On September 21, 2020, the Villa Decius Visegrad Heritage Lab project of the Villa Decius Cultural Institute began in a new, changed online form. During the long discussion, the graduates of Villa Decius flagship projects talked about the operation and cooperation in a reality full of limitations and the necessity of educational and cultural activities. The project was opened by an inaugural panel entitled “Culture in Times of Pandemia – Impact and Response Tracker” which was attended by: director of the International Visegrad Fund- Eedit Szilágyiné Bátorfi, representative of Václav Havel Library – Barbora Grečnerová, representative of Progressive Slovakia – Zora Jaurová, Dániel Levente Pál – representative of Petőfi Literary Fund, and Magdalena Doksa-Tverberg – Deputy Director of the Department of Culture and National Heritage of the City of Krakow. The discussion was moderated by prof. Dominika Kasprowicz, director of the Villa Decius Institute for Culture.
The transmission of the panel has been saved and is available at the link below, we invite you to watch it:
During the online workshop meetings, the project participants, via the Zoom platform, met with the project mentor Anna Lach, an animator and manager who has practical experience in various fields and sectors of culture. Thanks to joint and individual sessions, the participants of the Laboratory defined their thematic issues, on which they decided to work. In the first week of the project, participants took part in three workshop sessions entitled Ethics, Economics, Emotions. In the part devoted to ethics, the issues of attitudes and choices during a pandemic concerning organizations and cultural institutions of their organizers, recipients, employees and partners were discussed. The economics workshop focused on the costs of pandemic transitions for the cultural sector. During the workshop devoted to emotions, the following questions played an important role: What do we miss the most, as observers and creators of culture, and what do we care about the most. In the first week of the project, participants also took part in a meeting with Dr. Angelika Eder, director of the Genshagen Foundation. The meeting was devoted to intercultural exchange across borders.
During the session summarizing the project, which took place on October 26, on the Zoom platform, the participants presented the fruits of their work and answered the questions previously asked by the Organizer, including on the change in the dynamics of events in one’s own country during the project implementation, the consequences and impact of these changes on the activities and personal context. They were also asked about the impact of the international context in which the project was implemented on the perception of problems generated in the culture and education sector during the crisis caused by the Covid 19 pandemic.
Thanks to the strong support of Mrs. Anna Lach, the project, despite the new form and new challenges with the format, was successful and resulted in the development of results, ie personal essays containing some thoughts on the subject defined at the beginning of the workshop.
Thank you again for being with us in this difficult and unpredictable time!
