The Annual Conference and the General Assembly of the European Council of Artists ECA,
Sibiu, 2007
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ECA
The European Council of the Artists is a pan-European organization founded in 1995 of the national organizations of the art creators and performer artists. It represents a partner of dialogue and cooperation of the most important European and international institutions and organisms. The executive office is functioning in Copenhagen and the statutes of the organisation are made according to the laws of this country.
The most important annual event of The European Council of Artists ECA is a conference organized by one of the 25 member countries, throughout two days, with a participation of approximately 50 artists, researchers, philosophers, journalists, sociologists connected to the arts life, cultural managers, MEPs or other categories of politicians and artists of the host-country. The conference is followed by the General Assembly of the organization. This is an opportunity to intensify the dialogue and look for common points linking artists everywhere but also to meet local artists and make acquaintance with the cultural environment that hosts the event.
ANUC
The National Alliance of the Creators’ Unions is a founding member of the ECA and since the start in 1995, it had a constant involvement in many projects and actions initiated within the organisation. In September 2003, ANUC organized The Conference and General Assembly of the ECA at Bucharest, benefiting from a funding from the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs and a sponsorship from a private firm. The organization was considered to be a success by the Executive Committee of ECA, and the artistic moment – the concert of the Old Music Studio in Cuhnia (Kitchen) of the Mogosoaia Palace, where the exhibition of the Nicodim spouses was set up – was emotional and of the best quality for the audience. Finally, ANUC got a good mark at the chapters of organization and reflection in the local media (the most substantial press brief that an ECA event has benefited from). The topic of the Conference, proposed by ANUC, Artists Sharing without Frontiers in the Enlargement Process, invited to debate artists from EU member countries but also artists from countries in preparation for adhesion over the common future; the final conclusions were less defined, leaving the topic open. As a follow-up of the event from Bucharest, ANUC published the official report of the conference for ECA, and in cooperation with the Cultural Point of Contact of Romania a bilingual work presenting the progress of the conference and the relevant documents for the topic of the EU.
Sibiu, european cultural capital in 2007
ANUC proposed to ECA General Assembly since 2004 the organisation of the ECA conference of 2007 in Sibiu, as part of the programme of the European capital of culture. The project is based on the synergy of two directions of the community action in the field of culture: the cultural capital and support for European non-governmental organisations and on the assumption that the ECA event and the ‘schedule’ of the European capital of culture have both to gain from one another.
Sibiu is a location with a cultural and tourist “infrastructure” able to receive an audience that should measure up to the attractiveness of the tourist objectives and the calendar of actions of a European cultural capital. Sibiu is to bring the plus-value of a historical centre very well kept, with an exceptional heritage, multicultural, with many scholarly young people, teachers, artists etc., of a cultural and intellectual environment of a regional capital, with values that are not hastily gathered, around 2007, but have to do with the set, deep, tradition, perceptible at every step.
From a reversed perspective, the town of Sibiu, with its demands and expectations of the community and cultural operators, has to gain from the encounter with the European artists at the chapters of image, promotion, dialogue and acknowledgement, artistic interdisciplinarity etc.
Specific objectives of the project included in the official programme of the European capital of culture are:
- the debate of one of the most important and present-day topic having to do with the artist, his fulfilment through creativity and his role in society
- the contribution to the making of a wide, European lobby platform for the Status of the artist in Europe and the signing of an agreement in this sense at Sibiu
- the set up of an ad hoc dialogue between the artists participants from Europe and artists, intellectuals, administrators of institutions and cultural organizations from the area of Sibiu, in the cultural landscape offered by Sibiu in 2007
- the acknowledgement and promotion in the originating environments of the cultural stake that Sibiu is going to represent in 2007.
The topic proposed by the Romanian organizer – ANUC, founding member of ECA – for the ECA Conference from Sibiu in 2007 is “Artist, creativity, society. Challenges for the status of the artist in the beginning of the 21st century.” The awareness on the status of artists was raised first time in the European scene within the recommendations of the 21st UNESCO General conference held in Belgrade, 1980, that became rapidly the most important document in this topic. UNESCO General conference of Paris in 1997 confirmed the that the problematic is still current and effective progress was expected. Last UNESCO gathering on this topic was held in Vilnius, in 2003, where the organisers focused on the capacity of governments and artists organisations to make of the status of artists an instrument with legal force.
Since its founding, ECA had permanently an acute interest in the problem and tried to diversify the content and to make known case of artists whose rights were put in danger. The agenda of the 2005 ECA conference in Vilnius included a panel for the status of artist, the more that Lithuania, is, as fat is we know, the only country in European having a Law on the status of artist.
Romania registered an intensification of the specific debate after the UNESCO conference in Paris. Thus, at the end of the ANUC conference in 1998, numerous organisations of artists and the Ministry of Culture signed a common declaration on the Status of authors and performers in Romania, being an important proof of a sectorial partnership between representatives of Government and civil society considered to be notable by the ECA organisations.
