Tandem aims to promote and underpin a ‘trans-nationalisation’ of present-day practice and discourse in Western and Eastern European arts and culture by creating new cooperation links between selected organisations from the EU and key cultural operators from Ukraine and Moldova.

The project has been developed by a consortium of three leading independent cultural organisations from the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium and two of the main civic players supporting artistic innovation and cultural development in Ukraine and Moldova. ECF (www.eurocult.org), MitOst (www.mitost.org ) and Culture Action Europe (www.cultureactioneurope.org) are long-standing key actors of European cultural cooperation and have pooled their expertise and widespread contacts in the cultural field on the occasion of developing this ground-breaking project. The Soros Foundation Moldova (www.soros.md) and the Centre for Cultural Management (www.kultura.org) represent two of the single-most important organisations in the field of cultural development and international cooperation of artists from their respective countries.

In the proposed project 50 cultural organisations and managers from across the EU, Ukraine and Moldova will form 25 cultural cooperation ‘tandems’. Each Euro-Ukrainian/Moldovan tandem is in charge of programming parts of a multi-disciplinary ‘European Week of Arts & Culture’ concluding the project in Ukraine and Moldova in 2012. This European Week shall increase visibility of innovative artistic practice, common creative heritage and the benefits of European cooperation across Ukraine and Moldova. The strong working partnerships built by the project will form a new network of organisations, managers and artists afterwards.

General objectives of the project

–       To enhance awareness and understanding of creative values already shared across the EU, Ukraine and Moldova while simultaneously promoting innovation of artistic expressions through a combination of local experience on a trans-national level.

–       To mutually increase readiness, flexibility and capacities of cultural organisations in the EU, Ukraine and Moldova required for engaging in productive trans-national cooperation projects on pan-European level which ultimately result in new creative long-term partnerships on equal footing.

–       To break prevailing stereotypical images and negative/inaccurate socio-cultural labels associated with Ukraine, Moldova and the EU by encouraging engagement in real-life cooperation experiences (for professionals/artists) and through artistic production/performances (for a wider European public across Ukraine, Moldova and the EU).

Project schedule 2011-2012

–       Meeting of potential project participants during a study trip (Moldova, April 2011; Ukraine, May 2011)

–       Fourteen-day working visit of Moldovan and Ukrainian participants to the EU; at the start and end of their stay, all participants will attend joint meetings and workshops in Brussels (September 2011).

–       Ten-day working visit of participants from EU member countries to Moldova and Ukraine, with joint workshops marking the beginning and end of the stay to be held in Chisinau and Kyiv, respectively (February 2012).

–       Planning and preparation of the Tandems’ festival entries (June 2011 – April 2012)

–       Festivals organised in Moldova and Ukraine (May 2012)

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