The eBook is a free publication released with convenience that knowledge – especially related to culture and its surroundings – should be accessible without limitations to anyone interested in the subject. Below in this post, you will find links to download the publication Culture and Development: Beyond Neoliberal Reason in EPUB, MOBI and PDF formats.

I believe that we’re inside the process of finding accurate cultural practices and policies to express the democratic revolution we are all forcing to push forward. I was working on compiling this book with an intention to make at least one step ahead in achieving this goal. I personally found working on the book adventurous and intellectually exciting. I hope those passions are transmitted by the publication at least to a small extent.

Please, read it if you find interesting exploring our understanding of how culture, in its variety, different organisational and institutional forms, driven by citizens creativity, community oriented sensitivities and democratic spirit, can influence social development and struggle against economic and cultural inequalities, beyond what has been recognised until know as a paradigm of creative class and cultural industries, or – in the simplest words: beyond neoliberal reason.

If you find the publication worth sharing among your networks, please do so.

• Link to PDF format version of the eBook accessible on line
• Link to EPUB and MOBI formats versions for a free download (red button at bottom left, under “Culture and Development”)

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The post Culture and Development: Beyond Neoliberal Reason appeared first on P2P Foundation.

This piece by Igor Stokfiszewski was originally published on PoliticalCritique.

This is the second part of Igor Stokfiszewski’s analysis of activities conducted in Ursus – a post-industrial district of Warsaw – by a Polish artist Ja?mina Wójcik in collaboration with Political Critique’s team which are being exercised since year 2011. In the first part of his article author concentrated on reflections inspired by Factory. Ursus 2014 project. A second part – presented below – describes experiences of Let’s Save the Ursus Factory Souvenirs! social campaign performed in a year 2015 and recent developments of artistic activities in Ursus and their influence on a quality of democracy.

I. Saving Ursus Factory Museum Collection Social Campaign

What we learned from Ursus inhabitants in Factory. Ursus 2014 project and what we heard at the neighbourhood dinner table

The exploration phase of Factory. Ursus 2014 project revealed preserving the memory of the factory and the district to be the subject causing the strongest emotional response in among Ursus inhabitants. This came to us as a surprise. We had though that the most urgent issue was re-industrialisation of Ursus and ensuring continued industrial activity in the district. While local entrepreneurs – an important party in the debate about the shape of the district – made a strong case for it, to the local inhabitants this issue was not a priority. This is an important lesson. When listening to those who speak the loudest it is easy to pass over the more numerous but less vocal.
The issue that was the most prominent in the feedback from the inhabitants of Ursus was the need to give their district a new identity, rooted in its historical industrial culture, which was manifested explicitly in the efforts to preserve Ursus History Museum. Since this is the first time I touch upon this topic I am going introduce you to the key facts.
Ursus History Museum is a collection of the factory’s machines and memorabilia, some dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century, that were stored and displayed in various locations around the factory premises over several decades of its existence. The Museum’s collection includes Poland’s first agricultural tractor from 1922, Sokó? 100 motorbike from 1936, consecutive post-war models of Ursus tractors, visitors’ books, factory banners and engine models from as early as the 1920s.
As a result of ownership transformations the exhibits displayed in hall 270 became a property of Polski Holding Obronny (former Bumar) a state-owned a munitions producer operating as a commercial entity. The collection is not officially recognized as a museum. It was the factory’s property and was passed into the ownership of PHO together with the premises. In 2012 PHO put the collection up for sale for 1.2 million zlotys. In 2014 the amount grew beyond 1.5 m zlotys. The company wanted to get rid of the collection of nearly hundred-years-old factory that presented no value to them. Alarmed, former Ursus workers, inhabitants of the district and agricultural industry enthusiasts turned to the local authorities to save the collection. However their appeal to City of Warsaw Office, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and Museum of Technology and Industry to purchase the collection, fell on deaf ears. Ursus Museum continued to be the property of PHO and the local community’s patience their faith in their local representatives succeeding in saving the collection were wearing thin.

Mourning the factory

The Ursus Museum issue evoked particularly strong emotions among the residents o Ursus because to the local community’s inability to what Jaśmina Wójcik termed ‘mourn the factory’. According to the zoning plan adopted by the Council of Warsaw in June/July 2014, all of its plants, except for seven buildings from the 1920s and 30s (modelling workshop, aluminium foundry, iron foundry, repair workshop, bronze foundry, warehouse and mechanics workshop) located in Traktorzystów and Cierlicka streets, that have been placed on the historic preservation list, are to be pulled down. This means that an important part of the material heritage of Ursus’ industrial culture, inseparably linked to the history of Poland’s twentieth century industry and the birth of communist times democratic opposition is doomed to disappear. The Ursus History Museum collection will shortly become the last accessible to the public material trace of local industrial history. Ursus inhabitants with whom we worked during our time in the district want to preserve Ursus Museum because its collection is a visible reminder of their input in the history of the last half-century, a reminder about to be wiped away together with the material heritage of Ursus factory. It could be felt that a proper commemoration of the experiences of Ursus inhabitants would help them come to terms with the loss that was the closing of Ursus factory and removal of the majority of its workshops and offices. This would enable them to go through ‘proper mourning of Ursus factory’ and focus on the future of their district. Hence, tempers were running high around the sale of the museum collection.
It became obvious that our next step in working with the inhabitants of Ursus should be ensuring the preservation of Ursus History Museum. We embarked on preparations to a social campaign that would ensure achieving this goal. We moved from community-geared artistic practices to city activism drawing inspiration from artistic energy and methodology.

Miasto – Wspólna Sprawa coalition for the preservation of Ursus History Museum

Towards the end of 2014 we started searching for the possibilities to develop and deliver the campaign. Simultaneously, Association of Creative Initiatives “?”, an organization very active in the area of cultural and social animation, received funding for an international project supporting the activities of Warsaw local communities, and invited us to bring our Ursus activities into the project. We accepted their invitation since joining forces also meant expanding the group of people and organizations interested in Ursus. In cooperation with the groups involved in the newly-founded coalition Miasto – Wspólna Sprawa (City – Common Cause) (formed by several Warsaw-based community organizations, including: Otwarty Jazdów, Inicjatywa Osiedle Przyja?? and Inicjatywa Mieszka?ców Kultura na Sielcach) and with the support of local leaders and authorities we embarked on the mission to buy the collection from former Bumar and establish a cultural-educational centre in Ursus that would provide the public with access to the collection. Following the wishes of Ursus community, the centre would also serve as a place for community integration. The main idea behind it was keeping alive a hundred years of Ursus’ industrial history and conducting educational activities about the district and the challenges it currently faces. The centre would also serve as a material manifestation of the on-going process, the district’s transition from its industrial past to communal future. On 20 February 2015 we began collecting signatures under the petition to the President of Warsaw Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, requesting her to support to the efforts for preserving the Ursus History Museum collection and opening the community centre. The campaign launch was accompanied by the first screening of Ursus znaczy niedźwiedź (The film was created for the campaign. It was not intended as a documentation of our activities. Instead, its main purpose was to introduce the public to the situation in Ursus. Its role was to serve the community activities and the community itself). Its first screening in Arsus Culture Centre attracted hundreds viewers: inhabitants of Ursus, local authorities and community leaders. Polski Holding Obronny was also represented (incognito, as they urged o inform us). The campaign Save Ursus Factory Collection started with a bang. For the two following months we collected signatures under the petition. The document was published on-line (in Polish and English), but the off-line campaign was our priority. Acting in league with other organizations in Miasto – Wspólna Sprawa coalition we organized screenings of Ursus znaczy niedźwiedź in various locations in Warsaw and encouraged viewers to sign the petition. We also collected signatures on Warsaw streets, including the historical Castle Square, to draw the attention of Warsaw inhabitants to the Ursus issue. We also deployed an intensive campaign in the mainstream media, encouraging journalists to take interest in Ursus. The topic’s importance and the strong presence of Ursus in the public sphere made our campaign genuinely loud and successful. When we arrived in Warsaw City Office on 20 April 2015 to hand the petition with over 2.5 thousand signatures to Vice President of Warsaw Jarosław Jóźwiak, he was ready to announce officially that Warsaw City Council had already decided to buy the collection and Ursus authorities had decided to found the museum and the culture and integration centre. Ursus community effectively became a political identity with voice and agency in deciding about the district’s future and its material shape. It began creating their own reality.

