The main reason for the meeting was for Maria and Simon to introduce themselves on behalf of the rest of the team working on stage 5* to present the proposal for the final stage of AlmostReal. This introductory encounter between artists and foundation management was also intended to inspire a possible collaboration between the artists working on stage 5 and the ECF in finding key policy makers, officials and networks in the cultural policy realm who would be willing to critically engage in a veritable vis-à-vis with art practitioners for the final event of AlmostReal.
The goal of stage 5 is to stimulate a public debate and awareness on the funding issues facing artists in Europe today. By bringing together artists and European officials, politicians and policy makers in an active dicussion, stage 5 seeks to grasp and make public the spaces of policy from the material realities of artistic practice. One key focus is the ambivalent degree of intimacy between the funder and funder — to ask what the current and potential consequences of this intimacy (both positive and negative) are and could be. Further, what are the expectations of artistic practice from the perspective of European integration? How can artists play an active, thus political role in integration policies not as a reactive voice (driven by pre-formulated policy directives) but by their own ability to set up independent agendas. What are the real upshots and what can really be done?
One primary concern expressed by the ECF management was how this event will make a resonant difference within the very broad scope which risks “becoming everything and nothing”. The challenge is to build new relations and points of connection that can spark a much needed debate between policy and artistic circles that survives beyond the model of one-off events.
Overall, the meeting prompted alot of interest and openess to excahnge views from both 'sides-of-the-fence' and not least, the green-light to develop the event to, what aims to be, a reverberant conclusion in the discussion and understanding of policy directives on artists working in Europe today.
*The other stage 5 participants are o.a. Jakob Senneby (artist), Anna Livion (curator Konsthall C), Ana Dzokic & Marc Neelen (STEALTH.unlimited), and Munira Mirza (writer).