Creating Cultural Capital

The challenge

Local communities are where creative work begins, but without access to resources or to wider markets, talented cultural producers leave for large cities — taking with them the creativity their communities depend on. The Creating Cultural Capital (CCC) project set out to reverse that: to support cultural diversity and creativity by giving people at the local level access to the means of cultural production and exchange, and in doing so to sustain local employment, social cohesion and urban regeneration.

The programme had three original objectives, set by the organisation’s Steering Committee for Culture:

Mapping — assess the local cultural landscape and build a data bank of cultural information and resources;
Training — develop cultural intermediaries and entrepreneurs for the cultural industries;
Networking — create an electronic network for exchanging information, resources and services across the sector.

It also inherited the goal of building a network of local, regional and internationally linked cultural development agencies.

The work

Programme design

The project’s mandate was to support pilot actions developing cultural industries and social integration through creativity, and to build capacity for the democratic management of cultural diversity in member states. To deliver it, three mechanisms were chosen:

The CCC Agency — a cultural development agency that is both a physical place and a set of services, giving local stakeholders the tools to generate revenue that sustains cultural activity;
An electronic cultural portal — set up by each agency so agencies, authorities, institutions and cultural businesses could exchange information, goods and services;
A training platform — preceded in each location by mapping research.

Technology and communications

Velocity’s consultants served as technology experts to the organisation’s culture directorate, designing the communications network model for several multilateral, cross-sector and cross-border cultural projects, and developing the portal and training platforms.

Governance

The project sat within the Cultural Policy and Action division and was guided by the Steering Committee for Culture, with a project group of participating countries and regions advising on direction. From the outset, the plan was for local activity to be run ultimately by local partners.

The outcome

Mapping exercises gathered information on cultural sectors in a range of cities and regions, with findings presented at seminars in Arkhangelsk (November 2003) and Sarajevo (December 2003). Training in mapping research was successful wherever it ran, and participants gained skills and access to international experts. The agency model was well received by partners.

The project delivered an online cultural portal platform and a training platform and methodology, and laid the groundwork for a cultural portal in Kyiv. Many participating regions saw the approach as innovative — a way to bring new life to existing infrastructure such as Bulgaria’s reading rooms, Azerbaijan’s cultural houses and Greece’s network of cultural cities — and it introduced a new understanding of the cultural and creative economy. Conferences, showcases and meetings gave participants a network across countries and, in several cases, opportunities for future inter-regional collaboration.

Their creative imagination and technical competence were a critical factor in the success of these projects.

M. Grossman, Chief Administrator