Art and activism

Since April 2015 our work with and for the local community of Ursus has followed two parallel avenues of social practice and urban activism. We have succeeded in convincing the authorities to include a ‘local centre’ in the Ursus district plans – part of the district that will be transformed to serve for community integration. The centre will be located around Park Hassów, in Nied?wiadek, a workers’ quarter built in the 1960s. We have also monitored the execution of Ursus participation budget and the application of other, similar instruments of social participation. We also succeeded in including Ursus in the celebrations of European Cultural Heritage Days 2015. On the same year we delivered an artistic project Ursus – Spacer w Czasie (Ursus – Walk through Time). This time, remembering Ursus’ history and its present need for more public visibility, we developed an augmented reality application with archival documentary footage abut Ursus and the memories of its inhabitants. Available free of charge, the application serves to build bridges between generations (and classes), between new technology users and older workers of the former Ursus Factory. The initiative is accompanied by a documentary (Ursus – spacer w czasie[1]) presenting the businesses that continue to operate on the premises of the former factory, and with Ursus workers sharing their memories with viewers. We have yet to produce a full-length documentary about Ursus and take other steps to ensure the preservation of possibly the highest number of material traces of the industrial activity on the area of the former factory that is gradually cleared of its remains.
Another project we have delivered in Ursus is Chcemy Usłyszeć Wasze Historie (We Want to Hear Your Stories) Launched in September 2015, it started as a part of workshops for a multi-national group of artists and activists, a collaboration with European Alternatives. Ursus community continues to need support, which is why we asked workshop participants to create a message to former workers of the factory to be written on a banner that we could take to the celebrations od European Cultural Heritage Day. The message, written in seven languages, was exactly that: ‘We Want to Hear Your Stories’ and it was received very well by the local community of Ursus. Since then, each time we talk about our activities in Ursus, we ask the audience to create a message to the inhabitants of Ursus that we then pass to them. This gives them a sense of continued support while also ensuring that we do not forget about the local Ursus community, wherever we are.

II. Summary

Our work in Ursus continues, geared towards strengthening democratic processes and the local community towards becoming a heterogeneous yet integrated political subject with genuine agency, capable of influencing the world around them, changing it to their autonomous will, rather than being an object decisions made by political powers and business. We do so through practicing socially engaged art boosted by civic activism instruments, and the reverse – social activism augmented by practices developed in the cultural domain. To help a community successfully shape their reality, a new approach to artistic practice is needed, preferably one that is aligned with the trend described by Cristina Flesher Fominaya as ‘democratic turn’. To conduct such activities we should learn to go beyond the artistic practices and reach for activist instruments, learn to switch between art and activism; effective delivery of social campaigns and building coalitions geared towards these campaigns, always remembering that the goals are to be determined by the community, and it is the community that is the ultimate judge of our effectiveness and legitimizes our actions (also the artistic practices, therefore rendering them free from the bondage striving for the approval of the artistic community or public authorities). Finally, it should be remembered that it is impossible to be completely independent of the political powers and business. To achieve goals relevant to a given community, we also need to interact with these two stakeholders. However, we should always remember that it is the community that is the main agent and that an artist or activist must always take the side of the community, the common good, work for its benefit and be accountable to it for their actions and words.
[1] Wójcik, J. (2015) Ursus – spacer w czasie, Stowarzyszenie im. Stanis?awa Brzozowskiego, M. st. Warszawa, Instytut Studów Zaawansowanych, Warsaw, available on http://bit.ly/1XjL8e5 [as of: 10 May 2016].

The post URSUS FACTORY PROJECT. Democratic Turn through Art (2) appeared first on P2P Foundation.

This is the first part of Igor Stokfiszewski’s analysis of activities conducted in Ursus – a post-industrial district of Warsaw – by a Polish artist Ja?mina Wójcik in collaboration with Political Critique’s team which are being exercised since year 2011. In this part an author concentrates on reflections inspired by “Factory. Ursus 2014” project. A second part of an article which will be published next week describes experiences of “Let’s Save the Ursus Factory Souvenirs!” social campaign performed in a year 2015 and recent developments of artistic activities in Ursus and their influence on a quality of democracy.

This text is a reflection on the relationship between artistic practices and the quality of democracy. It analyses cultural activities conducted by artist Ja?mina Wójcik in collaboration with the Institute of Advanced Study in Warsaw (an independent research and education centre, with culture as an instrument for transforming the socio-political reality and the vehicle of social development among its fields of study). Our activities in Ursus, a district of the capital city of Warsaw, aimed primarily at improving the quality of democratic life and are in line with the trend described by Cristina Flesher Fominaya – an expert in contemporary social movements and transformations in the era of globalisation – as democratic turn”[1]. The turn manifests itself in activities (social, artistic or cultural) enriching communities in three areas: 1) free expression of individuals and groups as a condition necessary for the emergence of a healthy community; 2) the community itself, sensitive to the needs and hopes of individuals, and 3) grass-roots agency, genuine opportunities for affecting reality by the communities. These three categories can be translated into tasks towards improving the quality of democratic life: 1) establishing platforms, frames for individual and collective articulation of needs and expectations, and ensuring they are heard; 2) developing collective processes towards forging individual components into a community that is sensitive to the needs of the individual; and 3) giving prominence to grass-roots agency, initiatives to transform needs and expectations into facts. The latter could be termed ‘beyond participation’[2] , after Sam Khebizi – French theatre artist, scholar, founder of Les Têtes de l’Art centre in Marseilles, whose main focus is working with the local community. The term refers to intensifying democracy-oriented efforts by expanding beyond the paradigm of participation in the direction of communal decision-making or co-governance. Below, I outline the methodology of activities conducted with the application of cultural instruments for improving the quality of democracy.

At the invitation of the European Cultural Foundation, in summer 2014, I wrote an article Culture for Democracy: A Central European Perspective[3]. Representatives of ECF had taken part in the artistic-social events that took place in Ursus in the spring of 2014. The report from those events was the subject of the article and the invitation to write it was directly connected with our participation in the project. The text itself, written shortly after the campaign and as a part of project Factory. Ursus 2014 was, quite naturally, imbued with the perspective of the events. In the conclusion of Culture for Democracy: A Central European Perspective I proposed the following programme:

“It is crucial to appreciate cultural activities as forming a natural component in the promotion of social wellbeing through the grass-roots practice of being together, social interaction and applying surrounding material resources to one’s own imagination and aesthetics. […] We should pay particular attention to artistic activity that aims to encourage grass-roots self-expression through art by non- professional artists. Secondly, we should encourage practices that are geared towards the community, shaping extra-verbal ways of creating bonds through developing empathy and reciprocity. Thirdly, it is worth stressing the importance of creative initiatives that aim to reclaim emancipation narratives […]. We should also stress the importance of discussing the symbols appearing in public space that could refresh collective iconography and symbolism.”[4]

With several years of working in Ursus community under my belt, I shall attempt in this essay to operationalize the above program and answer the questions: How can artistic and cultural practices be applied for the betterment of democratic life? What content expressed in and through such activities should be poured into the intuitions about the democratic turn of art – art that reinforces this tendency in social and socio-political life?

Before we move on to the analysis of the activities that took place in Ursus, I should make an important note. In this account I repeatedly use of the pronoun ‘We’. One of the essentials of positive actions for democracy is democracy in action. Since 2013 Ursus campaigns have been developed and executed by a team consisting of Ja?mina Wójcik – initiator of the project, Izabela Jasiska, Pat Kulka, myself and a dozen of other individuals whom we have repeatedly approached for assistance as well as those who volunteered to work with us. Depending on the need and type of activity, these individuals have been directly involved in or supported the project. Hence, by ‘We’ I mean the group of people who have developed the program of activities and executed them as well as our Ursus-based collaborators who identify with it, more specifically, people who feel a part of the community active in Ursus and working for Ursus. Moreover, in the essay I use large sections of the texts created in the past for various reasons, often administrative or fundraising purposes, as reports or printed information. Although in most cases composed by me, the texts were edited, that is practically co-authored by the team mentioned above. Therefore, this essay in a sense represents our collective work, although obviously, I assume full responsibility for its contents.

Factory. Ursus 2014. What is Ursus?

Ursus is a district of Warsaw located in the southwestern part of the city. A former industrial zone, it is not however a post-industrial area in the sense of the socio-economic consequences of the fall of the factory formerly occupying the area. It is very conveniently communicated with the centre (16 minutes by a local train, covered by the unified Warsaw public transport payment system) and a relatively dynamically growing area.

The history of Ursus reaches back to the nineteen-twenties when the company Posag 7 Panien built a motor works in Czechowice village. 60 years later Ursus was already the home of Europe’s largest tractor factory. The history of Ursus is inextricably linked with the history of Polish industry in the twentieth century. It was there that Poland’s first trucks were built. It was Ursus Factory that supplied vehicles for Polish army before WWII. The local factory of agricultural machinery was the pride of Polish industry after the war and exported its tractors to Europe and the Middle East. The factory also played a crucial role in the birth of democratic opposition in the communist times. Ursus factory strike that began on 25 June 1976 (simultaneously with the protests in Radom and P?ock) was one of the events that gave rise to the founding of KOR – Workers’ Defence Committee, the first open democratic opposition organization in the communist era, one of the foundations of the later trade union movement, and consecutively political movement of Solidarity. Ursus workers, technicians and engineers were approached by the leaders of KOR Henryk Wujec and Jacek Kuro?. In the 1980s Lech Wa??sa repeatedly came to Ursus to show his support to the Solidarity trade union active in the factory and to its leaders Zbigniew Janas and Zbigniew Bujak who have since become icons of the struggle to overthrow communist authoritarian rule.

