I_Improve Partner Meeting, 18-22 August, Stockholm.

The August partner meeting will be focused on understanding more about  different changemaking methods that are understood as disruptive innovation for the cultural sector.

Partners of the project will also discuss how collaboration on an international level could benefit them as local actors acting on different societies.

A summary of the changemaking methodologies chosen by each partner:

• City of Ostend: utilising the idea of 'value proposition’, a business model process, to create a project for public institution with a social/culture core
• Venti di Cultura: games as a tool to manage conflict orientation in stakeholder communication; also the idea of ‘reclaiming' citizen space from a conservative authority
• River//Cities Platform: uncovering, drawing out and ‘showing’ the stories of marginalised and under-represented groups in society through the body, performance and the spaces they are in
• Intercult: How to achieve activism within, as opposed to in conflict against the system (so to speak)
• Laimikis: achieving citizen-oriented sustainability in spaces of rapid transformation and liberal values; mediation and reclamation
• Wiener Spö: inverting a commonly practised community building, approach by beginning with a task around which ‘agonistic spaces’ can emerge and cultural pluralism can be experienced

The C7 activity in Stockholm is also aiming to  help project partners to find answers to below question, in order to evolve as individuals, as organisation and as a network, by discussing methods and meeting changemakers, as well as putting a framework for the social innovation labs.

How can interlocal culture organisations working with international collaboration build communities engaged in society and reclaim spaces?

Meeting points:

• summary of the C-activities
• discussion about changemaking methods
• discussion about the role of organisation building communities in a European context
• reflecting on the self-learned experiences
• thinking of dissemination ideas for the social innovation labs and the final reports

The meeting is going to focus on each project partner and their scope of work completed so far, based on study visits and individual work with chosen Changemaker.

Seminar is going to be divided into 3 different parts:

1) Presentation of work achieved so far by each partner
2) Presentation of a Changemaking process by each partner:

• Who we are and our history (based on rational selection and on the learning activities)
• The change in progress (based on work done so far)
• Who we would like to become in 10 years time (based on  plans and dreams)
• Creative presentation of the ChM activity  (if possible engaging the local Swedish cultural communit

3)  A summary by tentative readings of the partner in charge 

The meeting is also going to cover such subjects as:

• informal educator experience with all the partners
• update on I_Improve social platform structure and its implementation
• creative sessions prepared by each project partner - engaging all participants
• public seminar on "Games as a tool for cultural urban development"  (with partners involved: Laimikis, Venti di Cultura, River//Cities).

This public seminar will be hosted by Intercult, and will involve different specialists in the field, who will share their knowledge with Swedish cultural organisations,  partners as speakers.

Magdalena Zakrzewska-Duda, Senior Specialist on Strategic Partnerships from the Baltic Sea Cultural Centre in Gdansk (representing River//Cities) will talk about combining emotional impressions of space with Minecraft within the project entitled "UrbCulturalPlanning".

Jekaterina Lavrinec, PhD, Vilnius-based urban researcher, artist and educator in Urban studies and a co-founder of Laimikis.lt - will talk about urban games and research lab. Laimikis It developed  Urbingo, an urban orientation game, as a matrix for collecting and arranging neighbourhood stories and changing material culture, turning it into actively used archive. A tool for activating the interest for neighbourhoods and their stories, and encouraging citizen participation.

Venti di Cultura  Italy has recently created a new board game called ''Arsenal''  for Venice. Venti di Cultura decided to approach the difficult issue of the relaunch and revitalization of the historical Arsenale (shipyard) of Venice, where different stakeholders are managing the area with little success in terms of a general and shared vision of the future of the area, with a board game. The game plays a role of a “change maker” where politics and strategies have failed, with the aim to bring together around a table all the involved stakeholders and find a new and unusual approach to a collaborative process. It is a collaborative game - where either participants win or loose, but together - could be a test for a wider discussion on the future of the Arsenale. This new game will be introduced by Francesco Calzolaio and Marta Moretti and tested by all partners and game experts at Intercult.

I_Improve is a cooperative European project. The partnership consists of 6 members from the River//Cities platform: Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Poland and Lithuania. The common framework is promoting audience engagement through culture, especially in waterfront areas. Its priorities are social inclusion, open and innovative practices in the digital area, and adult education.

I_Improve project Partners:
Intercult - lead partner
City of Ostend
The SPÖ Wiener Bildung
Venti Di Cultura
River//Cities Platform
Laimikis.lt 

I_Improve's website and FB page.