EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - The urban impact of artistic festivals

The urban impact of artistic festivals - Helsinki, 11-12 April 2008

11-04-2008

Introduction

The European Festival Research Project (EFRP) is an international, interdisciplinary consortium, focused on the dynamics of artistic festivals today and seeking to understand the current explosion of festivals and its implications and perspectives. EFRP is working to develop a critical mass of research papers, studies, publications and debates and through these to articulate tentative conclusions, trends, forecasts and recommendations for festival operators, public authorities as subsidy givers and potential sponsors.

Description

EFRP is looking for comparative and longitudinal research and exploration of specific issues and topics, not presentations of specific festivals as such. Presentations centered on one single festival will be considered only if they highlight some emblematic feature or practice of broader significance. Interested researchers should submit a 100-150 word summary of their presentation to Dr Dragan Klaic (Leiden University), Chair of the EFRP (draganklaic@gmail.com) by February 25. Researchers selected for the workshop program will be informed by March 3, 2008 and asked to prepare a 15 min oral presentation in English, based on a power point of a maximum of 10 slides. Power point presentations should be sent by March 31.

The EFRP Helsinki workshop seeks to feature and debate interesting research on festivals which reveal such impacts, focusing on the:

varying concepts of urban festivals, their formulae, content and spin offs
capacity of artistic festivals to include, engage and mobilize residents and their groups and associations, help them develop social capital and make them co-creators of cultural policies and cultural production
public attention that is thanks to the festivals focused on specific neighborhoods and public debates initiated on the sensitive issues of urban development
strengthening of intercultural and intergenerational dialogue among residents and the development of new audiences
strategies of conversion, renovation and recycling of dysfunctional and abandoned spaces and sites through cultural production and programming and site-specific events
economic boost given by the festivals to specific neighbourhoods
cooperative engagement of existing cultural institutions within the festival concept and program

City of Helsinki Cultural Office Administration
Postal address: P.O. Box 4710, 00099
CITY OF HELSINKI.
Fax: +358-(0)9- 310 37009
switchboard: +358-(0)9 310 1060.

Programme

Location

Links

For more information, please visit the City of Helsinki Culture Office's website
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