As a punishment for the strikes and cooperation with KOR, Ursus was deprived of administrative independence. It ceased to be a town and became a district of Warsaw. This was a turning point in its history. The following decades brought a gradual degradation of the factory (first, due to the failed investment in the Massey-Ferguson licence, then the bankruptcy and liquidation of the factory, following the political and economic transformations in the 1990s). The first years of the twenty-first century saw a gradual termination of manufacturing activity in Ursus and ownership transformations turning the former industrial area into a residential district. Ursus brand was purchased by POL-MOT Warfarma together with the new tractor assembly line and in 2012 transferred to Lublin (currently the brand continues to manufacture tractors also in a factory built in Adama, Ethiopia).

Why did we launch activities in Ursus? Motivation

On 21 April 2013 Ja?mina Wójcik, artist and teacher at Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, conducted an Acoustic Walk around the premises of former Ursus Factory. The event consisting of a guided walk around the premises of the factory with the accompaniment of pre-recorded interviews with former factory’s workers (played on portable speakers) was addressed to all people who had collaborated with Wójcik on the recordings and to the artist’s friends. To the surprise of all, the walk attracted hundreds of people – mostly local residents. The area formerly occupied by the factory is not often visited by the inhabitants of the neighbouring residential quarters (due to restricted access to some sections, the factory’s location, away from the main pedestrian routes, partially also due to the neglected condition of the area discouraging potential strollers). The initiative aroused keen interest among the members of the local community who continued to view the former Ursus factory as symbol of the district’s identity.

Wójcik had personal motives for executing the walk. The artist’s father was born and raised in Ursus.  It is the family archaeology that inspired her to launch activities for the Ursus community. The artist had visited the district in 2011 for a reason that had nothing to do with the factory or her artistic pursuits. She saw the ruins of the former factory, photographed them and showed the photos to her father. He showed great interest in the pictures illustrating decomposition of the industrial tissue since he recalled the place bustling with activity and with thousands of workers. The image of Ursus emerging from the accounts of Wójcik’s father inspired the artist to seek contact with former workers of the Ursus factory and to record their recollections with the aim to preserve the atmosphere of the life of the factory and the district. The got down to work and posted announcements around Ursus, inviting people to contact her about recording their memories. From then on the events snowballed, with the artist contacted by dozens of former employees, trade union activists, local community leaders as well as entrepreneurs currently operating on the area of the former factory. It was then that the concept of the acoustic walk was born. Wójcik spent two years recording interviews with the residents of the district, building relations with the local community and gaining their trust. The walk was initially intended as a token of gratitude to former Ursus workers for dedicating their time and sharing their memories with the artist, which was instrumental in preserving the memory of the dissolved factory. The project was executed practically with close to zero costs and was a result of a personal impulse. Its success was a direct result of the artist’s determination, and the empathy-driven growing bond developed between Wójcik and former workers of Ursus Factory. Information about the event travelled through the grapevine among the residents of the district and was announced on posters displayed in public places around Ursus and via the social media, The tremendous interest in the event revealed that the community of Ursus and other participants of the event recognized the authenticity and strength of the undertaking. For this I can vouch myself as one of the strollers who took part in Wójcik’s Acoustic Walk.

To me personally, Ursus resonated with a familiarity reflecting my experience. I was brought up in ?ód? – a former centre of textile industry – and Ursus, as any industrial centre undergoing the process of degradation, is a place where I feel at home. However, my motivation to work in Ursus, like in other places plagued by troubles of communal nature, is best expressed through the words of Eugenio Barba – the founder of Third Theatre movement and the initiator of research referred to as theatre anthropology: ‘as though individual needs – ideals, fears, multiple impulses […] – wanted to be transformed into work, according to the attitude, viewed externally as an ethical imperative […] spanning the entire life’[5]. When one finds oneself in a place where social temperature runs high, full of conflicting emotions, and feels that by artistic activities the collective wellbeing can be improved, I simply cannot stop myself from taking action. This was the case in Ursus: the spontaneous response to the recollections of former factory workers that we witnessed during the Acoustic Walk, questions about the current condition of former factory area, also the bitterness of some former workers, were a convincing argument to take a closer look at the situation in the district and to work with its social tissue through the medium of artistic activity.       

What was the process of the artistic-social campaign in Ursus? Method

1. Exploration

We started the campaign in Ursus by embarking on an in-depth exploration of the local community, an attempt to map its characteristics and diagnose its problems. We started spending a lot of time in Ursus, meeting local community leaders, representatives of the businesses operating on the area of the former factory, representatives of state administration and cultural institutions. We analysed documents, searched for experts on all matters Ursus (we discovered two in Krzysztof Nawratek, an eminent urban planner and architect, and Edwin Bendyk, a columnist and expert in civilizational change, and the inhabitant of Ursus)

Our exploration revealed that the main problem faced by the local community was its fragmentation that made it difficult to speak with one voice on the issues related the changes under way in Ursus. The inhabitants of Ursus are divided largely along historical lines. One group is composed of the inhabitants of the oldest quarters, Czechowice and Go??bki, that existed as villages prior to the industrialization of the area. Another group is that of the residents of Nied?wiadek, a quarter developed in the 1960s to house the workers of the expanding factory. This group contains a sub-group of the workers’ descendants who live in Nied?wiadek but commute to work to the centre of Warsaw. Members of the last group are the inhabitants of a relatively recently developed Skorsze quarter.

There is very little interaction among the three groups and the constitutive aspects of their local identities fail to add to the collective identity of the entire district. These diverse identities do not form one larger local community that would be able to communicate and negotiate rules for sharing Ursus as their common home.

Moreover, the district has an unusual urban layout. Ursus is split into two parts, with its northern quarters (Nied?wiadek, Go??bki, Szamoty and a part of Czechowice, where the grounds of the former factory are located) and southern part (part of Czechowice, Skorosze) separated by a railway. The district also does not have a central area that would fulfil the function of an agora. Instead, each quarter has its own, local centre and the residents of different quarters meet nearly exclusively on the platform of the local train station or in two shopping centres – Factory and Galeria Skorosze. Historically, the entire district was organized around the factory. The factory was the centre of Ursus, its heart, its agora, and all quarters were organized around it. Today, this hart is no longer beating and the place left behind the district’s true centre (occupying roughly a quarter of its total area) is empty and dead.

The exploration lead us to conclude that the first activity geared towards the inhabitants of Ursus should be an integrative project and that it should aim at revitalising the area of the former Ursus Factory. This meant reclaiming the area for the inhabitants of Ursus to offer them a platform for integration, and doing it by creating conditions conducive to their expressing their expectations as to the changing identity and the future of Ursus.

2. Choosing practices to match social goals

Following the findings of the exploratory phase described above, we set about choosing artistic practices aimed at affecting genuine social change. We decided to propose the inhabitants of Ursus the following initiatives: 1. Tractor Parade – Ursus tractors crossing the centre of Warsaw to reach the former Ursus Factory. The parade would revive a tradition and serve as a reminder of the history of the local industry. It would also show former Ursus workers that the fruits of their labour continue to work and are cherished by their devotees. The parade was to be accompanied by Ziemia Mazowiecka Brass Orchestra, formerly the band of Ursus Factory; 2. Ursus. A Film Essay – an attempt at visualising the main questions relating to the identity of Ursus with a collage composed of newsreel footage showing the history of Ursus. The task of creating the essay was undertaken by Ja?mina Wójcik; 3. Second Acoustic Walk around the area of the former Ursus Factory with a new element: 4. Spoken Memoirs – equipment for recording and playing back the recorded memories of former Ursus workers and other inhabitants of Ursus; 5. A bird’s-eye group photograph of people holding hands and forming letters ZPC (Zrzeszenie Przemys?u Ci?gnikowego – Tractor Industry Association, former owner of Ursus Factory); 6. Providing space for individual presentations during the local Ursus events. We extended an open invitation for presenters. Responses came from people wanting to share their stories related to Ursus, the tractor industry, give talks (for example, on tractors in literature) or exhibit photographs; 7. Creative summary of all events in the form of Pawe? Althamer’s Draftsmen’s Congress – a three-day campaign of collective painting with the help of the artist and the team of his collaborators. Congress celebrates individual expression, non-verbal dialogue and shared creating. It has performs an integrative function, stimulates imagination and opens non-professional draftsmen to the experience of creation; 8. Neighbourhood Dinner – a closing event, providing the inhabitants of Ursus with the opportunity to voice their expectations towards the future of the district. The postulates would later be delivered to the relevant authorities.

