European Cultural Policy Dilemmas: Between Local Needs and Global Challenges

07 April 2006

The AKCIJA Sarajevo � Cultural Development Agency invites all interested people to a public lecture and discussion. The lecture, European Cultural Policy Dilemmas: Between Local Needs and Global Challenges, will be given by Dragan Klaic, at the Media Centre Sarajevo (Kolodvorska 3, Sarajevo), on Friday, April 7, at 18:00 hours.

In a period when cultural strategy of Bosnia and Herzegovina is in the process of preparation, when cultural workers and institutions barely survive one of the biggest crisis in their history, when domestic cultural realities are burdened with scandal and marked by bombast show-business spectacle while B&H artists achieve briliant successes on the international scene, we shall try, in a series of lectures and debates with prominent international experts, to explore and investigate the causes of the cultural crisis and propose realistic strategic solutions.

In today�s lecture, Draga Klaic, one of the leading cultural policy experts in Europe, will review the dilemmas faced by cultural policies as manifested in various parts of Europe, with special emphasis on the specific situation in Balkan countries.

The establishment of the common European cultural space is related to the pressures exerted by the globalized cultural industry and the difficulties in functioning of public cultural institutions. Cultural needs change and multiply quickly, while national cultural systems are increasingly less capable to answer those needs. Sponsorship, creative industries and cultural tourism are easily invoked as saviour solutions. This lecturer himself has no ready-to-use formula, but will try to draft the possible strategic directions for modernization of cultural systems.

Dragan Klaic�s lecture is organized as a joint effort of the Academy of Theatrical Arts in Sarajevo and Media Centre Sarajevo.

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Dragan Klaic is associate collaborator to the Felix Meritis Foundation in Amsterdam, theatre schollar and cultural policy expert (he teaches cultural policies at the Leiden University), and is visiting professor at a number of European and American universities.

Klaic graduated Dramatic Arts in Belgrade and earned his Ph.D. at the Yale University in the U.S. He was a professor at the Belgrade Arts University, University of Amsterdam, Director of the Dutch Theatrical Institute and Chairman of the European Forum of Arts and Heritage. Klaic led the working group of the European Cultural Foundation and the author of the Europe as a Cultural Project final report (2005).

NOTE: We ask you to announce your coming to the lecture on time, at aida@media.ba.