenges of international cooperation and mobility, particularly in the South and East Mediterranean.

 

In order to achieve these goals the partners will contact mobility operators in the region to ask them to provide information on their respective programmes. These programmes will be promoted to the artistic community in the relevant Mediterranean countries. A mapping process will evolve that will locate and encourage communication with artists, cultural operators and cultural organisations throughout the region in an effort to reduce artistic isolation and improve intercultural dialogue between Mediterranean countries.

 

This scheme enables the partners and other operators to meet at regular intervals over a period of two years (January 2010 to August 2011) in order to explore the question of cultural mobility and its implications in political, economic, philosophical and strategic terms. It also acts as an advocacy group so that the opinions of artists, programmers, distributors and cultural workers can be communicated to local political or institutional representatives as well as to cultural events organisers. Finally this scheme also enables mobility funders and operators to access common resources and tools (such as publications and web portals) that are easy to use and that will increase the sustainability and efficiency of artistic and cultural projects in the region.

 

The aims

 Since the inception of the Roberto Cimetta Fund 10 years ago, and the Safar youth mobility Fund 4 years ago, regional mobility actors have multiplied and many new ones are in the process of being created. This mushrooming is inevitably a result of a great need for resources to support the mobility of artists around the Mediterranean as is evident by the great demand on the limited resources available to these organisations. Artists, groups and even networks like the TAMASI network of performing arts organisations in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine supported by the Swedish International Development Agency fee and stress the inadequacy of mobility funds and opportunities for artists and groups especially in the South of the Mediterranean. However, and before augmenting the available resources, it is important at this juncture to re-evaluate the needs and find a coordination process between the various stakeholders.

The following are examples of some of the issues that we feel need to be addressed by this platform:

1. To be efficient and sustainable, cultural mobility must not only be in the form of travel grants or pursued on a pragmatic level (visas, artistic status, etc.). We need to question the basic issues and work with the various operators involved in the process: cultural operators, programmers, local community leaders and policy makers. We need to address issues such as : local cultural development, cultural policy making, cultural freedom and cultural rights, programming and the creative process ; in short, how mobility provides cultural feedback locally, at the point of departure. This requires for a for interaction between these diverse groups from the north, south and east coasts of the Mediterranean 

2. We recognise that the artistic process (training, creation, production and distribution) needs time. To support it requires years of collaboration and exchanges, not only the presentation of one or two performances in a festival or season. In both the north and the south of the Mediterranean, we often miss a long-term involvement from programmers towards foreign artists. This lack of time and long-term collaboration sometimes leads to a demand that is not really based on the artistic quality, but on the Arab or European nature of the proposals, a kind of folklore which does not develop the mutual understanding nor the artistic development. These questions also need to be asked from a south/south perspective. We believe it is important to think about the artistic process and not only the results (to create a performance/work of art) or the practical means. We need to enrich the discussions by intellectual, philosophical and ethnological points of view, to feed the reflection.

3. Mobility is a central tool for learning: learning that is based on the individual choice of the learner/artist, and a learning that is hands-on and based on experiences rather than theoretical knowledge or information. However, it is still not recognised as a legitimate and necessary tool for the development of healthy individuals and artists. The platform we represent will aim to disseminate a new discourse that values mobility as a legitimate learning tool that underscores the liberation of the individual from the constraints of a pre-designed format.

4. Last but not least, mobility promotes a leadership that builds bridges rather than one that hides behind ditches, one that stresses dialogue and exchange rather than hiding behind stiff beliefs. It is this kind of leadership that this platform will promote and foster among the Alumni of mobility programmes who will become the beacon carriers of future mobility schemes in the Euro-Mediterranean region.