Not only the Vilnius or the Romanian experiences convinced the local organiser of the 2007 ECA conference to choose the theme. In 2006 it was initiated in the European Parliament a document raising expectations from the artist organisations: the Gibault report on the social status of artists, adopted by the Parliament in July 2007.
Participants on Sibiu conference will debate the most recent evolution regarding the economic and social condition of artists, intellectual property rights and the means to protect all type of rights within mobility, the cultural policies of the national governments to sustain creativity of artists, the continuous professional formation, co-operation in European programs and projects and, the follow-up of the adoption of Gibault report in Parliament. It is necessary a wider collaboration and coherence amongst professional organisations for lobbying, for tools to enable them to have a greater impact on the decision making process of specific legislation and cultural policies. Visits are to be organised across the cultural space of the European capital Sibiu, each group of participants is to freely adhere to an artistic topic based on which there is to be made a meeting with artists and cultural managers from the area, in cultural locations of prime interest in the town.
The project has a strong European component – topic, organizers, participants, objectives, methodology. It is a cultural and professional European event by excellence, this being the stake of the project. Of course, together with the European dimension, another strong feature is the capacity of the operational place to offer the participants the possibility to know “in situ” a cultural landscape of a great specificity, multicultural, multiethnic, of confluences, put in value in a moment of excellence, by the European context.
PROGRAM OF THE ECA CONFERNECE – 28-30 SEPTEMBER 2007
STATEMENT OF THE ECA PRESIDENT LUDWIG LAHER
MAP WITH THE VENUES OF THE CONFERENCE AGENDA
ECA Annual Conference 2007
Artist, Creativity, Society - Challenges for the Status of the Artist in the beginning of the 21st Century 28-30 September 2007, Sibiu, Romania
Arranged in cooperation with ANUC (the National Alliance of Creators' Unions) and supported by the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs of Romania within the programme Sibiu, European Capital of Culture 2007
Draft programme:
Friday 28 September
Arrival, airport transfer, hotel registration
Opening meeting in the City Hall, 2 Samuel Brukenthal St., 18.00
Reception offered by the Mayor Klauss Johannis in the inner court of the City Hall, 18.30
Saturday 29 September
the State Philharmonic in Sibiu, Little hall, 3-5 Cetatii St.
Morning, 9.30-13.00
1. panel: The Status of the Artist – Between wishful thinking in professional organizations and policies of the governments
Speeches by
Ion Caramitru, president of the Theatre Creators’ Union and former Minister of Culture, Romania
Marcela Stoica, Director general, Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs of Romania
Invited to debate: representatives of the ministries of culture in Austria, Lithuania and Republik Srpska
Moderator: Vivan Storlund, researcher, Finland
Afternoon, 14.30-17.30
Guided tour in the historic centre towards the locations of the 4 Workshops on thematic groups / meeting point State Philharmonic, 14.30
Workshops, 15.30-17.30, in the following locations:
- performance arts, National Theatre, guest hall, 2 Corneliu Coposu Blvd.
- music (composition and performance), State Philharmonic in Sibiu, Little hall, 3-5 Cetatii St.
- visual arts, architecture and urban regeneration, Chamber of Romanian Architects – Sibiu-Valcea Branch, 6 Tribunei St., 2nd floor))
- literature and cultural publishing, “Astra” Library, corp B (new building), 5 Gheorghe Baritiu St.
Performance: „Faust” by Goethe, direction by Silviu Purcarete, production of „Radu Stanca” National Theatre, Centrala Simeron (industrial site), 2 Ghetariei St., 20.00 – meeting point: State Philharmonic, parking, Coposu Blvd., 19.15 sharp; transfer by bus to the hotel after the performance
Sunday 30 September
the State Philharmonic in Sibiu, Little hall, 3-5 Cetatii St.
Morning, 9.30-13.00
2. panel: Mobility of authors and performers
Speeches by
Liviu Danceanu, composer, Union of Composers and Musicologists, Romania
Konstanze Breitebner, actress, VÖFS (Austrian Actors Association), Austria
Moderator: Ovidiu Victor Gant, MEP, Romania
3. panel: Authors' and performers' rights
Speeches by
Philippe Kern, researcher, Belgium
Eugen Vasiliu, deputy general director, Romania Office for the Author’s Right
Moderator: Pia Raug, composer, Denmark
Afternoon, 14.30-17.30
4. panel: Report on the social status of artists adopted by the European Parliament. Status of the Artist – legal instrument?
Speeches by
Erna Hennicot-Schoepges, MEP, former Minister of culture, Luxembourg
Kornelijus Platelis, writer, president of the Lithuanian Association of Artists
Dumitru Serban, sculptor, president of the Romanian Union of Visual Artists
Moderator: Ludwig Laher, writer, president of ECA, Austria
Final debate. Resolution. Closure
Notes.
On the duration of the conference lunches and coffee breaks will be ensured for the participants in the foyer of the State Philharmonic.
The language of the conference works is English; however there will be simultaneous translation from and into Romanian and consecutive translation in the Workshops.
Transfer by bus from the airport (arrival) and from Centrala Simerom to the hotel will be ensured with the support of the Association Sibiu 2007.
