Programme
The atelier was addressed to young festival managers who were interested in taking part in an exchange with a global collective and spending a week together, dealing with questions about the role and meaning of festivals in communities of conflict and contested spaces. The exchange was based on a fundamental openness, mutual attention, and curiosity to learn and think about new perspectives in the context of everyone’s own curatorial and programming activities and aimed to create strong communities of solidarity. The Atelier created a space to talk about the key challenges in everyone's own festival work context and to reflect on better practices together with mentors, cross sector experts and guest speakers. The Ateliers programme focused on developing and sharing theoretical reflections as well as hands-on tools with each other in a safer space environment.
The programme included panel discussions guided by renowned festival leaders and cross-sector experts from across the globe, small working groups, thematic lunches, cross-discipline round tables, and plenary sessions. There was time and space for informal one-to-one talks during the programme, during meals, walks or cultural visits in the framework of Buffer Fringe Festival 2022.
All workshops and conversations were developed in close relation with our partners and the context in which the Atelier takes place, serving as a source of inspiration and discussions by meeting local actors.
You can find the full programme of Atelier Nicosia here (dated as of 06/10/2022)
Here is a brief list of some of the topics that were explored throughout the Atelier in Nicosia:
- The Arts, Festivals and Peace-Building
- Festivals as contributors to progressive social transformation
- Learnings of the experience of the COVID pandemic as a global crisis
- Sustainability and the Ethics of Festival Funding
- Solidarity, solidarity fatigue and networking
- Festival-making/the arts in contexts of physical violence (armed conflict)
- Festival-making/the arts in contexts of ethnic/tribal divisions
- Festival-making/the arts in contexts of political division or religious intolerance
- Festival-making/the arts in the context of patriarchy, gender-based violence, gender discrimination
- Models for Curating and Programming Festivals
- Climate Change and its meaning for festivals
- Digital Technology and Festivals
- Sustainable business models and practices for Festivals
- Caring for Artists and Technical Crew
- Audience Development and Retention