To lead participants through the process of self-expression and integration, through dialogue and understanding to consensus – forming of a community – we designed the following steps: two days of working through art, inspiring people to create, encouraging to share their memories and listen to others, nurturing togetherness, building mutual trust, listening to the voices of Ursus inhabitants; on the last day we organized a collective event in the form of a ‘communal meal’[6], as described by William Robertson Smith, creating a situation in which the inhabitants of Ursus, by that time more integrated and more trusting, would be more ready to speak openly about their needs and expectations towards Ursus.

3. Moments of introspection

The dynamics of an artistic activity always has a somewhat inward, exclusive direction. The deeper we immerse ourselves in it, the more difficult it becomes to see whether our perspective is consistent with the initial goal and whether the overall direction is right. Hence the importance of opening the creative process to outside intervention, to the reflection offered by those who see the project from a safe distance, activating in creators the mechanisms of introspection. This is why, in the case of Ursus, in December 2013 we held open workshops to increase our competences in working with local communities in post-industrial areas through art.

We asked Grzegorz Klaman, a Tricity-based artist with a long track of artistic activity on the area of the former Gda?sk Shipyard, to come to Ursus and conduct workshops focusing on the discussion of the findings from the exploratory fieldwork. Workshop participants were taken on a tour of the former Ursus Factory, familiarized themselves with the conditions for artistic intervention and discussed the activities we were proposing in terms of achievable social results and potential pitfalls involved in artistic practices in post-industrial areas and districts. The key element of the workshop was a commentary offered by Grzegorz Klaman, based on his experiences in Gda?sk Shipyard, where he conducts artistic practices and the activities of Wyspa Institute of Art, an independence cultural centre.

The introspection time was very effective and of the number of intuitions and suggestions offered during the workshops one was put to action immediately. Klaman pointed out that we should take into account the voices of all local stakeholders in the area where the intervention is to take place. While prior to the workshop we had planned to focus our efforts on the local community, we faced a task of expanding this group by other stakeholders: representatives of the businesses operating in Ursurs, real estate developer who was about to launch the construction of a new residential quarter and the local authorities.

4. Interacting with all stakeholders

Klaman’s suggestion was all the more valuable that in order to ‘move into’ the former Ursus premises with our social-artistic activities, we needed to secure the approval of the current owner of the area on which we wanted to conduct our project. We approached: Energetyka Ursus power and heat plant that was to host most of the events and that had just gone into bankruptcy and been passed into receivership; Celtic, a real estate developer, the owner of some plots of land covered by the route of the Acoustic Walk; AIG/Lincoln Polska, the owner of the hall we were planning to use to screen the film essay. Simultaneously, we contacted the district administration to secure the honorary patronage of the mayor of Ursus. In the search for potential allies we even went to Otr?busy, to the annual meeting of former directors of Ursus Factory.

Negotiations with the owners were a challenging task. The dynamics of ownership transformations in Ursus and various conflicts caused around the former factory meant that we were approached with suspicion at the least. We also needed to be on guard to avoid ‘corruptive’ aspects of the interactions with some stakeholders and to ensure the social aspect of the initiative would not suffer. We wanted to avoid compromises that could weaken or cancel out the social impact of the planned activities – giving voice to the local community. Eventually, we managed to come to an agreement with all stakeholders as to the use of their land.

Without doubt, we benefited from what Artur ?mijewski termed ‘immunity of art’ brought about by culture being often perceived as marginal, non-threatening and quite prestigious. This immunity pushes art to the peripheries of various social discussions but can sometimes be used to ensure art can be a vehicle of social actions. This is what happened in our case. Had we told the owners that we wanted to organize a rally for locals to hear their opinions on the future of the district, not a single one would have allowed to set foot on their property. Meanwhile a series of artistic activities that were actually designed to achieve the same goal was a completely different story. ‘Art? Sure, why not.’

Being viewed as a peripheral activity, art is also a sphere of free experimentation. Its immunity renders it easier to approve as a field of non-obvious, risky and borderline experiments, including ones in the social sphere, seen as building a community on the rules other than the dominant codes in the areas of interaction and social discourse. This attribute of art is worth keeping in mind and exploring.

5. Raising funds

One of the ‘corruptive’ elements that could weaken our resolve in striving for affecting social change in Ursus through artistic activities was being offered funding for the campaign by local business, a real estate developer and other privately-owned and commercial organizations. We did everything in our power to avoid accepting it. We applied for a public grant from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (declined to support our campaign) and City of Warsaw Office that provided us with roughly 100 thousand z?otys. All activities were delivered by Political Critique, a legally recognized association, whose primary mission is civil society building. This made it possible for us to avoid commercialisation of the campaign and to maintain relative independence of the state institutions.

6. Anchoring the project in the local community

In order for the activities conducted in Ursus to bring intended results we began making frequent visits in the district, inviting the inhabitants personally to join the social-artistic events we were preparing. We held discussions in local community centres (such as Arsus Culture Centre or Promyk Seniors Club, Mi? and Kolorowa Community Culture Centres) and delivered micro-activities such as art workshops for children during International Children’s Day celebrations in Park Hassów in Nied?wiadek. The workshops were titled Welcome for Tractors in the Factory. Children were asked to create colourful tractors and bring them to welcome the Tractor Parade entering the area of the former Ursus Factory.  Scores of children and parents turned up with their colourful tractors. Additionally, on Children’s Day we handed out roughly 700 invitations to cheer the parade, and used this opportunity to exchange remarks with the residents of Ursus, listen to their stories and recollections. We followed the same pattern at other occasions, during Ursus Days held roughly around the same time. Our presence in the district, meeting inhabitants face-to-face and working with them in the kids workshops, were a crucial part of the artistic process, a process that should involve always anchoring in the local community.

***

On 13 – 15 June 2014 Ursus was the scene of Factory. Ursus 2014 campaign. A documentary Ursus znaczy nied?wied? (Ursus Means Bear)[7], with the record of the project’s activities, created by Ja?mina Wójcik, is available online. The simplest conclusion would be to say that we succeeded in executing the planned activities. However, the intensity of the three days spent in Ursus would be difficult to convey in words. I encourage you to see film. I should also note that, in order to ensure continued material presence of the project in Ursus, some of the works created during Draftsmen’s Congress were transferred to the outer fence of the local park Park Hassów, forming a material reminder of the communal activity. The paintings continue to be displayed there to this day.

Let me highlight again the most important aspect of the three days: The project’s creative subjects were the inhabitants of Ursus. As project originators, we only created conditions to boost communal creativity. We put up canvas walls for Draftsmen’s Congress, but it was the participants who filled the canvas with artistic content. We provided equipment for recording recollections, but it was the inhabitants of Ursus who filled the carrier with memories. We designed the route of the parade, but it was the enthusiasts of Ursus tractors who took part in it.

Summary

In 2013 the area of former ZPC Ursus was the scene of an Acoustic Walk developed by Ja?mina Wójcik. The artist had worked on the project since 2011, collecting the memories of former workers of Ursus Factory. During the walk, she guided the participants around the former factory with the accompaniment of recorded interviews played on portable speakers. The walk met with considerable interest among the members of the local community and inspired us to take further action to address the issues related to the history and the present of Ursus

While working on developing the activities to be conducted in Ursus we noticed that 1) Ursus was undergoing dynamic changes caused by the ownership and urban planning transformations of the area of the former Ursus tractor factory? 2) Inhabitants of Ursus (former employees of the factory as well as newcomers) were keenly interested in the history and the future of the place but were not involved in decisions concerning the future of their district? 3) This was largely due to the fact that the local community was fragmented, made up of groups that failed to communicate with one another and differed in terms of generation and origin, lacking a shared identity due to the literal lack of common ground for interaction caused by the long-term neglect of the post-industrial area.

The conclusions developed in cooperation with the inhabitants of Ursus led to the project Factory. Ursus 2014 delivered in June 2014. The events included Draftsmen’s Congress – a project originated by Pawe? Althamer, Spoken Memoirs  – an installation by Ja?mina Wójcik, Tractor Parade from Plac Defilad to Ursus with the accompaniment of Ziemia Mazowiecka Brass Band, film screenings and workshops. The events took place on the premises of Energetyka Ursus (power and heat plant) the very heart of the former Ursus factory.

The main idea behind the project Factory. Ursus 2014 was to invite the inhabitants of Ursus, Warsaw and surrounding towns to the premises of the former Ursus Factory, bring the memories of Ursus Factory back to the collective memory, integrate people around the history of the district, the future of the area of former Ursus Factory. For the curators, the crucial outcome was hearing the voice of the local community and deciding together what artistic-social initiatives should take place in Ursus in the future.

