The Cultural Exchange Program

The Original Cultures Cultural Exchange Program, or CEP, is the name for the core process of the Original Cultures project and its events.

Simply put Original Cultures’ CEP involves a process of “visits” whereby artists from different countries go to
each other’s countries to participate in a series of collaborative activities that stimulate and promote cultural exchange through the performing arts. These visits happen over a period of a week or more at different times of the year.

For example in the first year of Original Cultures events this process involved English and Japanese artists visiting Italian artists in Bologna, before the Italian artists came to London to visit the English and Japanese artists.

The CEP’s core collaborative activities are:

• Cultural events: artists take part in existing and/or newly created, cultural events where they will showcase their own work as well as work created within the scope of the CEP. These events can take the form of festivals, live showcases in public or private venues and exhibitions in art galleries or similar cultural spaces.
• Workshops and collaborative works: workshops are set up in the host countries and focus on 3 main elements. The first element is the creation of unique collaborative works of art between artists within each art strand. The second element focuses on allowing the public to witness the creative process behind the creation of the collaborative works. The third element involves setting up practical workshop sessions where invited members of the public can learn from the artists within each art strand in a hands on, focused format. Following the workshops, the collaborative works are used across other CEP activities.
• Seminar: complimenting the workshops, seminars open to the public are held during which the collaborative works are showcased and where artists can further interact with each other and the audience to discuss, explain and reflect on the different aspects of the cultural exchange and collaborative and creative processes.
• Remix project: following the workshops and events, selected elements of the collaborative works (both audio and visual) are made available online for new artists to use in the creation of new works. In addition, short video edits of footage from the events are also be made available to soundtrack. The remixes thus created are then be released via the website. This activity furthers the cultural exchange process and allows it to continue once the physical elements of the CEP are finished, working in parallel with the release of various documental media content. In addition, it allows for non-participating artists in the respective countries to be involved with the cultural exchange.
• Documentation: by recording and documenting every aspect of the CEP using audio, video and text media and making it available online, Original Cultures creates a free, interactive and always available documentary of the cultural exchange process. In addition to the website, the documentation is released and spread virally through social media sites (facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube, etc…), podcast feeds (linked to the website and branded) and additional new media channels alongside traditional media outlets such as print (magazines, newspapers) and radio. The documentation also opens up the possibility for monetization and the release of physical products such as a DVD.

You can see and read more about the CEP activities that took place in previous Original Cultures events via our blogs and documentaries sections.

In addition to these core activities, Original Cultures is looking at developing and implementing additional activities:

• Artist promotion: Original Cultures will make a variety of additional promotion channels available to artists during their stay in each country to allow them to further promote themselves, their work and their culture in the country outside of the project’s scope. This may include meetings with local music labels, radio stations, magazines, art galleries, promotion agencies and promoters etc…
• Cultural Network: to facilitate the entire cultural exchange program as well as to give it longevity and reach beyond those involved in any one event, Original Cultures aims to create and foster the growth and development of an international network of artists, labels, organisations and cultural entities, based primarily in Europe and Japan. Among other things, the network will facilitate communication between all involved in the cultural exchange program, thus allowing for the actual exchange between artists and their representatives to continue once everyone has returned to their respective countries and helping the continuation of activities, works and mutual interests.

The goal is to develop additional activities and variations in the future to allow the cultural exchange program to grow as well as to provide both the public and artists with additional incentives for involvement.

Related posts:

1. Original Cultures – An introduction
2. Original Cultures online launches

This entry was posted on 12:01 PM at 12:01 PM. It is filed under Cultural Exchange Program and tagged with activities, Cultural Exchange Program, culture, exchange, Original Cultures, seminars, showcase, workshops. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.