Ready to Change. Ljubljana.

We were in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in the forum
" Ready to Change ? "
"Thinking culture as a factor of economic & social innovation"
organized by Sostenuto

The event consisted of three days of talks and activities in 3 main sites, well located, close, and in the center of the city.


The forum program was raised about two blocks, namely:
Open University and Exchange of Experiences.

Open Univerity conferences were about these issues:
Cultural Rights
Economy and Employment
Ecology and Biodiversity
Wealth and Poverty
Social Changes
Urbanity and New Governance

The exchange of experiences focused on the following topics:
Nomadic practices
Art in Context
Ephemeral Practices
Self-management, co-management and Co-organization (New Collectivism)
Space in Between
Utopia and Poetry
* We discuss those lectures we think they´re more interesting:

Simona Levi - she showed La Ex.
We emphasize these ideas:
Remove the middlemen - the artist should be the main agent - the mediator must be a partner, not an exploiter.
As cultural producers we have to sell our skills.

Xavier Comtesse - of a swiss Think Tank.
He offered a positivistic view of Internet, but perhaps too naïve in our view.
Remembering us ideas from 2001 as TAZ by Hackim Bay.
Some interesting ideas of his lecture:
New Territories: Facebook, or a wireless network, as chat and no communication rooms.
The idea of "co-" common goods- between public & private.
The idea of global-local-global (such as rock & roll in Africa)
Internet causes an asymmetry in knowledge. The student knows more than the teacher, or the patient than the doctor.
We showed him the project www.guifi.net. He though it´s very interesting and appropriate to his speech.

Pau Raussel Köster - of Econcult Research Unit, University of Valencia.
He presented some statistics of a team of economists, which showed that the sector of culture and cultural workers is one of the most innovative and where more capacity is developed.
He talked us about the role of innovation in the links between creative sectors and economic growth.
Statistics are not entirely reliable for cultural producers like us, because are based on questionnaires that were distributed to university alumni after 5 years of job placement, self-employed or professional workers.
These studies refer to the cultural sector, missing all those who are neither independent, nor employees, or who work as volunteers or through partnerships. We think there is a large part that stays out of the statistics.

Jaron Rowan, YProductions, he offered a lecture about cultural entrepreneurship. Master of Goldsmith in London stiles. We emphasize this idea:
The creative industries are based on cooperation and creativity, and are those that can promote the commons.
Cultural industries are fed mainly on voluntary work of creative people, as well as "collaboration". The work of these people is characterized by precarity and instable market.
He also raised the issue of copyright and the "commons" with funny anecdotes, like the one of Paris Hilton and her "That's hot", phrase mark she has registered as own.
Sacha Kagan did a "Systems Thinking Game" as a workshop.
Based on "The systems thinking playbook" by Linda Booth Sweeney and Denis Meadows., that you can download from here

* One of the purpose and goals of the Forum was the construction of a Manifesto.
A proposal that generated a debate within and outside the courtroom.
For us it was good to rethink, in group, the definition of "culture" and its applications.
It was attempted to place the cultural sector in society. Showing, in our view, that culture is not motivated by the cultural sector, but rather it is society that is ahead of cultural institutions.

* Within the exchange of experiences of specific proposals, in Spaces in Between, we found some very interesting. There seems to be a trend that responds to typical action models of squatted social centers. As socio-cultural projects of collective gardens and green spaces within the city, local entertainment, projects around the food, etc.

An interesting project, close to the Situationist drift was that of the French Icimeme, with Jacques Boyer

The activation of a CSO Morion in Venice , hrough re-biennale. By Franz Koppelstätter, member form IKA

The project of a group of Serbia, SKART

The intervention of an architect from Ljubljana, Apolonija Sustersic, in a district of Germany: Hustadt project.

The Festval MAPA, in a village of 140 inhabitants of Catalonia, organized by Thomas Aragay.

Citema ,another very interesting project in rural Italy.

Bunker, they present this project for an stoped space inside the city:



One of the best practice experiences was the revival of a park. The association Bunker, host of the Forum, held a party in Tabor Park. A party "verbenera" where they invited to two types of soups, mulled wine, honey liquor and tea. With a player piano music, at night and surrounded by snow.

We briefly presented our conference !Agitation, which we discuss some of our projects of cultural agitation.
You can watch the promo video:



Thank`s to Bunker & Sostenuto people for so good organization

hope changes are caming soon