The campaign delivered in 2013-2014 in Ursus revealed that, to achieve a goal of improving the quality of democratic life through artistic practices, it is important to:

1. Approach the artistic practice primarily as establishing platforms for free individual and collective expression, providing tools for nurturing such expression. This approach makes the artist focus on diagnosing the needs and expectations of the individuals or communities with and for which they work. This exploration leads to proposing solutions that serve as a sounding board for the needs and expectations of the individuals and communities, rendering art one of the channels for social articulation.
2. Know how to use the instruments for constituting communities, provide space for individual beliefs and expectations to interact, engage in a dialogue, transform and model a shared voice. It should be remembered however, that community processes have their own dynamics – moments when groups consolidate and when they scatter, times of conflict and consensus. Artistic practices should accommodate all aspects of the community processes, work through all of them.
3. Develop scenarios of artistic initiatives aimed at improving the quality of democratic life to involve the following elements:

– Community exploration,

– Setting social goals that are to be achieved through the medium of art,

– Selecting artistic activities for their effectiveness in bringing about the achievement of social goals,

– Time for moments of introspection,

– Interaction with all current stakeholders in the area that is the arena of artistic activity,

– Anchoring the organizers in the local community,

– While conducting artistic activities, remaining open, interested, patient and trusting.

In my opinion, the activities conducted in Ursus in 2013-2014 succeeded in achieving the first two first characteristics of democratic turn”, as described by Cristina Flesher Fominaya. They were designed to drive free expression of individuals and groups (a necessary condition for forming a healthy community) and integration – developing a community sensitive to individuals’ needs and expectations. I believe that, by executing the program outlined in the article Culture for Democracy. Central European Perspective, we succeeded in establishing a platform, framework for individual and collective articulation of needs and expectations and ensuring they are heard. We also initiated collective processes towards merging individual components into a community that is sensitive to the needs of the individual.

What about the third element of the ‘democratic turn’ – grass-roots agency, transforming expectations into facts? This aspect can only be approached when the bonds have been created – cementing the collective subject or local community whose many voices have merged into one, capable of speaking for all its members. It is only then that the community is ready for the empowering step from participation and agency to decision-making in the shaping of their reality. This became our focus after the Factory, Ursus 2014 project was completed.

***
[1]    Flesher Fominaya, C. (2014), Social Movements and Globalization: How Protests, Occupations and Uprisings Are Changing The World, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, p.187

[2]    Khebizi, S. (25 Jan.2015), Beyond the participation in the cultural field: a democratic issue?,Zpatiu, retrieved from http://bit.ly/1NpFeG4 [as of: 10 May 2016]

[3]    Stokfiszewski, I. (2015), Culture for Democracy: A Central European Perspective. Another Europe: 15 Years of Capacity Building with Cultural Initiatives in the EU Neighbourhood, ed.: P. Dietachmair, M. Ili?, European Cultural Foundation, Amsterdam, pp. 431-439

[4]    ibid.

[5]    Barba, E. (2003), Teatr. Samotno??, rzemios?o, bunt, Instytut Kultury Polskiej UW, Warsaw, p.208

[6]    See: Fischer-Lichte, E. (2008), Estetyka performatywno?ci, Ksi?garnia Akademicka, Kraków, p.89

[7]    Wójcik, J. (2015) Ursus znaczy nied?wied?, Stowarzyszenie im. Stanis?awa Brzozowskiego, M. st. Warszawa, Instytut Studiów Zaawansowanych, Warsaw, available on http://bit.ly/1T47yuC [as of: 10 May 2016].

***
Translation from Polish by Ma?gorzata ?erel 

The post URSUS FACTORY PROJECT. Democratic Turn through Art (1) appeared first on P2P Foundation.

This interview by Igor Stokfiszewski first appeared on politicalcritique.org.

Tomasz Thun-Janowski is the Director of the Culture Department of the City of Warsaw. He completed Polish studies, theatrical sciences and philosophy at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toru? and the University of Warsaw. Professionally, he is associated with theatre and culture as manager and producer.

Igor Stokfiszewski: The Culture Department of the City of Warsaw requested two teams – one led by Professor Jerzy Hausner and the second headed by Edwin Bendyk – for the preparation of roadmaps for the reform of Warsaw’s culture. The work of the first team was concluded with the publication of a document entitled Improving the cultural policy in Warsaw – area: cultural institutions. The other team published a document entitled The development of creative potential and support for creators. Their publication in April of this year, as well as the process of social consultations, were accompanied by somewhat controversial reactions. Two main accusations were made against the Culture Department – that the department was trying to impose cultural reform and that it was attempting to commercialise certain institutions.

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: The reform of the cultural governance of Warsaw, the implementation of which the two studies are part, is not a new idea, but resulted directly from the document The city of culture and citizens. The Culture Development Programme in Warsaw until 2020. The document was consulted on by a social group, the authorities of the capital city, and creative circles, and then adopted under a resolution of the City Council in March 2012. It has been in force for four years now! We, the Steering Committee, assumed that while roadmaps for changes to Warsaw culture are not ready, the Programme will be a dead document. The studies by teams headed by Hausner and Bendyk will act as such roadmaps.

Igor Stokfiszewski: I have to admit that I am a big supporter of the Programme, although I was watching its preparations only as a spectator. It is not a coincidence that it was prepared around 2010. I recall the social agitation following the Congress of Culture in 2009, the democratic agitation in the cities that resulted in urban movements…

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: I sensed a similar atmosphere. It is worth saying that the Culture Department did not recognise the Programme as its “constitution” right from the beginning. When, as a result of the contest for the post of Director of the Department, proposed in the Programme, I came to work for the City of Warsaw in 2013, that document was treated rather as something from the outside, not “ours”. The quite common perception that the Programme is the basis of thinking about Warsaw culture is a quite recent phenomenon. It cost us a great deal of effort.

I have the impression that we do not appreciate how innovative this document is in terms of the participation of social groups in the decision-making processes. The adoption of the Programme resulted in the establishment of the Social Cultural Council, the second term of office of which has been started recently, and the role of which is to issue opinions on the main principles of cultural policy. The Council and the Steering Committee operate at the Culture Department and serve as a body making joint decisions regarding social culture. Our collaboration is definitely not a success story only, but this is also the first systemic attempt to establish relations among official structures and the circles of the people of culture. This is a serious and systemic attempt to implement creativity in the structure of decision-making processes. We are still in the process of learning – “we” being the office and society.

Igor Stokfiszewski: And what progress has been made?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: It depends. To some extent, the quality of this dialogue definitely reflects the quality of the public political debate, and, frankly speaking, it is also a lot to do with our involvement. For example, immediately after the first term of office of the Social Cultural Council, in agreement with its representatives, we conducted the reform. We also requested an analysis of the quality system for collaboration with all social bodies affiliated with the office. We want to develop in these areas too. Social dialogue is not something to be taken for granted.

This document makes us aware of the huge creative resources that Warsaw owns, and that a lot of them are still utilised only to a limited extent.

This is a joint responsibility which you have to work out. We need responsibility, huge energy reserves, mutual trust and patience. I believe it is worth perceiving and appreciating these efforts, especially in the environment of the threats to democracy which are starting to appear in Poland…

Igor Stokfiszewski: Let’s go back to the studies prepared by the teams headed by Professor Hausner and Edwin Bendyk. What story did they tell to the Culture Department in terms of cultural governance in the capital city and the direction of their manoeuvring to fulfil the guidelines of the Programme?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: Most of all, these documents show the metropolitan complexity of Warsaw – the chances and threats corresponding to this complexity. On one hand, the capital city attracts artists and the attention of whole cultural environments, and its openness and dynamics create a circulation of a unique nature on the scale of Poland and Europe. On the other hand, this complexity makes the opportunity for shaping the cultural environment very difficult, and it also hugely increases competition in terms of access to resources. Therefore, we are dealing with huge potential and dispersed centres forming its shape and dynamics. In my opinion, there are two most general conclusions to be drawn from these two studies. First of all, we should test various and innovative instruments for impacting on culture. This means the necessity of trying out various solutions in the form of pilot projects, analysing the results and testing further instruments.

Second, we should do this while taking care over the participation of all stakeholders, not giving up on the efforts of social dialogue. These documents gather information that was unordered before. And we do need rationality and knowledge in actions for culture.

Igor Stokfiszewski: The Programme obliged the city to create an adequate environment for differentiated creations and building a wide participation in culture …

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: The study prepared by the team of Edwin Bendyk achieves the first of the goals that I named. This document makes us aware of the huge creative resources that Warsaw owns, and that a lot of them are still utilised only to a limited extent.

Igor Stokfiszewski: What resources?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: Each year, nearly 12 thousand creators from various fields graduate from Warsaw universities. Moreover, the capital city attracts other graduates from other centres – ?ód?, Katowice, Kraków… All of them hope to gain a job utilising their creative talents. The question is, how do you create the optimum conditions to let them all stay in Warsaw and grow? Is it possible on this scale of this phenomenon? Research shows that the most attractive work opportunities in Warsaw are created not by cultural institutions but by the creative industry – advertising, architecture, design, the film-making industry – financial instruments being at the disposal of City, e.g. scholarships for creators are somewhere near the bottom of the list. The assets of the Culture Department are only around 25% of all the resources involved in the market for Warsaw’s culture. As a result, it is hard to effectively send impulses that would stimulate activities beneficial to the circles of creators and the performance of the public mission.

