A snapshot of what you could expect at the Oracle of Amsterdam conference
We have already shared our concept for the Oracle of Amsterdam conference: nine workshops on three main themes, no long speeches, but interactive sessions which use different methods and approaches to inspire groups of either doers, thinkers or dreamers to create building bricks for a possible, probable or preferred future scenarios.
To help you visualize this concept, we are revealing the approach of three workshops, which use three – out of nine – different approaches.
The first snapshot casts a bit of light on a workshop about the Shared dreams of ideal cultural participation. In this workshop, the participants will be asked to give their imagination a free ride (there aren’t any limitations whatsoever – financial, political, personnel) and to dream and share their vision about cultural life in future cities? What are our ideal cities? What our ideal cities have in in common? What and whom do we need to make this dream true?
The host of the workshop is Antonio Damasco, theatre director and director of the Italian Network of Folk Culture, from Turin, Italy. He will guide us to the world of dreams by reading a piece of his theatre play L’Immagnifica storia di Espérer (The fantastic story of Hope).
The dreamers will be taken further on this trip to the ideal future by workshop moderator Petra Ardai, a theatre-maker specialized in future scenarios and in building imaginary worlds around the question: “Who owns the Future?”. She has a wide experience in immersive collaborative storytelling in various media. Currently she is leading the project Digest the future.
At the Oracle of Amsterdam conference, Petra will take the dreamers to the future, to the year 2069. There, they will… If you want to know more about what will happen, you can register for the conference.
The workshop with the theme Possible forms of creative engagement with refugees has a totally different approach. It explores the practical aspects of the question “What can be done to stimulate co-creation?”. It is meant for the doers, the hands-on spirits.
But it won’t be only a practical session. The hosts – fieldworkers from the Red Star Line Museum Antwerp – will bring in some creativity with the screening of a compilation of the artistic productions they co-created.
This workshop will use the elements of the game Story Catcher. Playing this game the participants will create together something very practical to build on further: a collection of the real-life examples of co-creation from their experiences/cities, a list of pre-conditions to realize them, and descriptions of the roles of different actors and stakeholders needed for this.
Moderator Karolina Spaic will adapt the game Story Catcher, created by ZID Theater, to match the theme of this workshop. Karolina is in her heart a bridge-builder who looks for the out-of-the-box paths. Officially she is a founder and artistic leader of the ZID Theatre, a community art & performance center, place for a continuous dialogue between people who normally would not engage in a dialogue.
A group of thinkers will join forces in the workshop about the Meaning of the oral history interviews with refugees for European cities. Starting from their own experience and expertise, they will develop a range of perspectives on the question why life stories of refugees are important, and of what use they can be for different European cities. The host of this workshop is Amar Nafa, from Paris, journalist and political scientist involved in several French networks dealing with the cultural diversity, history and memory of migrations.
Saskia Moerbeek, director of foundation for the Promotion of Social Participation, experienced in methodological work with various groups, will moderate this workshop. She will use the Metaplan method, which takes the individual insights of the participants as a starting point and works from concrete answers on a clear starting question, towards levels of higher abstraction in which common visions and alternative scenarios are elaborated. During the workshop there is time for discussion and exchange of experiences. The workshop will end with policy recommendations and action perspectives for various actors.
If you got curious about our conference, and want to attend one of the workshops, please register.
Links to the other articles of the 3rd newsletter:
