The Disintegration of the Persistence of Nations

by Venu Dhupa, Duncan Higgins and Kathleen O'Neill. In 2009/10 the Arts Council of England's Cultural Leadership Programme, under Hilary Carty, had the foresight to support a project called EROS. This was based on the idea that the cultural sector needs to release its potential to shape international relations in a way that counters the current rampant nature of globalisation.

Below are a couple of extracts from 'The Disintegration of the Persistence of Nations' an article published in Creativity and Human Development - an international publication available in 160 countries worldwide....Commonty readers will be quick to spot artist and oor Fresh Start pal Kathleen O'Neill amongst the authors (see also name-check for D+G in the second paragraph below) 

The article is about a visit that the EROS group made to Kaunas in Lithuania - led by artist Duncan Higgins 

Meno Parkas Collective Gallery in Kaunas organises art festival including KaunasPhoto - image Eric Lusito from '20 Years Since the Collapse of the Soviet Empire'

Art Place and Social Imagination?

How can art play a significant part in constructing, questioning and negotiating particular ideas of social memory and the re-presentation of place identity today? This was explored through a series of presentations, organized, and hosted by the National Museum of Art and took place in a variety of venues. The think tank was to promote group discussions and the sharing of critical understanding relative to each participants' individual responses to the themes. In doing so it conditioned a wider questioning of art practice/s and how 'place' might be constructed, re-presented and aligned to active cultural and political narratives. This has led to building the participants' networks and practice based artistic work.

Painting by Kathleen O'Neill

'Kaunas inspired new relationships between people from the UK and Lithuania with potential to build innovative cross country collaboration. From my perspective, the voice of Lithuanian artists and curators reflected questions currently being raised in the south of Scotland; in Dumfries and Galloway, artists are creating by timely economic and social necessity, new ways of communicating with local and national governance of the arts, taking sector lead in improvements towards community building, health, education and cultural economic opportunity. Their voice and dynamic, through invention of new practice for Scotland echoes conversation between Lithuanian artists. In both places, creative people similarly attempt ways, yet from very different historical contexts, to amass routes towards cooperative communications and 'cellular-like' artist support systems.'

see the full article here

Rumour has it that the same publication might publish something about Environmental Art Festival Scotland in the near future - see D+G - see INTERNATIONAL