We have to obtain larger assets for culture, and also engage non-financial resources at the disposal of the city in an innovative way.

Therefore, we have to obtain larger assets for culture, and also engage non-financial resources at the disposal of the city in an innovative way.

We should develop residency programmes, utilise the accommodation resources of the city, create platforms for communication, facilitate environmental networking and building individual relations. We should also improve the quality of the management of public assets. Building the prestige of creators, stressing the role played by them in the modern metropolis, development and the democratic debate, should be stressed.

Igor Stokfiszewski: Improving the cultural policy in Warsaw – area: cultural institutions is the document prepared by the team under supervision of Professor Hausner. I assume it was prepared as an attempt to achieve the second goal defined in the Programme?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: The need for the reform of Warsaw’s cultural institutions is the subject of common consensus. Definitely, various circles visualise reform in different ways, but its sense is perceived by nearly everyone. The cultural institutions of Warsaw are the most important players in the area of culture for which we are the host, because we are able to influence them directly. Additionally, they create work posts for creators, own resources and know-how, and, finally, connect artists with audiences. Therefore, cooperation with artistic institutions is also a method for building wider participation in culture.

The main statement of the document prepared by the team of Professor Hausner is that Warsaw’s cultural institutions should be de-hermetised and more open. Yes – they are home for artists, but it should be also home for the citizens of the city of Warsaw. They should be aware of the goals of their activities, define its social goals more clearly, refer to the community for which and in which they exist.

Igor Stokfiszewski: Is the accusation of the hermetism of cultural institutions not justified? Their resistance to reforms was – for many years – real resistance to commercialisation. Quite often, hermetism was a result of a defensive attitude serving as a tool for the protection of the public and the experimental dimension of artistic creativity.

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: I am aware of the fact that cultural institutions have been subject to extremely ruthless market mechanisms for years. They have been financed insufficiently, so sometimes they are based in inadequately equipped buildings, and they have to compete for the attention of audiences with commercial entities, etc. I know this because I worked in one of those institutions long enough to be acquainted with these problems down to the slightest detail. At the same time, the potential presented by these institutions for the citizens of Warsaw is huge. We cannot throw it away. Warsaw institutions have to be reformed in order to fully utilise their potential, and, later, to make them the engines of the city’s development, open to all citizens of Warsaw. We have to support them in their missions, ensure permanent and reliable support, and also encourage their self-reflection, evaluation and development.

Definitely there are dynamically changing institutions in Warsaw that are willing to redefine themselves all the time, and better manage their resources, better understand and respond to the needs of their audiences. We are interested in supporting and propagating such processes and attitudes. Public cultural institutions should search for answers to the question for whom do we exist? What are the goals of our activity? What is the way to develop an open, tolerant and wise society? I see numerous reflections of such acts in the institutions of Warsaw: just let me mention the programme of support for debuts in the Ochota Theatre, the programme of Warsaw Praga District Museum for local craftspersons, the cooperation of the Studio Theatre with the third sector and the involvement in the revitalisation of the Praga District on the part of the Powszechny Theatre. I also appreciate opening to the young artists of TR Warsaw and the creative utilisation of the new HQ and the international fame of the Nowy Theatre.

Igor Stokfiszewski: What recommendations are specified in the study prepared by the team of Prof Hausner to make Warsaw institutions function in a similar way?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: First of all, the document recommends the implementation of the process of defining the social mission of each and every institution with the participation of the representatives of the institution itself, the Culture Department, experts and society, as well as including the missions in the statutes of cultural institutions. Second, we want to oblige the institutions to establish their own developmental strategies and adjust the reporting system to them. We are trying to do so while signing agreements with directors of institutions, i.e. we want the programme’s attachments to agreements concluded with directors to be a proof of really deep thinking about how the institutions should function, and what role they should be playing. Third, the “roadmap …” focuses on the consequent observance of contests for directors and limiting the option of prolonging an agreement only to two terms of office. The second recommendation provoked tense debates, so we will calm the reactions in the steering committee, in order, on the one hand, not to lose the abilities of managers with experience and seniority, on the other, to include in the game new people with a fresh and often non-obvious perception.

Igor Stokfiszewski: I agree with the basic outlines of the diagnoses presented in both documents and with the directions towards which they suggest the development of Warsaw’s culture. I believe that the mechanisms for the utilisation of the available public resources should be subjected to a thorough review in order for them to have a higher impact on the creative potential of Warsaw. I also agree that the public mission of cultural institutions is performed not only by means of supporting high-end culture or, specifically, showing plays, exhibitions, etc.; that it has to be accompanied by clearer thinking about social placement and the impact of culture. I also believe that the transformation of culture must confront the processes of the democratisation of attitudes and the expectations of the citizens, I agree that politics at central level forces us to accelerate the intense efforts for the benefit of the development of the participating models of the presence of society in decision-making processes at the municipal level, but also at the level of the co-management of cultural institutions.

But until this very moment, in this interview we have not talked about the area that, in my opinion, has become particularly important in recent years. I mean non-governmental organisations and social movements. A lot of issues mentioned by us, such as co-management, criticism of the hermetic nature of institutions, social participation and missions are based on knowledge practised de facto in the non-institutional area. In recent years, this area was largely developed, got more professional, and created individual tools of creative activity and cultural production. What role in the reflection on the reform of culture of Warsaw is occupied by the third sector and other more or less organised forms of social activity?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski:  There is no shred of doubt in my mind that the non-governmental and non-institutionalised sector is a very important value in the field of culture. The borderlines within culture and everything that is non-institutionalised are only conventional in these days. The creative processes function in many areas, culture-forming phenomena appear in non-obvious places, and, very often, in the centre of the debate, we still see those created outside the official, institutionalised environment. We should mention that Warsaw is the city with the most developed network of non-governmental institutions. Recommendations concerning strengthening this area can be found in both documents, but I would say that they support the justification of actions already taken.

Igor Stokfiszewski: What are these actions?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: We have implemented long-term contests for non-governmental institutions – three years long and one and a half years long – with a positive impact on the financial stability of organisations and facilitates the better planning of their activities. We attempt to simplify and improve procedures of applying for local-government resources. This year we hope to agree a totally new formula for the contest tasks, already adjusted to the logic recommended in the Programme. We are working on an electronic generator of applications, which will serve as a tool for the collection of knowledge and data concerning non-governmental institutions in Warsaw. We want to work out a new, more efficient expert system, because the previous one was not substantially sufficient, and, moreover, it made the grant awarding procedure longer. In the multiannual Programme for the Development of Cooperation with non-governmental institutions, we have obliged ourselves to increase the resources assigned to non-governmental institutions each year. Today, we spend nearly 10% of the Department’s budget. I also have to stress that none of the decisions concerning the third sector is made without the participation of its representatives. There is no doubt that, concerning the phenomena occurring today in Poland, strong non-governmental organisations are among the key elements in a healthy social ecosystem.

Igor Stokfiszewski: Does the de-hermetisation of public cultural institutions mean involving commercial players in their co-management? For example, part of the circle of theatre people interpreted the recommendations of the team supervised by Professor Hausner in this way.

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: I am and will be the guardian of the presence of social patronage in culture. In the previous years, the State and local governments did not appreciate the role of culture for social development as well as development as such to a sufficient extent. Our goal is to show the key function of culture in building the capital of trust necessary to develop the cultural competences of citizens and the quality of the public debate. Culture is an area of building senses and values, and therefore it has nothing in common with commercialism. The wise and effective management of resources in this field is a totally different issue, and we have to rationally utilise all opportunities for supporting and developing artistic institutions.

The de-hermetisation of institutions that we were talking about is not a matter of paving the way towards their commercialisation. It is the other way round – while preserving artistic identity, we rather want to direct them to the path of a social mission.

For the last three years, we have increased the budget of the Culture Department from around PLN 180 million to over 220 million. We are increasing expenditures for cultural education, theatres for children and experimental theatres. We are invest money in the construction of prestigious locations of the Museum of Modern Art and TR Warsaw, The Museum of Warsaw and the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra. We have upgraded the building of the Roma, Kwadrat, Ochota and Nowy Theatres. We are preparing to invest in the Baj Theatre, and many cultural centres. In 25%. of the budget of the Integrated Programme for Revitalisation prepared for the Praga District refers to cultural tasks.

The de-hermetisation of institutions that we were talking about is not a matter of paving the way towards their commercialisation. It is the other way round – while preserving artistic identity, we rather want to direct them to the path of a social mission. Open the opportunities for the better utilisation of their resources, building various models of management.

