Lab for Resilience

Lab for Resilience is a project implemented under the i-Portunus Houses programme held on April 7-15, 2022 in Wrocław. As part of the project, an international group consisting of experts from European institutions, organizations and academies, as well as representatives of the BWA Wrocław programme council, will discuss how to shape resilient attitudes and initiatives that can help strengthen the resilience of cities and their inhabitants through culture and art.

i-Portunus is a programme funded by the European Commission that supports the mobility of artists and other cultural professionals. It funds grants for creators to go abroad or for hosts to attract international talent. The programme facilitates establishing cooperation at the international level, gives the opportunity for professional and personal development, enables access to new markets and helps to gain new audiences. It focuses on an individual approach, thanks to which the creators and hosts can decide where to go or who to invite. The i-Portunus scheme is also a response to the needs of the cultural sector in terms of international mobility among countries participating in the Creative Europe programme.

Lab for Resilience combines the formula of a study visit and a think-tank, enabling the invited experts from abroad to get to know the programme of BWA Wrocław and, together with its representatives, to exchange knowledge, experiences and practices in the field of resilience through a series of presentations, lectures, workshops or other activities proposed by each of the persons participating in the project. The talks will revolve around, among others, decolonization of knowledge and practices, convergence of both human and non-human needs, regeneration culture, resilient assumptions and solutions based on nature in the context of infrastructure of cultural institutions, ecological strategies in working with local creative environments, as well as the future of manufacturing and industry, sustainable development and artistic communities in the context of glass medium. The meeting in Wrocław also aims to develop recommendations and strategies for further cooperation, e.g. within the framework of residency programmes and the Creative Europe initiative, as well as between its participants and the organisations they represent.

Participants:

Maciej Bujko – director of BWA Wrocław.
Dominika Drozdowska – curator associated with the SIC! BWA Wrocław gallery.
Indrek Grigor – art critic, curator at the Art Museum in Tartu (Estonia).
Iwona Kałuża – head of the audience development team at BWA Wrocław.
Joanna Kobyłt – curator associated with the BWA Wrocław Główny gallery.
Adrian Krężlik – architect, designer and academic lecturer, researcher at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (Portugal).
John Moran – artist, curator, founder of Gent Glas in Gent (Belgium).
Berenika Nikodemska – culture manager, networker and fundraiser at BWA Wrocław.
Bozhena Pelenska – general director of the Jam Factory Art Center in Lviv (Ukraine).
Katarzyna Roj – curator associated with the Dizajn BWA Wrocław gallery.
Klementyna Sęga – leader of the PR and communication team at BWA Wrocław.
Piotr Sikora – curator associated with the artistic residency program at the MeetFactory in Prague (Czech Republic).
Joanna Stembalska – curator associated with the Studio BWA Wrocław gallery.

Project coordination: Berenika Nikodemska
Production: Magda Weber
Marketing & PR: Klementyna Sęga

The i-Portunus Houses pilot scheme is implemented, on behalf of the European Commission, by a consortium of organisations that have been pioneers of European cultural mobility programmes themselves. Coordinated by the European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam), the i-Portunus Houses consortium involves MitOst (Berlin) as main mobility implementer and the Kultura Nova Foundation (Zagreb) as lead in evaluation and analysis.