21 March 2021

International Sharing and Learning

International networks are of great importance. As networks we build trust and nurture relationships across national borders that support people to overcome local as well as global difficulties and to exchange their knowledge and expertise. Our strength is our members, arts organisations working together, learning from each other, sharing experience and resources, committed in repairing the weaknesses of our sector, engaging with communities, shaping the future. Our role as networks is then to connect all these arts organisations, bridge their realities, coordinate their joint efforts, propose frameworks to experiment new initiatives and act collectively each time it is needed: we advise, we host, we mediate, inside our respective field as well as outside.”

Culture Action Europe. CAE is the major European network of cultural networks, organisations, artists, activists, academics and policymakers.

Trans Europe Halles is one of the oldest and most dynamic cultural networks in Europe. A network of grassroots cultural centres with members in 36 European countries. A member since 1997, Beat Carnival is a participant in the TEH Arts Education Hub steering group. The Arts Education Hub is a place for Trans Europe Halles member centres to exchange knowledge, methods and expertise within the field of arts participation and education. 

Spaces of Transformation in arts education (SPOTing) is an Art Education Hub project gathering arts educators from 8 cultural centres around Europe: A4 Bratislava, Assoc Oltre Bologna, Beat Carnival Belfast, Brunnenpassage Vienna, KUFA Luxembourg, PPCM Paris, Roda Sten Gothenburg, Stanica Zilina, Slovakia. The project aims to stimulate professional development and knowledge exchange within the field. It strives to support professionals and evaluate existing practises.  The main mission is to strengthen the field of arts education Europe. The Researcher engaged to work for this project is from Beat Carnival’s team: Sheelagh Colclough. Sheelagh will follow and assist the process from start to finish. She will make case studies and support the exploration and development of evaluation methods and practices. We hope that through the documentation of processes, arts education will gain more recognition as an important tool for democratic development in local communities. 

Roda Sten Gothenburg

Banlieues d’Europe an important network established in 1989, closed in 2015 when funds were no longer available to support operations. Beat Carnival was a member since 1997 and David Boyd was a Council member of the association. We want to remember this unique resource centre of cultural and artistic innovation. The network of 300 international partners and 7500 contacts – cultural actors, artists, social activists and researchers – had joint objectives to exchange practices and information and to get away from isolation to be in cultural action projects in neighbourhoods and excluded communities. 

“Numerous people were associated in the work, many organisations cooperated. These people were actors eager to live, and above all progress, in a world where culture is a precious possession, belonging to all citizens, for sharing and bearing fruit – not reserved for certain citizens because of their education or an inequitable social tradition.” 

Yvette Lecomte, President of Banlieues d’Europe in 2015

“We greatly regret that this network has come to an end. We hope that the fate of Banlieues d’Europe will not be that of other cultural networks who are currently struggling to make ends meet, downsizing yet fighting to continue their important work. Some important networks did not manage to secure vital funding, others find themselves confronted with a loss of members who themselves are increasingly financially fragile.”

Culture Action Europe