Frequencies

Culture Action Europe’s podcast Frequencies and Michael Culture Association’s Eucropolis present a four-part collaboration exploring the current discourse and practice around cultural rights in our communities across Europe. The series focuses on the four focus areas of the 2022 conference Culturopolis, co-organized by the Culture Institute of Barcelona and Culture Action Europe, which brought together researchers, cultural workers, artists and policymakers to exchange ideas and work around cultural rights.
This episode focuses on Participation and Communities. Who is being left out of the experience of culture? What is the cultural sector doing to improve the situation? We asked these and other crucial questions to the people from across the sector who are looking critically at the various conditions that affect the right to participate in the city’s cultural life, as well as the various forms of cultural participation.

Special guests:
Alexandra Xanthaki, UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights
Gaia Raisoni from IED Istituto Europeo di Design S.p.A. – Società Benefit
Luca Bergamo, Cultural professional, former Vice-Mayor and deputy Mayor for Cultural Development of Rome
Maud Ntonga (MCA) and Ines Martorell (Dedale) from the MEMEX project
Music Credits:
Intro: Funk Saviour - Ketsa
Intermediary: HoliznaCC0 - Ramen, Johnny Ripper - Typing, Daniel Birch - Birds Eye View, Daniel Birch - Memories in Color, Daniel Birch - Vast Possibilities
Outro: Can’t Stop We - Ketsa

Episode produced and hosted by:
Marco Fiore, Michael Culture Association
Maya Weisinger, Culture Action Europe

Culture Action Europe’s podcast Frequencies and Michael Culture Association’s Eucropolis present a four-part collaboration exploring the current discourse and practice around cultural rights in our communities across Europe. The series focuses on the four focus areas of the 2022 conference Culturopolis, co-organized by the Culture Institute of Barcelona and Culture Action Europe, which brought together researchers, cultural workers, artists and policymakers to exchange ideas and work around cultural rights.

This episode focuses on Diversity, on the difficulties around invisibility or lack of diversity and on the importance of participation and the decision-making capacity inherent in the design of cultural policies. This area tackles the diversity of identities included in cultural rights (gender, sex, ethnicity, language, origin, background, etc.) and the difficulties that may be encountered with regard to freely experiencing this diversity.
There is a need to tackle the insufficient presence and visibility of diversities in cultural expressions and practices, as well as in participation and the decision-making capacity inherent in the design of cultural policies.
Special guests:
Creative Homeless - An initiative for combating the stigma of being homeless through artistic practice
Jaslyn Reader - ​​Alumni Deakin University, Society of Gender Professionals
Sara Brighenti - Deputy commissioner of the National Plan for the Arts – promoter and co-author of the Porto Santo Charter
Joana Dark (Ariadna Rulló)

Music Credits:
Musical excerpts from Joana Dark
Intro: Funk Saviour - Ketsa
Intermediary: Typing - Johnny Ripper, Daniel Birch - Birds Eye View,
Outro: Can’t Stop We - Ketsa
Episode produced and hosted by:
Marco Fiore, Michael Culture Association
Maya Weisinger, Culture Action Europe

Click here to listen on Youtube.

Culture Action Europe’s podcast Frequencies and Michael Culture Association’s Eucropolis present a special episode, "Elefsinian Mystery | Handle with Care", which focuses on the 2023 Beyond the Obvious conference, "Handle with Care | Culture for Social Well-being", co-organized by Culture Action Europe, 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture, and the CultureForHealth project. This international get-together invited practitioners, organisations and institutions, policy-makers, thinkers, researchers, activists and artivists from the cultural, social and health sectors working on topics related to care, well-being, health and culture.
This episode focuses on the significance of care as an ethical and political obligation for our societies and the role culture and cultural professionals can play in this. How can culture and participation in the cultural life of communities nourish the sense of social and individual well-being?
Special guests and contributions from:

• Maja Kuzmanović, co-founder of FoAM, a transdisciplinary network working across art, science, nature and everyday life
• Philsan Omar Osman, co-author of Dare to Care: Ecofeminism as a Source of Inspiration
• Angeliki Lampiri, Director of Cultural Training, 2023 Eleusis | European Capital of Culture
• Lars Ebert, Secretary General, Culture Action Europe
• Valeryia Urbanovich, Club Silencio
• Carmen Valero, Red Noses International
• Georgia Georgiou, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, MuseIT project

Music Credits:
Funk Saviour - Ketsa, Can’t Stop We - Ketsa
Episode produced and hosted by:
Marco Fiore, Michael Culture Association
Maya Weisinger, Culture Action Europe
*Correction: In the intro of the podcast, it is stated that the 2023 Beyond the Obvious conference took place in May 2023. The conference took place from 6 - 10 June, 2023.

