Throughout the months of March and April 2023, IN SITU Lab Partners are organising numerous public workshops and local cultural mapping exercises to uncover residents’ local development issues, to more closely understand the diverse resources of the locales, and to discover the contours, features, and needs of the cultural and creative ecosystems in each of the IN SITU Labs, in non-urban areas located in Iceland, Finland, Azores/Portugal, Ireland, Latvia and Croatia.
Co-led by the University of Galway and the European Network of Cultural Centres, the IN SITU ‘Speak Outs’ workshop series is developed to engage with each community, inviting citizens to present and discuss key development issues and resources of their place. These workshops are complemented with a variety of local mapping and participatory approaches, including participatory cultural mapping, participatory SWOT analysis, future studies methods, collaborative knowledge building and exchange approaches, arts-based methods, joint analysis, and multi-perspective planning approaches.
To date, events in each IN SITU Lab location include:
Iceland (March 13)
Organised by Bifröst University, the first IN SITU Speak Out workshop was held in the town of Borgarnes, West Iceland. The event generated the engagement of more than 30 cultural managers, artists, and activists in the cultural and creative industries to discuss their region’s issues.
Finland (March 15 and 29)
The University of Turku organised two Speak Out workshops in the town of Eurajoki (March 15) and in Rauma (March 29). Each event brought together more than 50 residents to discuss their concerns and suggestions on how to improve these two areas in the West Coast and Baltic Sea archipelago of Finland.
Azores, Portugal (March 25)
The IN SITU team at the University of the Azores organised a workshop in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel Island, that brought together 19 artists, cultural managers and activists to better understand their cultural reality and to improve knowledge about the forms, processes, and management of innovation in the region’s cultural and creative industries.
Ireland (March 22 and 23)
The University of Galway organised two Speak Out sessions in Western Ireland, first in the city of Galway at the Upper Floor of the Mick Lally Theatre on Druid Lane (March 22) and then in the county area, in the town of Gort, at the Lady Gregory Hotel (March 23). These two events brought together more than 60 citizens and 15 speakers where a wide range of issues ranging from local transport and liveability, through to heritage and art were addressed. Local artists and other members of the creative and cultural sector will engage shortly, drawing on the issues raised during these Speak Out sessions and discussing how to move forward to improve the creative and cultural sector in this region.
Latvia (March 27 and 28)
The IN SITU team at the Latvian Academy of Culture organised two Speak Out sessions, in cooperation with Valmiera Municipality, bringing together 40 culture and creative sector. Together with LKA Kultūras un mākslu institūts researchers gathered to assess the strengths of Valmiera city and municipality in the creative field and think about the needs for further growth.
Seminars were organized together with the Valmiera Culture Board as a continuation of the implementation of the Valmiera – Dynamic City Development Strategy. Conclusions of the participants will be compiled and included in the Valmiera Cultural Development Plan.
Seminars were organized together with the Valmiera Culture Board as a continuation of the implementation of the Valmiera – Dynamic City Development Strategy. Conclusions of the participants will be compiled and included in the Valmiera Cultural Development Plan.
Croatia (April 5)
Kultura Nova Foundation brought together a small group of members of the cultural and creative industry sectors in Šibenik-Knin County to discuss the current issues in this region and imagine future possibilities on how the creative and cultural industries can sustain itself over time as the community faces high seasonality and ever-growing gentrification from the effects of tourism.
The Speak Out workshops and local mapping of the cultural and creative ecosystems are part of the research project ‘IN SITU: Place-based Innovation of Cultural and Creative Industries in Non-urban Areas,’ funded by the European Commission through the Horizon Europe programme (project no. 101061747). IN SITU aims to better understand the role and potential of the creative and cultural sector in non-urban areas of Europe. The core of the IN SITU project is the interlinking of research and practice through place-based IN SITU Labs: creative collaborative incubators – hubs for new projects, training, and networking initiatives. The IN SITU project consortium comprises 13 Full Partners from 12 countries, consisting of 11 research institutions, a European-wide CCI network, and a national cultural foundation.
For further information:
Nancy Duxbury – IN SITU Project Coordinator
Centre for Social Studies (CES) at the University of Coimbra, Portugal
Email: in-situ@ces.uc.pt
Tel: +351 239 855 570
Web: https://insituculture.eu