Igor Stokfiszewski: What statement from social consultations regarding both documents do you remember best?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: The remarks that we obtained during consultations to a large extent referred to very specific matters, yet the statement regarding the limitation of directors’ terms of offices in institutions to two was controversial, a lot of discussions referred to social welfare issues. We have also received some comments concerning diagnoses prepared by teams of experts. I do not neglect any of those signals. Consultations were the forum for expressing fears and also mentioning issues not related to the subject matter of both documents. It turned out that the most significant problems in the field of culture are “down to earth”, current matters, and they pose a real barrier to strategic planning. Once again we had the occasion to see how important and real they are for the people of culture. There are no simple recipes for complex problems, but I believe that we can jointly appeal to creators and culture in Warsaw.

About Igor Stokfiszewski

Igor Stokfiszewski (1979) is a literary and theatre critic specialising in politically engaged art. Since 2006 he has been a member of the Polish left-wing movement Krytyka Polityczna, where he works as activist, editor and journalist. He was a member of the team overseeing the 7th Berlin Biennale (2012). He is author of the book Zwrot polityczny (The Political Turn, 2009).

The post “Culture in Warsaw needs to become more social” [Interview] appeared first on P2P Foundation.

After 100 days in power, Poland’s nationalist right-wing government expressed its desire to completely transform Polish culture. As the anticipated assault on the country’s national culture gets underway, Igor Stokfiszewski considers the threat that this blinkered approach poses to the vibrancy and diversity of grassroots cultural initiatives.

In February 2016, just 100 days after the “Law and Justice” party returned to power, Poland’s new nationalist right-wing government issued a statement of intent to completely transform the country’s culture. In so doing, Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Gli?ski, who is also Minister of Culture and National Heritage, took on a huge responsibility – much greater than any arising from his official post. However, the turn towards culture as a vehicle of social transformation is certainly not new. “[C]ulture as a shared frame of reference and as something that lends meaning to people’s lives”, writes sociologist and expert on cultural policy Pascal Gielen, is “the very foundation […] of any society”.^[1] Gielen calls for deeper reflection concerning culture in discussions taking place at a European level on economic stimulation, social orientation and protectionism. His is one of several voices currently striking a similar note. “There is no way out of the current systemic crisis without turning in the direction of culture”, notes Polish economist Jerzy Hausner in a commentary on the prospect of global economic meltdown,^[2] while the Polish journalist and researcher Edwin Bendyk remarks: “talking about culture and development in tandem makes a lot of sense, the connection between the two even has something of a ‘natural’ character. There’s a very simple reason for that, as the American anthropologist Terrence Deacon points out – man does not experience reality directly, but through concepts and symbols.”^[3]

If culture is allowed to develop, then emerging social potentialities will follow suit.

The turn towards culture as a vehicle of social transformation is also noticeable in the renaissance of the category “cultural hegemony”, derived from the philosophy of Antonio Gramsci. As such, culture is not considered a “superstructure” above economic conditions, but the “base” of all social activities, which may translate positively or negatively into economic issues. All of these intuitions are moving in one direction: in order to improve the quality of our collective life, it is necessary to turn towards culture and extract from it practices and values which could give a new character to believing in the prospect of a good future. If culture is allowed to develop, then emerging social potentialities will follow suit.

However, judging by the current track record of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage under Piotr Gli?ski, the opportunity standing before Polish society, reinforced by a new perspective on culture, will be squandered. If Gli?ski, together with the associates and experts who support his efforts, fails to reflect deeply on the direction his policies are taking, then the burden of extra responsibility he has taken on will increase; for he would then soon bear responsibility for depriving Polish culture of its creative powers, of its transformational and developmental forces, and for wasting the energy that would otherwise have enabled culture to translate into social recovery and the enhancement of common welfare.

Barriers to the development of culture in Poland

In 2009, the Congress of Polish Culture was organized in Krakow with a view to taking stock of culture’s status after two decades of transition from a communist to a democratic state. The conclusion drawn was simple: a series of inquiries would be necessary in order to really understand what Polish culture is at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The ensuing seven years were therefore replete with sociological, anthropological and economic research examining the cultural practices of Poles and their relationship to institutionalized cultural circles. They were also filled with the activities of social movements and organizations geared towards a new vision of culture. What has come out of this research?

Culture and the commons

A key issue is the reorientation of culture, away from the professional dimension of various artistic disciplines towards social culture, and the development of a variety of non-professional cultural practices among the broader public. The cultural needs of Poles are met, above all, outside the official circulation of culture within institutions. Over 60 per cent of Poles do not attend public cultural institutions. The most frequently visited cultural institutions are public libraries (only 38.4 per cent), followed by culture centres (30.1 per cent), followed by museums (29.1 per cent), theatres (25.8 per cent) and art galleries (19.4 per cent); Poles are least likely to attend concert halls (14.6 per cent) and opera houses (13.4 per cent).^[4]

The lack of participation in institutional culture is compensated for by individual cultural practices and neighbourhood activities as well as participation in cultural projects that support different social groups’ and classes’ own repertoires of cultural behaviour, and encourage self-expression and self-development through personal and collective creativity. Poles have at their disposal a wide network of autonomous social centres, neighbourhood libraries, so-called “local chambers of memory” and social museums. The key players at the heart of this process are civil society organizations and social movements. Bearing in mind Poland’s class divisions, independent institutions of popular culture comprise a further key sector, which includes for example women’s country clubs and volunteer fire brigades. The creation of culture and participation in culture within the digital environment is also now of the utmost importance.

Once these forms of social culture became established, it seemed that the institutional cultural sector was faced with the task of absorbing the power of grassroots creativity. Institutions have certainly paid more attention in recent years to related cultural programmes, education and rehabilitation activities. Yet investment in culture has yet to be channelled into new infrastructure to support these new cultural forms. Since Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004, the majority of financial resources have been dedicated to the establishment of new cultural institutions and to building modern premises for these and existing cultural institutions. The low level of participation among Poles in these official cultural institutions has proven such patterns of investment to be a road to nowhere.

However, the grassroots cultural domain has inspired cultural sector workers to mobilize with a view to participating in the management and programmes of institutions, and overcoming institutional barriers generally – especially where the rigid legal structure of the cultural order in Poland is concerned. Polish culture can flourish only when these barriers are brought down.

The Ministry’s current course of action indicates a clear desire to block the creative potential of social culture.

There have also been efforts to revitalize the labour movement among artists and cultural sector workers. Organizations like the Civic Forum of Contemporary Art, and the Commission of Art Workers within the Workers’ Initiative trade union, have widely promoted respect for workers’ rights in the field of culture and, more broadly, the need to remedy the precariousness of artists’ living and working conditions. Cultural sector workers are among the worst paid workers in Poland; the resulting lack of social security is laying waste to the creative powers of individuals and artistic communities. As the number of uninsured citizens lacking pensions rises, so does the likelihood of a future social and cultural catastrophe, in which the artistic professions disappear altogether.

The following key barriers therefore stand in the way of culture: non-participation (the alienation cultivated by official institutional culture in failing to meet the cultural needs of Poles and failing to promote practices that Poles understand to be culturally valuable – and also by focusing on the consumption of culture rather than its co-creation); class autonomy (cultural institutions by their very nature contribute to economic and class divides in Poland); out-dated institutional forms (lack of institutional innovation); limited access to culture due to restrictive copyright laws (especially in the digital environment); poor working conditions in the cultural sector (characterized by the lowest wages and the greatest lack of respect for labour rights); precarization of creative activities (lack of health insurance, of social and pension contributions, the dominance of “junk” contracts, in addition to low wages for artists or simply not paying artists at all for certain activities, including the exhibition of their works of art in public institutions); and, finally, the undervaluing of social culture (non-institutional cultural practices implemented from the bottom up in various environments – whether online or among family or neighbours – in informal groups, social movements and non-governmental organizations).

Overcoming the barriers

A programme that allows Polish culture to embark on a route towards strengthening its social, creative, transformative and developmental potential would consist of five basic points:

1) Strengthening and developing non-institutional cultures through: a) subsidies supplied in a non-centralized manner by the Ministry of Culture to as many projects as possible (guaranteeing diversity in terms of geography, themes and social groups); b) developing new instruments for financing cultural initiatives that would support small-scale activities and long-term employment prospects, allowing for fluidity in the development of creative potentialities among individuals and communities; c) developing and implementing a training programme (mainly in areas outside urban centres) to assist cultural actors with applying for public funding.

2) Reforming copyright law and the public domain, so that the use of cultural heritage, including with a view to generating new socio-cultural meanings, is not penalized.

3) Directing investment in culture primarily toward the social capital of people in the cultural sector (employees, artists, performers) and the development of programmes in existing cultural institutions. We should avoid establishing new institutions until the level of participation in existing ones rises.

4) Allowing co-management, participatory governance and workers’ democracy in public cultural institutions, creating hybrid institutions (with a particular emphasis on social-public partnerships) and enabling the sustainable operation of “social institutions” – non-public cultural institutions run by civil society organizations, non-formal groups and social movements. Therefore, we need a new law regulating the issues of organizing and conducting cultural activities.

