Working Group Topics
The aim of the working groups is to enable an exchange of opinions about four core themes for art initiatives in conflict regions. Each working group will consist of about 15 participants and will be directed by one person with special expertise, that enables him/her to design an optimal format for the working group and gear the discussion (the share of own experiences will be done at the table presentations). She/he is assisted by a second person, which keeps track of the discussion and reports about it in the final plenum.
On each of the themes, two parallel working groups take place at the same time. For each group’s discussion, the workshop leader selects a special focus within the general theme. To introduce the workshop, he/she may choose to illustrate this focus point through an example from his/her field of work of from that of the participants. The main objective of the discussion is that the participants contribute and discuss experiences from other projects.
Find the invited workshop leaders and rapporteurs here.
Wednesdy May 27: Working Group 1 & 2
Why (not) art? Ambitions, capacities and limits of art-projects in regions of conflict
The task of the working group is to discuss arguments pro and contra art initiatives in conflict transformation and/or in post-conflict reconstruction. The discussion can evolve around questions like the following:
- Is art able to create spaces, in which a collaboration between members of conflicting parties can take place? Where does it make sense to bring conflicting parties together, where to work “just on one side”?
- What can art initiatives achieve that livelihood initiatives cannot?
- Are art-initiatives specially apt for supplementing other peace-building initiatives?
- Do people in a conflict region consider art-initiatives to be relevant?
- How does the wider society react if art opens spaces for individual members to experiment with their self-identity or that of others?
- Can art be a sphere where deprived individuals can reclaim a recognition of their dignity?
- Do organisers of art initiatives in conflict regions risk to instrumentalise the artists?
- When does art risk to fuel existing conflicts? When does art become a weapon? Do art initiatives require specific forms of conflict sensitivity?
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Wednesdy May 27: Working Group 3 & 4
What lies behind our wish to engage? Reflecting on interests and motivations of artists, organisers and sponsors.
The task of this working group is to practice a cooperative form of reflection about the motivations to engage in regions of conflict, and especially so with/through art. The discussion can evolve around questions like the following:
- Why are organizers and sponsors interested in art initiatives in regions of conflict?
- What are the artistic interests of established artists to work in regions of conflict?
- To which extend does an art-initiative (want to) promote western ideas of art and to which extend does it (want to) strengthen local traditions?
- Do artists have to address the conflict directly, in order contribute to peace-building?
- What kind of exchanges are foreign initiators of art projects seeking, and what shall ther be given/received on each side? How do we feel about an attitude of helping? Who helps whom?
- Do we find it difficult to explain our motivations?
- What kind of doubts does this work bring up in us?
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Thursday May 28: Working Group 5 & 6
What can sustainability mean for art-initiatives?
The task of the working group is to distinguish different types of sustainability and to discuss strategies to achieve them. The discussion can evolve around questions like the following:
- Do we have reasons to assume that the experiences made within art initiatives have a sustainable effect on the individual or the community? If the impact of art initiatives is hardly measurable, how can we claim their sustainability?
- Are sustainable experiences with art among members of a community prerequisites for a sustainability of their art institutions?
- Based on what criteria do foreign sponsors select local art institutions for cooperation?
- Are there strategies of local capacity building, which do not impose foreign values? How to support self-organization?
- What are good practices for a transition between foreign and local leadership/ funding?
- Can/should local initiatives reject certain foreign partners or sponsors? What changes can be seen in art initiatives/institutions when (local) private or corporate sponsors take over?
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Thursday May 28: Working Group 7 & 8
Making results visible: Options for evaluation of art projects in regions of conflict
The task of this working group is to discuss what can be counted as results of an art initiative and in which non-quantitative forms such results can be gathered and communicated. The discussion can evolve around questions like the following:
- How can results be traced? Can we accept an uncertainty about indirect or long term effects?
- Can the quality of a collaboration or exchange processes itself be considered as a result?
- How to communicate the quality of the project to third (uninvolved) parties?
- Which kind of images do we use? What stereotypes do we risk to employ?
- How to proof results to a funding agent?
- With which other groups do we discuss the results of art initiatives?
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