Harbour for Cultures

The Forum is scheduled to take place on Friday, the May 12, 2017, from 2 to 7pm, at the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe, Venice.

The 2017 Venice meeting is being held under the patronage of Mr Tibor Navracsics, Member of the European Commission. It is also being held under the patronage of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, the Italian National Commission for UNESCO, the Central European Initiative, the Regione del Veneto, the Trieste Town Council, the Port Network Authority of the Eastern Adriatic Sea-Trieste Port Authority, the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the University of Trieste. It has been conceived and organized by the Trieste Contemporanea Committee in collaboration with transparadiso Vienna and BM Contemporary Art Center Istanbul, and is supported by the CEI, the Autonomous Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Council and the BEBA Foundation of Venice. The Venice Forum also benefits from the possibility of using the premises of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe, located in Venice.

The topic “Harbour for Cultures” (H/C) draws inspiration from the real case history of how to convert and reuse the area of the “Porto Vecchio” (old port) of Trieste and ideally looks for an accessible model of a shared society; the Forum’s research and discussion will be based on both the historical functions of port activities carried out for economic interest (exchanges of goods, insurance issues and commercial profit) and the idea of “suspension” inherent in the imaginary of a port (of arriving, temporarily belonging and then leaving). The Venice Forum discussion initiates a longer term and process oriented project, focused on the social and cultural dimensions of these issues, in view of shaping an image of a “new port” where people freely exchange their own cultures, while assuring their core values, so that new profit (benefits of art and culture) is earned by the masses.

Speakers will include Azra Akšamija (artist and architectural historian, Sarajevo), Iara Boubnova (ICA, Sofia), Maja Ćirić (independent curator, Belgrade), Călin Dan (general director National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest), Shamina de Gonzaga (executive director World Council of Peoples for the United Nations, USA), Sandro Droschl (director Künstlerhaus, Graz), Branko Franceschi (director GALUM Gallery of Fine Arts, Split), Barbara Holub (transparadiso, Vienna), Beral Madra (BM Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul), Ilona Németh (Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava), Ana Peraica (independent curator, Split), Elisabetta Porro (architect, Trieste), Maren Richter (Valletta European Capital of Culture 2018, Malta), Basak Şenova (independent curator, Istanbul), Hainalka Somogyi (independent curator, Budapest), Janka Vukmir (Institute for Contemporary Art, Zagreb), Mick Wilson (head of Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg).

See the programme.

There is no fee for participation but you have to register online.

On the occasion of the Venice Forum an open call will be launched to invite curators, artists and other experts to imagine an Harbour for Cultures and to submit by the deadline of September 10, 2017 to info [​at​] triestecontemporanea.it their own answers to the six questions below. The most genuinely innovative and provocative thoughts emerging from this call will be the starting point of a collection of H/C issues and will be featured in a publication.

1. What would make you feel “arriving home” at an H/C?
2. What kind of “goods” would you bring to an H/C?
3. Which kind of “profit” would be useful for you in order to be part of / to contribute to the H/C?
4. How could you “ensure” your culture, while also enriching it at an H/C? 
5. How could your risk-taking enhance an H/C?
6. How could you produce “social capital” within the framework of an H/C?