About Arts and Culture Program2006 Activities
In 2006, the OSI Arts and Culture Network Program (ACNP) operated in the Caucasus, Inner Asia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. The program launched a new initiative, the Roma Cultural Participation Project (RCPP), which operates in Central and Eastern Europe. The RCPP aims to conduct research and explore Roma cultural and social identity in order to empower Roma and promote cultural inclusiveness.
During the year, ACNP strengthened its partnerships with the European Cultural Foundation to support travel by artists and cultural managers to and from the countries of the Caucasus. The program also helped launch the European Cultural Foundation’s Balkan Incentive Fund to support collaborative artistic and cultural initiatives across Europe and prepare South Eastern European states for EU accession.
The Arts and Culture Network Program and Roma Cultural Participation Project announced several calls for proposals over the year. The ACNP calls emphasized collaborative artistic/cultural efforts involving at least three of target countries in the Caucasus, Inner Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. The RCPP calls aimed at finding largely unknown but talented Roma artists within its target region and resulted in a handbook containing up-to-date information on contemporary Roma art. RCPP mentoring initiatives helped connect successful Roma individuals with majority-Roma schools and community centers, and generated a database of Roma mentor volunteers. The RCPP music initiative worked to identify and provide scholarships and promotional support to talented Roma classical and contemporary musicians.
The following briefs describe some of the Arts and Culture Network Program activities and achievements in 2006.
Roma Artists Gain International Exposure
Meet Your Neighbors: Contemporary Roma Art from Europe , an art catalogue produced in 2006 by the RCPP, is one of the first comprehensive collections of Roma contemporary art ever published. The catalogue is an effort to increase the presence of Roma artists in the European art scene. In another effort, the Venice Biennale accepted the RCPP’s application for a Roma Pavilion at the 2007 exhibition, giving Roma artists an opportunity to showcase their talents in a prestigious international arena.
Documentary Film Program Tours Caucasian and Central Asian Cities
“Window to the Open World,” a touring film program featuring documentaries about culture and politics in the Caucasus and Central Asia, along with selected international films from the Margaret Mead Traveling Film Festival, were presented in six capitals across the region. OSI organized the program as an offshoot of the film festival, which highlights the power of combining film and anthropology. “Window to the Open World” featured a number of documentaries that helped generate public discussion about cultural and political issues.
Film Collection Raises Awareness of Central Asia
OSI supported the production of a Central Asia DVD film collection to help audiences across the world become more aware of the region. The collection, consisting of 10 feature films and 10 documentaries, will focus on how film portrayed societies in the region during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods of the 1960s and 1990s. The feature films portion was completed in 2006 and is ready for distribution to libraries, universities, archives, and film festivals in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Europe, and the United States.
Festival Introduces Central Asian Culture to Europeans
The Polyzentral 2006 Performing Arts Festival helped facilitate cultural understanding and exchange by bringing dance and music from Central Asia, the Middle East, and Turkey to Hamburg, Germany. Held at Kampnagel, a factory-sized cultural center, Polyzentral 2006 grew out of a series of annual international theater meetings sponsored by OSI and featured 10 dance and theater performances, discussions, film screenings, and music events.
