We thought the Art21 Blog’s readers might be interested in this international conference taking place in in Santiago de Compostela, Spain: the I International Forum on Spaces for Culture. Art21’s Executive Director Susan Sollins will be a featured speaker at this event, which will explore the topic of “Cultural Infrastructures: sustainability and challenges for the future.” Luckily for those of us who can’t attend in person, the Forum will be live-streamed: click here to follow the events via the Internet. Further details shared with us by the Forum’s organizers follow:
The City of Culture of Galicia, the cultural complex designed by the North-American architect Peter Eisenman in Santiago de Compostela, will assemble World-class prestigious cultural institutions on the 8th, 9th and 10th of November to the “I International Forum on Spaces for Culture,” where representatives from the MoMA of New York, IRCAM-Pompidou of Paris, the London Barbican Centre and the Library of Alexandria, among others, will meet. With the title “Cultural infrastructures: sustainability and challenges for the future,” the first edition of this forum will analyze the role of cultural infrastructures as factors for economic development, as poles to attract business projects or as platforms to project the image of a community abroad.The inaugural lecture will be delivered by Ismail Serageldin, director of the Library of Alexandria.
Other participants are Allegra Burnette, responsible for MoMa.org; Natalio Grueso, director of the Centro Niemeyer; José Guirao, director of “La Casa Encendida;” Louise Je reys, Programming director of the London Barbican Centre; Frank Madlener, director of the IRCAM-Pompidou; Rui Vieira Nery, director of Education for Culture of the Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon; Sheryl Kolasinski, director of Operations and Infrastructures of the Smithsonian (USA); Josep Ramoneda, director of the CCCB-Centre de Cultura Contemporània in Barcelona; Bruno Assami, managing director of the MASP-Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo Assis Chateaubriand; and Susan Sollins, executive director and curator of Art21.
• The first edition of this forum, which will take place on the 8th, 9th and 10th of November in Santiago de Compostela, will also see the presence of renowned cultural centers in Spain, such as the Niemeyer, “La Casa Encendida” and the CCCB-Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona; as well as international institutions such as the Smithsonian and or the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo.
• This meeting will analyze the role of cultural infrastructures as factors for economic development, as poles to attract business projects or as platforms to project the image of a community.
• The capacity is 100 places for professionals in cultural management and for students. The lectures may be followed via streaming at www.fiec-cidadedacultura.org.
With this forum, the City of Culture opens up a space to “question” cultural infrastructures and to exchange strategies to face the new challenges issuing from these changing times. The different sessions will approach aspects such as the consequences of the evolution that cultural infrastructures have experienced, evolving from spaces dedicated almost exclusively to exhibiting works of art, organizing concerts or teaching, to become centers that program a variety of activities for ever broader audiences. Other issues will also be approached such as the need to seek funding alternatives through private sponsorship or formulas such as co-productions facing ever-shrinking public budgets.
