World Summit on Culture and Arts 2009 - septembre

IFACCA’s World Summits are triennial events aim to provide an opportunity to discuss key issues affecting public support for the arts and creativity. As well as catering for IFACCA members and affiliates, the Summit is open to representatives of national arts funding bodies, ministries of culture, culture networks, city and local government, foundations and the private sector, and arts policy makers, researchers, artists, arts educators, administrators and anyone interested in arts support and policy.

The theme of the Summit is Meeting of Cultures: Making Meaning Through the Arts. Further information on the programme is published on the website.

A major component of the preparation for the Summit is a survey being conducted on IFACCA’s behalf by ERICarts: ‘Achieving Intercultural Dialogue through the Arts and Culture?’ The deadline for responding to the survey has been extended to Thursday 28 May and we would be grateful if you would provide a response as they will form the basis of a discussion paper to be distributed to all participants to reflect on before travelling to Johannesburg.

Previous World Summits have been held in Ottawa, Canada (2000); Singapore (2003); and NewcastleGateshead, UK (2006).

The Summit will be co-hosted by the National Arts Council of South Africa and IFACCA, with the support of the South African Department of Arts and Culture, the Gauteng Provincial Government, Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation and the City of Joburg: Directorate of Arts, Culture and Heritage and the Johannesburg Tourism Company.

The theme of the Summit is Meeting of Cultures: Making Meaning Through the Arts.

The context for the theme is a world which is increasingly divided by ‘cultural’ rather than political ideology, where feelings of being threatened by ‘other’ are largely based on ignorance about ‘other’. Increased globalisation, through economic integration, is often criticised for ‘homogenising’ the views and interests of economic and militarily powerful nations, at the same time that diversity and the desire to build ‘multicultural’ societies has become increasingly important. The implementation of the UNESCO Convention on the Promotion and Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions is just one example of this.

Notwithstanding the recent collapse of communism and apartheid, the world remains – and is in fact, increasingly – divided, with adverse implications for global relations, for nations and for communities within nations. Such divisions – at least in how they are expressed or perceived – have taken on a more ‘cultural’ form.

The arts – music, theatre, dance, literature, film, visual arts and craft etc – are seen by some as a possible bridge between cultures, to provide safe, non-threatening points of entry into understanding ‘other’.