SUMMARY

Final Seminar 9 December 2010

Committee of the Regions, Brussels

Artistic interventions are a means of developing organisations, businesses and individuals,

and thus society as a whole. TILLT Europe has been working for the past two years to

explore, document, and develop the ways in which artistic interventions can influence all the

areas of society such as health, innovation, social cohesion, and economic sustainability. It

shared first results at the end of the European Year of Creativity in Stockholm 20091 and in

December 2010 it held this closing seminar to present and discuss the policy suggestions

that TILLT Europe have formulated for stimulating artistic interventions in working-life and

business.

49 participants from 15 countries attended the seminar. The participants represented

different organisations and public bodies, such as EU officials from DG Education and

Culture, DG Enterprise and Industry, and DG Information Society and Media, one MEP from

Sweden, National and European artists associations, artists, universities, students,

researchers, intermediate organisations, employer organisations, employee organisations,

and private businesses. Moderator of the day was Ilona Kish, Culture Action Europe, one of

the associated partners of TILLT Europe.

Culture-based creativity - a way to reach Europe 2020

Jens Nilsson, from Sweden, will take office as MEP as of Jan 2011. He is currently the major

of Östersund, in Northern Sweden, and a member of a policy group to influence European

cultural policies. Besides, he runs an association for social economy since 1997.

Jens Nilsson explained some of the problems faced by the Lisbon strategy, for instance, that

the agenda focused on many elements and that not enough work was made at regional and

local level. For him, one of the lessons learned was the need for partnerships between

levels. According to him, the Europe 2020 Strategy2 is different since it proposes actions, not

just visions. He stressed that the report on the future of cohesion policy published a few

weeks ago is open for consultation3. It is crucial for the regions to participate in the

consultation to show the importance of the creative and culture sector for their economic

growth.

1 The final products from 2009 can be viewed and downloaded from

http://creativeclash.squarespace.com/creative-clash-downloads/ 2 Europe 2020: A European Strategy for Smart, Sustainable, and Inclusive Growth.

http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/index_en.htm 3 http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/conferences/4thcohesionforum/questions_contrib_en.cfm?nmenu=2

Introduction to the project year of TILLT Europe 2010

Pia Areblad, TILLT, presented the project TILLT Europe starting with explaining what artistic

interventions are and giving an example. Artistic interventions are “when people, products,

or practices from the world of the arts enter organisations”. An artistic intervention in a

paper pulp was presented where an artist cooperated with the employees in a project that

lasted almost a year. The project was collectively owned by the artist and the employees,

and with a focus on the process, not a final product.

Experience has showed that culture – in no matter what form – is a good catalyst for creative

thinking, which is a vital element in all organisations. In short, a creative clash is a clash

between an organisation and the arts aiming at changing perspectives and finding new

solutions to old problems. Artistic interventions can take support from an intermediary

organisation (also called mediator), which provides the collaboration with the support that is

needed to help all involved stakeholders to gain something from the “clash”.

The intention of the policy grouping TILLT Europe is to

� Develop individuals and organisations in sustainable and innovative ways;

� Bring art and culture to new arenas; and

� Develop artistic methods by being present in new arenas.

In short, create new sources of sustainable growth with the arts as a catalyst, to utilise the

"hidden" creative potential that resides within all individuals to develop society, and enable

transfers of skills between different sectors.

TILLT Europe consists of four partners, that all presented themselves: the Swedish TILLT (a

intermediary organisation that has worked with these sorts of artistic intervention since

2001 with the support of the regional development committee in Västra Götaland), the

Spanish intermediary organisation c2+i, the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) and

finally KEA European Affairs, a creativity research and consulting firm based in Brussels.

What are artistic interventions?

The second panel focused on two different experiences, that of an artist, Ania Bas, and that

of Flexlink enterprise Group Quality manager, Cristina Garzelli.

Ania presented her work in Labein Tecnalia, a Spanish research centre, with 350 researchers

and 50 maintenance staff. The research areas in the centre were quite different from each

other with one common theme: sustainability. Their challenge was to learn how to

communicate across research areas.

Cristina Garzelli explained that their company, a production logistics designer and producer,

had hired an artist at a very prosperous moment for their business but soon they lost a very

important contract and had to let many people go. The company was close to failure and the

work environment changed dramatically – people became anxious whether they would also

lose their jobs which decreased their motivation. A generally bad work climate started to

spread among the remaining employees. Flexlink decided to ask for the artist’s help in the

new context. By engaging in artistic methods, people found new ways to express these

negative feelings, and people started to understand what really was needed – a change in

attitude and increased cooperation. Teambuilding and trust were recovered – not because

management told them but because they themselves found this to be the solution.

According to Ania, the artist is generally the last professional to be contacted in these

situations. Nonetheless, an artist has an added value, especially in difficult times. An artist

entering a work organisation will have a different way of communicating and a new

language. This helps the people in the work place to change their communication pattern,

and to cooperate in new ways. Also the fact that she is a Polish artist, based in London, and

worked in Basque country contributed to the fact that new methods of communication

needed to be developed in this case.

