Joint efforts are the way forward
30.11.2009 00:00
Joint efforts between different art and culture sectors, a dialogue between artists and politicians as well as the new ingredients brought by migration, can result in new economic opportunities and in making culture more visible. These were among the conclusions the moderator Chris Torch made from the Nordic Culture Forum in Berlin. The theme of the Culture Forum was profiling of Nordic culture in the international fields.
The forum took place in the joint Nordic embassies in Berlin on 23 and 24 November 2009. Nordic Culture Point arranged the event on behalf of the Nordic Council of Ministers and in cooperation with the Röhsska museum and the Nordic embassies in Berlin. The forum gathered around 100 artists and culture professionals, politicians and administrators.
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The Icelandic minister of culture Katrin Jakobsdóttir opened the event as the representative of Iceland presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers.
United Nations of Norden
Annika Sigurdadottir was the artistic input for the conference and presented a fictive organisation called the United Nations of Norden.
Nils Erik Forsgård director of Finlands Swedish think-tank Magma and professor
Bernd Henningsen from Humboldt University discussed the cultural identities and images in relation to Henningsen’s long academic work with the Nordic region and recently published book on Denmark.
The participants were then divided in four groups which discussed cultural identity and profiling from different points of view.
”New Nordic food”
Nordic Council of Ministers’ project ”New Nordic food” was presented in the evening by project leader Mads Holm from the Nordic house in Reykjavik in Iceland. Food was prepared by cooks from Iceland, Denmark and the embassies in Berlin.
The second day of the forum started by Marcus Andersson from Geobrands, describing different angles for ”branding” a country or a region. Consult and advisor Colin Mercer spoke about cultural mapping and profiling a region’s culture.
After that the groups continued their word from the first day.
The forum was concluded by Chris Torch’s summary of the discussion. He lifted, among other things, strengthening of joint efforts between art and culture and other groups and sectors: youngsters, private sector, educational institutions etc. He also encouraged to a closer dialogue between politicians and the actors of the culture field.
Torch lifted also a need for a audience analysis and a global analysis in relation to the Nordic culture work: What does the audience want? What do people in Japan, Mali or France know about us, and what do they want to know?
Many of the presentations of the Nordic Culture Forum were saved as video files, Please visit our data bank to find the video bites, presentations, pictures and background materials from the forum.