The Prince Claus Fund, the European Culture Foundation (ECF) and Hivos have joined forces to publish a publication entitled "Forces of Art: Perspectives from a Changing World", to which several experts the UCLG Committee on Culture daily works with contributed, including experts Jordi Baltà Portolés and Zayd Minty.

The publication reflects on the transforming power of art in communities in the global south, and is an extensive volume with many case studies and research conducted by people from different regions. It investigates the way in which artists, artworks and cultural organizations affect people and their social environments, and explores how cases of creative practice have been operational in empowering people, communities, and societies in their given contexts. It is a dense, multi-layered, polyvocal compendium of current thinking about the impact of art on civil society and social change, and contains a large number of essays and case studies located all over the world, from Central Asia to Meso and Latin America, from Africa to Central Europe, from South and South-East Asia to the Middle East.

More information here.

The IETM has recently published a new report entitled "The moment for change is now. COVID-19 learning points for the performing arts sector and policy-makers".

The report explores how the performing arts sector has been adapting to the pandemic and attempts to identify some of the interesting solutions for survival which should be scaled up and brought into the post-pandemic future. It also provides recommendations to policymakers on how to support the sector today, in the near future and in the longer term, and how policies and funding programmes should be reexamined in light of the COVID-19 crisis. The publication is a quick look back over the past several months, a snapshot of what we have learned so far, and an attempt to imagine a better future.

More information here.

In last September, the British Council published a very important report entitled "The Missing Pillar. Culture’s Contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals".

The report explores the place of culture in the SDGs through research, policy and practice. It analyses where arts and culture as a sector and as a creative process can fit within a number of goals, including their targets and indicators. 11 British Council programmes provide examples of cultural initiatives around the world, tackling a variety of issues and cutting across sectors, such as sustainable fashion, creative inclusion, and cultural heritage protection. 

The recommendations from the report advocate for the SDGs to be more accessible to the cultural sector, for them to be embedded in the delivery of cultural initiatives based on local needs, and for their impact to be measured accordingly. The report recommends taking an inclusive approach, involving communities and local actors to understand cross-cutting needs and ecosystems to ensure sustainability. It also calls for a focus on digital technologies to raise awareness and a clearer response to the climate emergency from the cultural sector.

This report is a tool to increase understanding of the link between arts and culture and sustainable development. It is a first step at framing the impact of our British Council programmes alongside the SDGs, while keeping on advocating for the value of culture as a fourth pillar of sustainable development and a key part of cultural relations.

More information here.

As part of the Climate Heritage Mobilisation Webinar series, in partnership with Historic England, the Climate Heritage Network is organising the online seminar "Using Culture to Promote Climate Resilient Sustainable Development" on next Friday 27 November 2020, from 16h-17h00 CET (15h-16h00 UTC).

Cultural policies do not (yet) explicitly recognize the connections between culture and environmental sustainability, climate change, resilience and the sustainable use of the world’s resources. In the next years, cultural actors, institutions and organisations will have to integrate climate change measures into their strategies, strengthen their resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters, and improve education, awareness-raising and capacity in these fields.

The webinar will explore their work towards 'Contributing a climate change dimension to the work of the global campaign of cultural networks on culture in sustainable development'.

More information and registration here.

On last 1-3 October 2020, the City of Rome together with the Committee on Culture of UCLG held the Hybrid 2020 Rome Conference, where the result of the 2020 Rome Charter participatory and cocreation process came to an end and was officially presented to the public. 

Three days of debates, international interventions and dialogues dedicated to discuss the implications of the 2020 Charter of Rome in the development of sustainable cities and communities through participation in culture were held.

The Conference permitted to share over 50 stories and to have a collective reflection on how to build and develop better societies for the future, around the Right to Participate Fully and Freely to Cultural Life as Vital to Our Cities and Communities.

The Conference can be watched again on the 2020 Rome Charter website, either by session and/or by key intervention of main panelists.

The Culture Heritage Network will organise on next 27 October 2020 (2:00 PM – 4:30 PM CET) the parallel session "Showcasing exemplary local climate action by city and regional arts, culture and heritage offices mobilizing to meet the climate emergency" in the context of Daring Cities 2020 Forum on the occasion of World Cities Day.

Culture and heritage give voice to equity, creativity, values, memory, spirituality, and tradition across both time and space, themes that are essential for transformative change in cities. And yet, the role of culture in climate action is not well understood.

This gap is evidenced by a practical reality: while the culture and heritage sectors are important institutions in many communities, their expertise is not well mobilized in support of climate action.

Increasingly, however, arts, culture and heritage agencies of cities and regions are flipping this paradigm. This panel will showcase exemplary local climate action by culture authorities from around the world in addressing the climate emergency, from adaptive and resilience-building measures to climate change mitigation efforts.

This event will be presented in Spanish and English and will include two separate breakout sessions (one in each language) out of which one will be facilitated by the coordinator of the Committee on Culture of UCLG.

More information and registration here.

The City of Jinju, Pilot City of the Agenda 21 for Culture and UNESCO Creative City, has launched a call for papers for the first issue of an International Journal of Crafts and Folk Arts, foreseen to be published in November 2020. The call is looking to collect academic and research papers, articles, and news items related to crafts and folk arts.

The Journal aims to foster cultural diversity and sustainable urban development by sharing knowledge, experiences and good practices. Covering topics such as creative transmission of intangible cultural heritage in the domain of crafts and folk arts, ways to promote creative industries for sustainable development amongst others, the Journal will also act as a platform for debates on current and future challenges, interviews, innovative practices and events related to Crafts and Folk Art. Cities, local and international artists, residencies, educational institutions, and governments are invited to partake and share their work until 30 October 2020.

More information here.

The City of Terrassa will organise the virtual event 'Preventive Creativity', where nine UNESCO creative cities will give voice to artists, creators and intellectuals in remote meetings to discuss solutions on cultural industry.

This 1st virutal meeting of artists and professionals from creative cities in Spain will be attended by experts from various creative fields, including literary creation, gastronomy, music and the film industry. Other artists from fields such as sculpture, design, drawing, architecture or painting will also participate to the event, giving insights on the growth prospects of the cultural and creative sectors, even in times of crisis. The meeting will host roundtables led by representatives from the creative cities of Granada, Burgos and Llíria in order to discuss the different realities of the cultural sector facing the current crisis, the artists' resilience in the adversity difficult situation and the role of creativity in the reconstruction of the cities for the future.

More information here.

As part of ICLEI's #DaringCities 2020 programme, the Climate Heritage Network, together with several other key partners, will co-organise a side-event on "Cities, Climate and Culture: The Urban Research Agenda in the Upcoming IPCC Co-Sponsored Expert Meeting on Culture, Heritage and Climate Change", where the Committee on Culture of UCLG will be invited as a panelist. 

The session will be organised on next 13 October 2020, from 14:00-15:30 UTC+2. Online registration is mandadory to attend the event.

More information on the session here. 

More information on the partnership with the Climate Heritage Network here.

PIG is an experiment in collective decision-making: an art installation in the form of a giant transparent piggy bank in public space accompanied by a short message: members of the public can put money into Pig’s ‘community fund’ if they want to, and spend it when they’ve agreed how to spend it.

The initiative is led by the company Kaleider and supported by In Situ. An assessment report on the initiative entitled "A Cultural Policy Contribution to the Evaluation of Art in Public Space" has been coordinated by On The Move, with research from the UCLG Committee on Culture.

The report is available here.

More info can be found here.