When asked whether they had evaluated financially her interventions, Ania said that the

research centre had presented the financial gains of an event she had organised in terms of

media coverage. For the Swedish company, the return on investment was getting people’s

focus and attention back to work and an improved work atmosphere.

For an artist, participating in such a project is interesting because it offers the opportunity to

do something different in a different venue. The acceptance of artistic interventions by a

company might change according to the country.

Some questions from the audience addressed the matter of which should be the business

model for the interventions and which were the limits between the freedom of the artist and

the benefit for the company. To the first question Pia Areblad, TILLT replied with the

example of the Swiss Artists-in-Labs where it is the government that pays for companies to

take artists. To the second one, she said that it depended on the country/context, on the

project, on how free the artist was to express his work, or to deliver results.

Impact, Measurement, Values Current research and findings so far were presented by Prof. Dr. Ariane Berthoin Antal,

WZB. An artistic intervention in a work place has several different stakeholders, and these

stakeholders have different reasons and objectives for engaging in such cooperation. For

example, research has showed that managers that engage in artistic interventions because

they want to develop the skills of their employees, and/or they want to develop their

organisation. Artists on the other hand, engage in artistic interventions because it gives a

new context/arena in which to create art, which can be inspiring. Of course it is also an

additional source of income, and it is an opportunity to help people make their organizations

better places to work and thus, influence society. Although very little is known about the

motives for employees are still being investigated, research shows that some of the ways

they are affected by participating in artistic interventions are:

• Improved self-esteem

• The discovery and/or development of personal skills

• Rediscovery that it is “fun to learn”

• Increased understanding for the meaning of the own work

• Energy boost

Artistic interventions have been tried in organisations of all sizes and sectors, and they have

been tried in organisations in periods of success and periods of difficulty. What they have in

common is curiosity about unknown potentials that reside within the organisation and what

new ideas an engagement with artists may bring.

Artistic Intervention

A 10 minutes intervention was lead by Ania Bas. Ania had hidden small bags around the

desks where the participants were seated. Each bag had empty, white postcards and a

crayon inside. The participants were given the task to write a postcard to a person (or

several people) that they think should have been present at the seminar for any reason,

explaining why they should have been there. These postcards were then sent and some

were scanned and can be viewed at www.creativeclash.eu.

Advice from both sides

Lars Lindström, Scandinavian Human Resources Manager at Paroc, a heavy industry producing

stonewool insulation, started by stating “When you do unordinary things, you get unordinary

results that you would not get with ordinary methods.” which describes his company’s

experience of artistic interventions. Since an organisation’s competence resides within the

individual employees, the organisation needs to include all employees in their innovation

process if they want to be successful. The innovation task cannot be attributed to only

certain employees in an organisation. But in order to engage all employees, including the

ones on the production floor, you cannot steer it from management. In Lars experience,

artistic interventions are an excellent way to reach people and to encourage their interaction

and cooperation. He finds that if artistic interventions are to work, the artistic freedom and

integrity must be respected. At the same time, the intervention needs a goal but must not

be steered by the management.

Other important factors for success is that the artist needs training so that he/she knows

how to move into an organisation and is prepared to deal with what happens when people

start sharing their beliefs and hopes, fears and expectations. Another risk can be that the

artist is too focused on him/herself.

What makes start a cooperation is understanding the effects of untraditional methods on

the organisation and the willingness to try new ways to achieve what the company has not

succeeded in doing with traditional methods. The artists’ role is to stimulate the organisation

to see in new perspectives. It is a catalyst for communication and it is different from a

consultant because it does not come with an established roadmap.

Truus Ophuysen, representing the European League of Institutions of the Arts, talked about

the complex relationship between artistic work, commercialisation and making a living and

she concluded that activities that are good in themselves are also good for the economy

(and vice versa). She encouraged the promotion of a broader approach to the intermediary

role, for instance in form of “Creative partnerships”, including related activities such as

incubator units.

An intervention from the audience suggested promoting “creative partnerships” to be

included in regional policy. Another person asked if there were projects of artistic

interventions where the goals of the organisation are questioned or scrutinised. Arantxa

Mendiharat from C2+i agreed to the remark that the role of artists is important for

corporate social responsibility, but that this could only happen if the questioning was already

there in the organisation.

One person asked: if this is a management tool, why do you need an artist to do this? Lars

Lindström said that he is now preparing a leadership programme where he wanted to

involve artists. The reason is that art reaches to people through other channels than merely

the mental. It goes though all senses, and can reach to people’s emotions.

Joost Heinsius, from Culture-Entrepreneurship, the Netherlands, explained a project where

meetings of bankers with artists where organised in order to talk about trust. At first bankers

were reluctant, but they ended up enjoying it because artists use different concepts to talk

about trust. He suggested to create a matrix for the interventions in order to make it easier

to grasp for policy makers and business.