 

Our platform will be implemented under the following specific objectives of the Anna Lindh Foundation:
- Establish long term platforms and actions where European and Southern Mediterranean social and cultural groups work together
- Addressing issues of common interest in the Euro-Mediterranean Region
- Generating effective positive impacts at the institutional and grass-roots levels
- Developing integrated approaches putting in relation different thematic issues and associating stakeholders using inter-cultural methodologies
- Combining operational components with analysis and/or research

 

 

Activities

 

Mapping

In the framework of this project we will develop two mapping processes that will combine to give a general overview of the Euro-Mediterranean mobility programmes open to cultural practionners in the Mediterranean (artists and cultural operators living and working in the countries of the South or East of the Mediterranean). Our zones are divided as follows:

Southern Zone : Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Jordan, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey and the countries of the Arabian Gulf: United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen.

Northern Zone : --

Northern Europe : Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Sweden, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway

Southern Europe : Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal

Eastern Zone: Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Armenia, Moldavia.

 

The Safar Fund coordinates the mapping of the Southern Zone. The Roberto Cimetta Fund coordinates the mapping of the Northern and Eastern Zones.

 

 

Symposium

The Arab Education Forum – Safar Fund and the Roberto Cimetta Fund were preparing a Symposium which was to be held in February 2011 in Alexandria – Egypt in cooperation with the International Association for Creation and Training (I-act)¹. However due to the recent events there the Symposium was postponed and will take place at a later date during the year.

There is an evident lack or shortage of literature on mobility as a tool for learning, dialogue and artistic exchange and as a new-old paradigm around the Mediterranean basin. The symposium aims to expand on and develop a renewed understanding of contemporary mobility by bringing together people able to think mobility in its widest sense. The symposium will focus the discussion on key areas such as concrete needs in relation to artistic mobility and mobility for long life learning around the Mediterranean
- Mobility for learning or mobility as a learning tool?
- Challenges to mobility.
- The culture of mobility.
- Mainstreaming/sustaining mobility as a culture and practice.
- Different models/paradigms of Mobility: mobility vs. tourism? Mobility vs. migration?
- Experiences in mobility around the Mediterranean.
- Mobility as a tool for reinforcing local cultural development.
- Who has the right to mobility?

 

 

Meetings

In order to reach the aims of the programme four meetings will be organised:

- two regional “European” meetings organised by the Roberto Cimetta Fund: one meeting of operators (programmes/funders) of mobility in Europe and other interested parties (elected leaders, cultural networks, institutions) and the other meeting of European mobile artists and cultural operators that conceive mobility as an integral part of their artistic and cultural work.

- Two regional “South-Med” meetings organised by the Arab Education Forum: one meeting of operators of mobility in the Mediterranean and other interested parties (young elected leaders, cultural professionals, institutions) and the other meeting of South Mediterranean mobile artists and cultural operators that conceive mobility as an integral part of their artistic and cultural work.

 

A regional  "South-Med" meeting has already been organised in Assouan, Egypt in November 2010. Some twenty artists, community activists and cultural operators met from different South Med countries.

 

 

Production of web resources and content

We are establishing links with arts and culture organisations in Europe and the Mediterranean that favour artistic exchange between Europe and the Mediterranean.

We are also building databases of “Euro-mediterranean mobile artists and cultural practionners” which is mainly composed of the artists and operators that have received a travel grant from the Safar or Cimetta Funds. We hope also to offer the possibility of interactivity as well as web space to visual artists’ works.

As a follow-up to the Symposium the Arab Education Forum and the Roberto Cimetta Fund will coordinate the publication in French/English and Arabic of a compilation of the contributions to the Symposium as well as academic articles and descriptions of grassroots experiences concerning artistic mobility in the Euro-Mediterranean region. 

We are developing the circulation of information through e-newsletters to inform artists and cultural operators of opportunities for training, meetings, partnerships and funding to help develop projects.

 

 

Les partenaires

 

The Arab Education Forum

The Arab Education Forum is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization active in the Arab World in the field of community and youth work. The mission of AEF is to contribute to an Arab cultural regeneration project that springs out of the inherent knowledge and experiences within the Arab societies. AEF constantly attempts to develop a shared vision related to learning in the Arab world; a vision that springs out of authentic initiatives that start with and build on what people do and what culture has. It starts with the premise that people are builders of meaning, understanding, knowledge, cultural expressions and social groups.

