Fair collaboration commission in full swing
Throughout the autumn, discussions and consultations around the work on fair collaboration commissioned by EUNIC in March 2021 were held with EUNIC members and colleagues in the wider sector. All of these sessions are feeding into the creation of the final deliverables that aim to further drive future reflection and action on topics related to fairness in cultural relations.
A team of 6 experts with diverse profiles and backgrounds is currently developing a set of user-centred tools for EUNIC members and colleagues working in the field of cultural relations around the topic of fair collaboration in cultural relations. The group was commissioned by EUNIC in March 2021 to explore the topic further. It was selected following an open call for proposals.
The creation of the components of what has become known as Not a toolkit! has been nourished by a variety of interactions with EUNIC members, practitioners and colleagues working in the wider network, such as roundtable discussions, an online survey and qualitative interviews.
These discussions and consultations around Not a toolkit! Fair collaboration in cultural relations were expanded throughout the autumn.
Milestone events included a participation in the closing conference of Reshape in September, and a discussion in collaboration with ICRRA followed by a dedicated practical workshop session at the Siena Cultural Relations Forum on 19 October. As part of the selection phase of the second round of European Spaces of Culture, applicant project teams participated in a workshop on fair collaboration led by the 6 experts during the Creative Labs in September. In an interview with EUNIC member ifa for the magazine Kulturaustausch: Zeitschrift für internationale Perspektiven, Andrew Manning and Michelle Sun discussed DutchCulture's publication on fair international cultural cooperation and elaborated how EUNIC's commission can contribute to the wider discussion in the sector.
As the freelance expert consortium moved towards finalizing Not a toolkit!, two sessions were held with a dedicated advisory board of EUNIC members beginning of November and December to gather practical feedback from the main target audience. This advisory board, specifically created for the project, consisted of Camilla Mordhorst, CEO of the Danish Cultural Institute, Cees de Graaff, President of DutchCulture, Renske Ebbers, Advisor for International Cultural Cooperation at DutchCulture, Elke Kaschl-Mohni, Director of the Goethe-Institut in Brusselsl and Gitte Zschoch, Secretary General and Sebastian Körber, Vice Secretary General at IFA.
In December, the 6 experts joined EUNIC’s General Assembly to give all the EUNIC members an overview of the project and its creation process. This was also the occasion to use several of the draft materials in order to gather further feedback from all EUNIC members before finalising the different components. The final outcomes aim to further drive future reflection and action on topics related to fairness in cultural relations.
