The Culture for Cooperation project reacts to the lack of cooperation between different institutions and communities in Košice. We plan to open the dialogue and engage representatives of all cultural sectors to co-create and prototype the common platform/umbrella organization, with importance on the process itself. Culture has huge potential to involve marginalized groups and to contribute to democratize processes, raise social trust and foster cooperation with great social and economic impact.

Košice

The lack of dialogue between the institutions, communities, and individuals (public sector, independent organizations and private sector) is the challenge we would like to tackle. The lack of trust and absence of communication channels can be changed by using the right methods and systematic effort. Eastern Slovakia faces continual brain-drain, slower economic development, together with higher unemployment and strong presence of social exclusion. Culture has huge potential to address the exclusion and support cooperation that can have an impact on social and economic development. We believe that the pandemic situation has shown that fragility of the sector can be transformed into strength, cohesion and common steps to ensure the stability and continuity of good life in the city.

Mainly, we would like to engage organizations from cultural industries working in the city of Košice. There are 170 cultural institutions varying from state-owned to underground initiatives with different opinions, backgrounds, access to finances, options and approaches to the audience. We would like to equalize niche and marginalized groups with mainstream or elite culture initiatives. Main activities of the project are focusing on opening the dialogue between representatives of them in order to co-create and define the shared vision and common goals with the impact on the whole city of Košice.

We would reach out to all organizations from the cultural sector with the idea of co-designing the umbrella organization/platform for cultural organizations. The initial research will collect the relevant data in these fields:
Cultural sector - needs, expectations and common goals,
Other sectors (e.g. social care, health, education) - needs and expectations from cultural institutions
Mapping of the cultural institutions and defining who they are
Best examples of the platforms/organizations/clusters within Slovakia and the other countries.
The results will be published, promoted and shared at the end of the first phase. It will also serve as a knowledge base on the following co-designing activities. We plan to organize and facilitate 10 workshops led by the professional facilitators that will open the dialogue between the various representatives of the cultural sector in the city. We will use “plain language” and communicate step-by-step evolution of the co-creative process in order to reach transparency and inspire others to join the process at any stage. workshops will cover different topics connected with establishing and prototyping the common platform (e.g. form, selection processes, main goals, content). The outcome of the project will not only be the prototype of the platform but also culture representatives ready to collaborate and co-create actions for the future.

We want to change the perspective of at least 100 individuals who represent around 80 institutions through the positive experience with co-creation and collaboration. They will meet and recognize each other (faces and names) and they will understand the vision and history of various organizations. Therefore, they will be aware of the value that each of them brings to the city. The result of the co-creation workshops should be a prototype of a common practice/solidarity tool, that can help as a flexible arrangement in times of crisis for the cultural sector in Košice.

We believe that co-creation is the strongest method of civic and political engagement and participation. We understand that the public sector often reaches out to consult the public, but we see the lack of legitimacy for such actions (sometimes selective on target groups, sometimes only representing the local municipality, that has been elected by only 25 % of the population). Therefore, true participation is based on co-creative practices. By organizing a regular mapping and reaching out to different groups, we believe that we will be able to prototype a co-creative network/platform that can perform how participation could look in the urban environment as the willing outcome of the series of co-creation meetings.

Creative Industry Košice was responsible for implementing the European Capital of Culture project in Košice from 2008.
We have had the vision of the common umbrella organization for the culture and creative sector since 2014. Nowadays, it seems like solidarity in the cultural sphere needs to be supported and that co-creative practices will be also a great tool to social and political transformation to increase mutual trust and further collaboration. Michal Hladký, the director, advocates for cross-sectoral collaboration and increase of trust among the stakeholders from culture and other sectors. There will be Zuzana Révészová and Alexandra Matiová involved in the project. Both of them are facilitating collaborative activities for CCIs.

Fees for experts - 18000€
Space rent - 4000€
Personnel costs - 6000€
Office expenses - 500€
Promotion costs - 1000€
Documentation - 3000€

Any sort of feedback will be very useful, especially sharing good collaboration practices from different countries.