DI:VISION
11-13/12/2020
Oracle – International Congress of Cultural Managers and Cultural Operators
Every year, the Oracle Cultural Network in partnership with relevant cultural actors from different European cities organises the ORACLE annual meeting / seminar / congress that brings together cultural professionals to discuss the most important topics in culture today.
This year, the Oracle Cultural Network is organizing the 22nd Oracle – International Congress of Cultural Managers and Cultural Operators in partnership with Lokomotiva – Centre for New Initiatives in Arts and Culture. Initially, the Congress was envisioned as a cultural event to be held in Skopje, at Kino Kultura – project space for contemporary performing arts and culture, and gather more than 50 participants from the international and local context, who would share ideas, knowledge and experience on the latest cultural challenges and their effect on different socio–political contexts. However, facing the COVID-19 pandemic and in line with measures and recommendations for the prevention and protection against the virus, the partners decided to organise the Congress online, to also enable cultural workers to share on the topics and help each other endure in this time of crisis.
Organised as a three-day online event (December 11-13), the Oracle – International Congress of Cultural Managers and Cultural Operators will offer a platform for exchange and a chance for participants from a diverse international context to get to know the cultural practice, policy, institutions and cultural operators from Skopje / North Macedonia, and the specifics of the context in which the culture is being developed. In addition, participants will have the opportunity to exchange and present their ideas, as the program is planned to put a lot of emphasis on common discussion and reflection.
Within the programme of the Congress, it is always a challenge to open topics and to ask important and “difficult” questions about culture and its recent developments, problems and challenges, faced in the wider European context and their impact on the local context.
This year’s theme of the Oracle – International Congress of Cultural Managers and Cultural Operators is Di:Vision. It is seen as a coined term of two opposing forces, a subject which connects two aspects of culture today, also relevant for the society as a whole, which are dealing with the social, political and economic polarities on the one hand, and the vision for a better, more equal future in solidarity, on the other.
Questions related to the subject are:
- What makes us divided and in which areas we can see such division: right versus left, territory-driven versus ethnically-driven cultural policies, top-down versus shared approach to decision-making, governments versus civil actions, institutional versus civil sector etc.
- Radical division within our values: the church versus secular society, openness versus closing our communities to “the other”, human rights versus needs for strict and radicalized laws etc.
- What is our role in the context of these polarities? How do we exist within this new and still changing reality?
Through a series of online discussions, lectures, presentations and workshops, organised in combined (closed and open for public) sessions, the Congress will refer to its theme by mapping and scaling the challenges facing the contemporary society in different contexts. The challenges are related to unequal opportunities for cultural actors in practicing culture, as much as for citizens in practicing freedom of expression and movement in the common local, national or supranational territory. Also, throughout the specific thematic frames, we will try to relate contexts, reflect on positive practices and explore models of cultural and other public policies that produce and promote care, equality and reciprocity. The main challenge is to endure reflection and understand that we are not isolated and alone, our common ground is based on equity, sharing and solidarity, and thus we can unite and move forward in culture based on these shared values.
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Oracle – International Congress of Cultural Managers and Cultural Operators is organised by Lokomotiva – Centre for New Initiatives in Arts and Culture and Oracle Cultural Network, with financial support from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia.