The central theme of the conference, diversity in culture and the creative industries, will offer an understanding of “diversity” as an essential ingredient of quality assurance in culture and the creative industries. At the same time, diversity will be portrayed as a precondition for securing high-quality content to be offered to the audiences by CCIs.
From September 12-14, Rijeka’s RiHub, Grahovčeva 1, will host the International Conference on Diversity in Culture and the Creative Industries, with the participation of about 30 domestic and international cultural and creative practitioners and workers in the fields of culture, science, arts and the media, organised by Rijeka 2020 – European Capital of Culture and the Academy of Applied Arts of the University of Rijeka. The event will also serve as a platform for showcasing the results of frontier research into diversity in these fields, the first of its kind conducted in Croatia.
The conference will offer discussions on a number of interesting questions; What kind of influence does role assignment in TV shows and movies have on the generations that grow up watching them? What happens when, after more than half a century of literary and movie history, the new agent 007 is no longer a white man but a black woman? How does cultural and creative content relate to the sex/gender or age of cultural workers? A host of domestic and international cultural and creative practitioners will participate in panels, discussions and lectures and they will offer their understanding of diversity – in theory, film, old and new media, arts, music, video gaming etc. through keynote lectures, panels and presentations of their own works.
The first conference panel, “Diversity as a Precondition for Music Industry Development“, will have Ilija Milošević of Universal Music Group, the writer and journalist Antonela Marušić and Karlo Stojčević of 24 sata examine the status of women in the music industry and music criticism, new and unexpected identities that are gaining global popularity, the relationship between the centre and the periphery in music and the changed relationship between the alternative and the mainstream.
That same day on Thursday, 12 September, Mayor of Rijeka Vojko Obersnel, Ivana Popović of the Croatian Cluster of Competitiveness of Creative and Cultural Industries and Mirjana Matešić of the Croatian Business Council for Sustainable Development will speak about the topic of diversity and equality in the development of cities and the relationship between the public and private sectors at the “Cities of Equality” panel, which will be moderated by Nela Simić, the Rijeka 2020 d.o.o. PR Coordinator.
Two panels will be held on Friday, the second day of the conference – one on the media, their social role and the struggle to survive in a digital environment, with the participation of Alissa Quart of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project from the USA and Danica Ilić of the Ethical Journalism Network From Great Britain, and another on the video game industry as a new area of social engagement, with the participation of curator and theorist Srđan Laterza, Vedran Vivoda of the Association of Video Game Companies of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County and the researcher David Rajlić.
Also visiting Rijeka as part of the conference will be Srđan Sandić with his original project, the theatrological platform Reading Theatre of the Zagreb Youth Theatre, which has addressed current theatrological and broader social issues for the past two years.
On Saturday at the conference, the leading digital culture and new media theorist Lev Manovich will present his new project Elsewhere, which explores the changes in diversity in various areas of culture by using Internet data – that is, millions of user records from 2007 to 2019, aiming to establish new methods of studying the cultural and creative industries.
A visit to the opening of the D’Annunzio’s Martyr exhibition, which opens at 7 pm at the Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral in Rijeka, is planned for the first day of the conference. Forming part of the pre-programme of “Borders – Between Order and Chaos”, this exhibition commemorates the 100th anniversary of D’Annunzio’s occupation of Rijeka by personifying the city as a woman and alluding to his many mistresses, who were left physically and emotionally drained after he ended their relationship, just like the city of Rijeka.
The conference is realized as part of the Diversity Mixer project, which is funded by the EU Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020) and is implemented jointly by RIJEKA 2020 d.o.o. and the Academy of Applied Arts of the University of Rijeka, in cooperation with the Croatian Business Council for Sustainable Development as an associate partner.
Participation is free, with mandatory registration.
The complete programme of the conference is here.