The Arab Education Forum works on 4 different themes:

1. Promoting Arab youth initiatives through the “Safar Youth Mobility Fund”: 
www.safarfund.org
2. Reclaiming the importance of the story/narrative in art, learning and life through the Hakaya network and project: www.hakaya.org
3. An electronic resource centre and marketing outlet for educational and cultural NGO production in the Arabic language: www.theotherarabia.com
4. Constant formal and informal dialogue and exchange through meetings, seminars and apprenticeships on education and learning through the concept of Al Jami3ah: www.almoutaqa.com/aljami3ah.

The Arab Education Forum is registered as an NGO in Palestine since August 2005 and a non-profit company in Jordan since 2006 and is governed by an independent board in each country but shares an advisory board from different countries (Rifaq ad Darb).

The Arab Education Forum depends on a number of volunteers as well as international and regional organisations to best utilize available resources.

General Manager: Serene Huleileh
Regional coordinator: Mais Irqsusi
Address: 6 Fares al Khoury Street, Shmeisani, Amman, Jordan
Tel: +962 6 5687557
Website: www.almoultaqa.com
Email: info@almoultaqa.com

The Arab Theatre Training Centre

The Arab Theatre Training Centre is a non-governmental organisation based in Beirut, Lebanon. ATTC has been cooperating with the Arab Education Forum since 1999 on organizing seminars, workshops, projects and also in Safar Fund. Our partnership aims at serving young people in the Arab world and it can be described as professional, efficient and resourceful. The ATTC is also part of the TAMASI network of performing arts organisations in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine supported by the Swedish International Development Agency to enhance the performing arts scene in the region.

Chairwoman of the Board: Mona Knio
Address: P.O. Box 11, 927 Beirut, Lebanon
Tel: +961 3 591433
Website: www.arabttc.org
Email: mknio@lau.edu.lb

 

 

Al Balad Theatre

Al Balad Theatre is a multi-purpose artistic and community space established by renovating an old cinema house in down town Amman built in the 1940’s.   The space aims to promote young artists from Jordan and the region by presenting their works, providing rehearsal space, and contributing to strengthening the cultural movement in Jordan through interaction and cooperation with all performing art groups, NGOs, and individuals, public and private, in Jordan, the region, and the world.

Director: Raed Asfour
Address: 12 Yazid bin Abi Sufian Street, Jabal Amman, Amman, PO Box 7990 Amman 11118, Jordan
Tel: +962 6 4652005
Website: www.al-balad.org
Email: raed@al-balad.org

 

 

 The Studio Emad Eddin Foundation

A unique project in the Arab World, Studio Emad Eddin ( SEE ) offers rehearsal, training and residency space to independent troupes and artists in the field of performing arts in Egypt, the Arab World and, in the case of residencies, internationally. The aim of SEE is to strengthen the field of performing arts in Egypt, advocating cooperation and trust among artists, a policy of open access and promoting contacts and links among Egyptian, regional and international artists.

Director : Ahmed El Attar
Manager of workshops and residencies: Nevine Ibiary
Address: 18 Emad Eddin Street, Downtown, Cairo, Egypt
Tel: +202 25763875
Website: http://seefoundation.org
Email: nevineibiary@seefoundation.org

 

 

Dramatiska Institutet (University college of film, radio, television and theatre)

The DI was founded in 1970. It is a national university that offers diploma courses in the performing arts and media. This diploma allows students to enter the professional circuits. IN the framework of its international cooperation programme, the DI opened an agency in Egypt. Together with a team of selected professionals in the performing arts sector of the region, the DI funded the establishment of the TAMASI network. DI has further established this network in Syria and Morocco.

Coordinator of the SIDA project (Swedish International Development Agency) : Brita Papini
Address: Box 27090, 10251 Stockholm, Sweden
Tel: +20 1 92868584 (Egypt)
Website: www. dramatiskainstitutet.se
Email: brita.papini@drainst.se 

 1 www.iact-eg.org/creativeforum