On Friday, March 9th, in DeltaLab (Delta 5/2) the international cooperation programme Tandem was presented – a programme in which Rijeka 2020 ECOC takes part through its Classroom programme.
Jotham Sietsma from Berlin’s MitOst and Olga Alexeeva from Dutch European Cultural Foundation, two institutions which founded this international cooperation programme, talked about the ways one can participate in Tandem’s future activities.
You see, Tandem is a cooperation programme connecting various European workers in culture by offering them a networking platform for joint projects (created in tandem), and also providing professional and financial aid. Currently, over 350 European cultural managers and event creators are working on joint cultural and art projects.
The programme covers diverse geographic and thematic areas such as social innovation in Europe but also community work in Ukraine and Turkey, offering space for building reasonable and sustainable relations that can be further developed through mutual artistic interests, which increases empathy, cancels out stereotypes, and shapes a common language.
The first version of Tandem programme connected with ECOC cities is Tandem Fryslân in cooperation with the Dutch city of Leeuwarden, this year’s ECOC.
Thanks to Tandem Fryslân programme and in cooperation with Rijeka 2020, representatives Ivona Miloš of KUD Praputnjak and Ivana Lučić of Kombinat were last year selected from among almost a hundred applicants to participate in Tandem Fryslân and develop their art projects in partnership with Dutch art collectives.
At Rijeka presentation of the Tandem programme, Ivona Miloš shared her experiences with the project so far. Also, Rijeka’s cultural workers were informed about this programme’s further activities, including the open call for participating in Tandem Shaml 2018 – 2019, an exchange programme for cultural managers from Europe and the Arab region.
The Tandem presentation served as an introduction for a several days long gathering/workshop for project participants so far, cultural workers from the Netherlands, Greece, Ukraine, Great Britain, Ireland, France, and Croatia. They will all have an opportunity to live and work with the Praputnjak rural community, from March 9th to March 13th, and the workshop will help them develop ideas, plan an exchange programme for artists/partner organizations’ representatives, define their work plan, and they will also sign a project financing contract.