Policy Recommendations A draft of the policy recommendation was distributed to the participants and Philippe Kern,

KEA, presented them briefly as an introduction to the discussion. The objectives of the

recommendations are to

� Encourage imagination and talents in life, in enterprises and public institutions;

� Stimulate cross-fertilisation between learning disciplines and activities;

� Support the development of a creative economy by integrating culture-based

creativity in innovation policy;

� Promote social innovation through art; and

� Improve access to art and culture

Three lines of action are proposed

1. Raise awareness about artistic intervention as a important resource of creativity.

2. Mainstream artistic intervention in policies to foster innovation.

3. Tailor institutional frameworks to support artistic intervention.

Discussion with policymakers

Carsten Schierenbeck, representing the Support for Innovation Unit at Directorate General

for Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission, stressed that in nowadays services

innovation and creative industries play a big role. In order to achieve objectives of unlocking

their potential there is a need for investment in two directions: helping artists be more

aware of business opportunities (e.g. how to access finance, learn about business

management and innovation management); and making business aware of the impact that

intervention of artists can make to business, the transformative power for whole sector, new

ideas for how to move innovation forward.

DG Enterprise has prepared a European Creative Industries Alliance4, which intends to raise

100 million Euros for the creative industries and wants to create a huge leverage effect. It

will constitute a cooperation platform bringing public authorities and other stakeholders

together, and developing a roadmap for what needs to be done to implement it afterwards.

This is a key initiative under Innovation Union flagship initiative. Pilot actions start in three

areas: access to finance, innovation support and cluster cooperation. Trying innovative tools

such as “Innovation vouchers” to access innovation support somewhere, not just for creative

industry businesses, can also be for other industries to use artists, designers etc from

creative sector.

Sylvain Pasqua, from Directorate General for Education and Culture of the European

Commission, pointed out that the European Agenda for Culture5 in 2007 was a new starting

point for this DG, which had been a rather shy one for a long time, especially in the cultural

area. In 2007 it decided to go a step further and to involve richer Directorates, to show that

culture is part of society, of the economy, has impact on the way people feel, work, and

develop as human beings. The externalities of culture also showcased that culture could also

serve the objectives of other policy areas of the EU, e.g. peace in the world, how to create

creative partnerships in other regions, increase security; huge impact on innovation through

the creativity of creative people.

The Lisbon agenda was a first step to narrow the gap between culture and broad policy

developments of Europe. Europe 2020 Strategy makes the connection between what culture

can produce, a smarter, more sustainable and cohesive growth. The examples from Sweden

in cities and regions show the value of cooperation between sectors.

Recently as part of the Innovation Union flagship initiative6, a publication on regional policy

on contributing to smart growth7 encourages regional authorities to invest in new forms of

innovation including cultural industries. The Commission recognises the strong link between

innovation and the regions.

Both of them talked about the future involvement of DG Regional Policy. DG Education and

Culture plans to implement the communication with it through smart specialisation, e.g.

4 http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/e_i/news/article_10043_en.htm

5 http://ec.europa.eu/culture/our-policy-development/doc399_en.htm

6 http://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/index_en.cfm?pg=intro

7 http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/official/communic/comm_en.htm

This work programme has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

each region should specialise on its own talents, etc, find their own ways to innovate, and

together with member states they will see how best to use structural funds to invest in culture

as a way to boost innovation.

Jens Nilsson argued that in terms of funding the problem were national governments. They

could be convinced by arguments such as a) since there is more work to be done under the

new Treaty, more funds are required, b) we need to invest at all levels if we want to boost

economic growth.

Angel Castrillo from the Association of Employers of Gipuzcoa (Basque Country, Spain) talked

about his cooperation with intermediary organisations and artists. He noted the importance

of communicating with firms that have already involved in artistic interventions and suggested

using employer associations as good networking instruments to connect experiences and

communicate them to other organisation.

Closing address: where do we go from here?

Henrik Selin, the Counsellor for Cultural Affairs at the Permanent Representation of Sweden

to the EU held the closing speech. He said that Member States have the ambition to raise the

profile of culture and to focus on creative industries, to which artistic interventions could

contribute. He suggested Creative Clash to put its activities in context for policy makers so

that they could understand them properly. The recommendations should be mainly aimed at

Member States, since they have a bigger budget. Finally, he encouraged the cultural sector to

be ready and active in applying for resources for culture after 2014. He also stressed the need

for further research.

The seminar revealed a high degree of involvement from all the participants and many new

ideas and inputs were generated. Questions from a variety of perspectives were raised and

discussed. A policy document draft was distributed to the participants, and a deadline for

delivering feedback to the document was set. After closing the day all the guests were invited

to interact and deepen the conversations in an informal environment with food and drinks.