Thessaloniki, 12th May 2016
START: A program for next generation cultural managers in Greece
Following our support towards the START Project, Georges Perot, MESO Events founder, was invited by The Robert Bosch Stiftung, the Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and the German Association of Sociocultural Centers at the START Fellowship Celebration of Thessaloniki on the 12 and the 13th of May 2016.
The event offered a journey through the twelve cultural initiatives that have been successfully launched over the past six months as part of the START capacity building and fellowship program all around Greece. All initiatives worked with a bottom-up approach of cultural engagement, actively involving a variety of audiences.
A unique experiential performance immersed us into an artistic reflection on how cultural change is created and then lead into a short presentation of the START program. Representatives of the partner institutions conveyed the vision behind START and the program managers introduced the START ac-tivities, past and future.
More than 300 guests from Greece and Germany joined us for the START Fellowship Celebration event on May 12th in Thessaloniki, among them many professionals from the field of arts and culture. An interactive exhibition introduced our guests to the twelve cultural initiatives that have been successfully launched over the past six months as part of the START capacity building and fellowship program all around Greece. All initiatives worked with a bottom-up approach of cultural engagement, actively involving a variety of audiences.
The next day, acting as Mentors, Mr Georges Perot along with other selected members of the START network, they convened 1 2 fellows at the START Project Event, exchanging ideas and thoughts on prospects of their cultural initiatives while discussing possibilities of future collaboration.
The public event concluded with a presentation of all START activities and the open call for participation in the next program year.
START is a capacity building and fellowship program that empowers these next generation cultural managers in Greece where the reverberations of the economic crises in Europe are strongest. The program comprises two consecutive and competitive stages, a job shadowing phase in Germany and a project implementation phase in Greece. The goal is to enable START fellows to transform an innovative project idea into a cultural initiative and to acquire professional skills to develop the initiative into a sustainable creative venture.
Affected by economic restraints and disruptive technological developments, the cultural fabric in Europe is changing. While established cultural institutions struggle for funds and audiences, a new generation of cultural managers is evolving. Defying uncertainty and limited job perspectives, they set on a quest to start their own creative ventures. A distinct feature of their work is to engage their communities through cultural innovation locally and to reach out for professional networks and funds internationally.
START is a program of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, conducted in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and the German Association of Sociocultural Centers.