5) Developing and implementing a system of health insurance, social security and pension contributions for artists.

What has the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage achieved so far?

Public opinion remains ambivalent about direct interventions in artistic practices under Deputy Prime Minister Gli?ski’s watch. These include: a failed attempt to censor a performance of Death and the Maiden based on a work by Elfriede Jelinek and directed by Ewelina Marciniak in Polski Theatre, Wroclaw, in the wake of suspicions that it would be saturated with pornography; a failed attempt to appoint Tomasz Jasinski to the post of director of the Royal Castle Museum in Warsaw, despite the Trusteeship Council recommending former Minister of Culture and National Heritage Malgorzata Omilanowska for the post; and an “artistic audit” of the National Stary Theatre in Krakow run by Jan Klata, aimed at verifying which kinds of values were promoted by the theatre’s productions.

Even if Polish institutional culture decays completely and cities throughout Poland end up full of empty buildings once occupied by historical museums, grassroots cultural activities in all their vibrancy and diversity will continue to develop.

In addition, the Minister organized a meeting with – as he had described them – artists who had “fallen out of favour”, a term expressing his desire for symbolic investments in individuals who – in his opinion – are not respected enough in the professional hierarchy due to their conservative world views. The meeting appeared to be called in opposition to what the Ministry recognizes as dominant left-wing and liberal cultural elites. All of these interventions relate to the cultural activities of public institutions, to making personnel changes, and to raising the question of personal and ideological preferences in a domain of official culture. Yet if the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage is to address the barriers to culture, then this is not the way to go about its business.

The consistency of public policies proposed by Piotr Gli?ski can be seen in the activities of the Ministry that have had less public exposure. According to the Ministry’s official documents released in February 2016, Deputy Prime Minster Gli?ski had already established 13 new public cultural institutions – nine museums (including the Polish History Museum; the museums of John Paul II and Primate Stefan Wyszy?ski; and the Museum of Poles Saving Jews). Further, the Centre for Research on Totalitarianism focuses on the suppression of the Polish nation under the Nazi regime and the communist state, while the Memory and Future Centre in Wroclaw is intended to disseminate the historical and cultural achievements of the western and northern territories incorporated into Poland after World War II at the expense of Germany. The Ministry of Culture has announced that we can expect the list of public cultural institutions to continue to grow; meanwhile, the reform of public theatres is imminent.

According to publicly available knowledge, the direction taken by Piotr Gli?ski means a deepening of the process of alienation from institutional culture, as it departs ever further from the real cultural experience of Poles. Given that none of Gli?ski’s actions shows any promise of reflecting on the organizational and managerial modes of these institutions, they will only accelerate the general institutional lapse into apathy, and reduce the possibility of such institutions having a positive social influence. It should be added that support for these new historical museums was provided at the expense of galleries and museums of contemporary art. The latter have had their applications for funding to expand their collections refused.

A question of labour conditions

With a view to remedying the terrible living conditions of cultural workers and artists, Gli?ski has announced that there will be an end to the freeze on wages in cultural institutions, art schools and state archives, and a salary increase of five per cent, as well as tax relief for freelance artists. Any attempt to improve the poor living conditions of culture workers deserves praise. However, I have three observations: 1) The average wage in the cultural sector is approximately 3000 Polish z?oty, that is, 1000 Polish z?oty lower than the average wage in Poland.^[5] An increase of 150 Polish z?oty means cultural workers are still some of the worst paid workers in the country, which hardly improves their situation considerably. 2) Interventions in wage and tax issues are beyond the competencies of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, unless it concerns institutions run directly by the Ministry (like the country’s two national theatres, for instance). Anyone who is involved in disputes of a social nature in the field of culture knows that as long as the Ministry of Finance does not come out in support of statements like Gli?ski’s, they remain expressions of good intentions but far from constituting proper political decisions. 3) It is absolutely necessary to implement a health insurance system, as well as a system of social security and pension contributions, for artists. Tax relief for artists and cultural workers will give the multitude of artists and curators in Poland temporary comfort, but will not change anything about their overall social situation, which gets worse and worse each day.

Why block the creative potential of social culture?

Leaving aside the issue of interventions in the area of social matters, which – I repeat – have not been implemented yet and go beyond the competencies of one ministry, the picture that emerges of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage portrays misguided public policies aimed at expanding the institutional cultural sphere and a lack of knowledge of the cultural practices of Poles or any reflection as to the consequences of sustaining out-dated models of organizing and conducting cultural activities. Worse still, the Ministry’s current course of action also indicates a clear desire to block the creative potential of social culture. Support for the non-institutional cultural milieu announced by the Ministry is clearly wide of the mark, with funding for the programme “Patriotism of tomorrow” and celebrations for the 1050th anniversary of the baptism of Poland, which were organized jointly with the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, the results of NGO’s applications for Ministry programmes show an obvious trend – a reduction in the number of initiatives supported by the state. This approach is leading directly to the destruction of Poles’ creativity in the field of culture and, indirectly, to the loss of their ability to form communities.

Culture in Poland comprises first and foremost everyday social practices because, as the Hungarian writer and essayist György Konrád notes, culture “is derived from relationships between people”.^[6] Often, cultural practices develop towards organized forms of grassroots cultural activities. In Poland, there are more than 10,000 civil society organizations that are active in the cultural field. From Czaplinek in North-Western Poland to Dynów in the South, cultural brokers, artists and local activists work with communities to create events that influence their surroundings, using the tools of art. It is here that new artistic and cultural methodologies are being implemented. It is here where cultural activities intended as the foundation of social life go far beyond the production of aesthetics. It is here where social potential is triggered using cultural tools in the name of individual and collective development. Limiting actions that involve tens of thousands of active people by denying the support of central institutions is not only the easiest way to render culture barren (and impede its institutional circulation), but will lead to the squandering of a great opportunity for social culture to drive Poles’ transformative and developmental potential towards a better quality of collective life. Here lies the biggest responsibility of Piotr Gli?ski and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Appeal to the Polish Ministry of Culture

One cannot decree that hundreds of thousands of people refrain from creative activities. Even if Polish institutional culture decays completely and cities throughout Poland end up full of empty buildings once occupied by historical museums, grassroots cultural activities in all their vibrancy and diversity will continue to develop. Neither will cultural workers’ struggles for better labour and living conditions disappear; cultural activists too will continue to insist on institutional innovation and the democratization of culture. Informal groups and non-governmental organizations will persist in their determination to establish social cultural institutions – places for encounters among people; and social movements will continue to struggle for accessible, open and diverse culture. We should all appeal to Deputy Prime Minister Gli?ski, along with his political associates and cultural experts: before you continue with the implementation of misguided public policies, read carefully the research conducted during the last seven years, take a good look at how Poles really cultivate a culture they actually want, look into the activities of social and labour movements in recent years, and above all – adopt a concept of culture that includes culture’s social dimensions too. Without making this effort, you will soon turn Polish culture and society into a wasteland.

[1]  Pascal Gielen, “Introduction: There’s a solution to the crisis”, in: Pascal Gielen (ed.), No Culture, No Europe: On the Foundation of Politics, Valiz, 2015, 10

[2] Jerzy Hausner, “Culture as a way out of crisis”, translated from Polish by Anna Zaranko, in: Another Europe: 15 Years of Capacity Building with Cultural Initiatives in the EU Neighbourhood, edited by Phillipp Dietachmair and Milica Ilic (European Cultural Foundation, 2015), 387.

[3] Edwin Bendyk, “Mapa i terytorium”, in the catalogue of the 2013 conference “Kultura i rozwój” [“Culture and development”],issuu.com/krytykapolityczna/docs/kultura_rozwoj_katalog, 11.

[4] Rafa? Drozdowski, Barbara Fatyga, Miroslaw Filiciak, Marek Krajewski, Tomasz Szlendak, “Praktyki kulturalne polaków”, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikolaja Kopernika, 2014, 149; see: bit.ly/24KN4Sz.

[5] Sylwia Radzi?ta, Sedlak & Sedlak, “Wynagrodzenia 2014: najwyzsze w IT, najnizsze w kulturze”, Forbes.pl, 18 May 2015, http://bit.ly/24KPiRT.

[6] György Konrád, “A land of studious peoples”, in: Pascal Gielen (ed.), No Culture, No Europe: On the Foundation of Politics, Valiz, 2015, 116.

This article originally appeared on Eurozine.

About Igor Stokfiszewski

Igor Stokfiszewski (1979) is a literary and theatre critic specialising in politically engaged art. Since 2006 he has been a member of the Polish left-wing movement Krytyka Polityczna, where he works as activist, editor and journalist. He was a member of the team overseeing the 7th Berlin Biennale (2012). He is author of the book Zwrot polityczny (The Political Turn, 2009).

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