Culture Action Europe’s podcast Frequencies and Michael Culture Association’s Eucropolis present a four-part collaboration exploring the current discourse and practice around cultural rights in our communities across Europe. The series focuses on the four focus areas of the 2022 conference Culturopolis, co-organized by the Culture Institute of Barcelona and Culture Action Europe, which brought together researchers, cultural workers, artists and policymakers to exchange ideas and work around cultural rights.

Today’s episode focuses on cultural work, with an important focus on the right to work in the cultural sector under decent conditions. How is the work of artists and cultural workers valued and recognised? What inequalities continue to occur in cultural work? How can we ensure cultural work and workers' economic, social and environmental sustainability? In this episode we have an up-close look at the realities of artists and cultural workers across Europe and how they and their allies are fighting for their rights.

Special guests:
Catherine Magnant - Head of the cultural policies department in the European Commission Directorate General for Education and Culture
Noel Kelly - Director of Visual Artists Ireland
Katharina Weinert - Policy Adviser, European Music Council - SHIFT Project
Julia Pagel - Secretary General of the Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO)

Music Credits:
Intro: Funk Saviour - Ketsa
Intermediary: HoliznaCC0 - Ramen, Johnny Ripper - Typing, Daniel Birch - Birds Eye View, Daniel Birch - Memories in Color, Daniel Birch - Vast Possibilities
Outro: Can’t Stop We - Ketsa

Episode produced and hosted by:
Marco Fiore, Michael Culture Association
Maya Weisinger, Culture Action Europe

Today we explore the work of Ben Maier, an artist and a photography student at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague, Netherlands.

In the autumn of 2021, under the coordination of the organisations Creative Court in the Hague, Het Geluid in Maastricht and H401 in Amsterdam, Ben was selected to take part in a pan-European project, “Amplify: Make the Future of Europe Yours,” as a participant representing the Netherlands. Amplify, a project led by Culture Action Europe and co-funded by the European Parliament, aims at gathering the ideas and concerns of underrepresented voices within the cultural sector to take into the fold of EU-level decision making. Partnering with organisations across 12 European countries, Amplify asked participants to bring ideas, proposals, recommendations, and concerns about the vision of culture for the Future of Europe.

Alongside 10 other student artists, Ben proposed his art project focusing on the gig economy, an issue that he is interested in from an economic perspective, but also has a personal stake in the matter, as he is currently a delivery rider for UberEats and Deliveroo. Mostly Ben’s work is focusing on the aftermath of neoliberalism. As he has a background in economics, as an artist he calls himself a “visual economist” and works around themes that clash with ethical values in our society.

Rabiaâ Benlahbib is the founder and director of Creative Court, an organisation that works at the interface of arts and global justice based in the Hague. Rabiaa made a pitch about the project to the Bachelor of photography class and 5 students’ proposals, including Ben’s, were selected.

The exhibition featuring Ben’s work along with 10 other artists will open on Europe Day, the 9th of May 2022 at the closing event for the Amplify project. You can find out how to tune into the Amplify live stream to see the full, digital exhibition on the Culture Action Europe website.
“Frequencies” is a podcast that explores arts and cultural initiatives that seek to impact and transform communities, near and far. Each episode features the work, voices, and experiences of artists and cultural workers across Europe and beyond. “Frequencies”, a production of Culture Action Europe, lives at the intersection of culture and politics by focusing on the power cultural practices and agents have in nurturing inclusive, open, diverse, fair and democratic societies.
Hosted by Maya Weisinger

Music: "納骨堂 (johnny_ripper remix)" by Tide Jewel, "Vast Possibilities" by Daniel Birch