Following the open call, the first ECHN members were already selected to participate in the program of exchange with the first partners of the Future DiverCities project.
The first pairs selected are Blivande / ANTI Festival, Subtopia / KONTEJNER, and PROSTOR / LAMA.
Offering exciting opportunities for collaboration, international exposure, visits, and skills enhancement with European cultural institutions, this program kicked off in early October with Blivande.
Blivande traveled from Stockholm to Kuopio for an exchange with ANTI Festival. The exchange focused on shared practices in community building and cultural space management, with a specific objective: supporting ANTI’s plans to develop Konepaja, a former train maintenance hall, into a vibrant community hub for the arts. The exchange was productive overall and highlighted both common ground and diverging approaches to managing cultural spaces. ANTI gained practical feedback to inform their plans for Konepaja, while Blivande took away insights on public-private collaboration in the Finnish cultural sector. The program met its objectives, with Blivande offering real-world experiences from a mature project to assist ANTI’s early-stage development, laying the groundwork for potential future collaborations between the organizations.
The next exchanges will take place in the Spring 2025 with Subtopia traveling to Zagreb to meet with KONTEJNER and work on sustainability models. In the summer 2025, PROSTOR will visit LAMA’s new art residency in LONDA located in the Montagna Fiorentina and develop collaborative art program.
