FROM August 22 to 24, the Scottish Parliament will host the Edinburgh International Culture Summit, bringing together culture ministers, artists and thinkers from 42 different countries to share ideas on cultural policy.
“Everyone who makes something” is welcome to the summit, says director Jonathan Mills, who founded the bi-annual event in 2012 while director of the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF).
This year’s main theme is “connecting peoples and places” and is the result of a collaboration between the EIF, the Scottish and UK governments, the British Council and the Scottish Parliament itself. “In the first few years, we deliberately kept it low profile and less of a reported event,” Mills says. “When the summit is doing its job properly, it is a support act to the benefits the festival has created over the past 71 years.”
Mills says the summit is inspired by principles similar to those on which the EIF was founded in 1947 – the same year the Fringe began when six Scottish companies turned up to perform on its “fringes”.
“In the years after the Second World War, it was not certain what the future would hold,” Mills adds.
“The Festival represented a profoundly optimistic investment in our future, suggesting the kind of future we would have depended on us knowing about citizens from other places, learning from different cultures, experiencing songs in languages different to our own. Dancing to a different beat. Having an appreciation of a creed, a philosophy, an idea of the world that was different from our own.
“It wasn’t about saying that any of these were more important or less important. It was more the idea that, if we understood those differences, and expected those differences, maybe, just maybe, there would be more peace in the world.”
Despite including government ministers, policy wont be made over these three days. The summit is more about the discussions that may potentially impact on policy; of opening the ears and minds of policy-makers to the ideas of artists and artist leaders.
The summit will address a related sub-theme each day: culture in a networked world; culture and investment; and culture and wellbeing. Each will be the focus of five plenary sessions (for which members of the public can apply for tickets) as well as private break-out sessions and workshops held under Chatham House rules.
“What we’ve learnt along the way is that ministers of culture are keen to engage,” says Mills. “They want their public set-pieces, but they also want their networking opportunities and private conversations, so that is how the summit can offer that. And the building you can achieve that with is the Parliament, so it all works rather well architecturally.”
Each year, the summit has included a significant strand on culture and investment and how models of state support for the arts differ from country to country.
“In America there is almost no government support but a hugely healthy private sector,” Mills says. “Germany doesn’t have that, but is supported more governmentally. It’s not to say that one is better than the other, it is to say that there are a range of opportunities that ministers should consider when making their decisions.
“It will be a diversity of ideas that will provide the tools culture ministers from all over the world need to apply to their different circumstances and see what fits best for them, whether they be in Bangladesh, Canada, South Korea or Romania.”
That guiding principal of open exchange will also inform the sessions on culture and wellbeing and culture in a networked world. Mills says of the latter session: “The person in your social network may be on the other side of the world, might speak a different language, believe in a different god, eat different food and have a completely different outlook, philosophy and idea of their life.
“Culture is a way in which some of those networks can start to have meaning, and matter. We need to empower ministers and artists to think about their roles in a quite different way. Our evolving notion of who we are, our employment and wellbeing all depend on a much bigger conversation about culture to what we’ve had hitherto.”
People can apply for up to two tickets for each plenary session at culture.summit@parliament.scot Only those with tickets will be given access to the Chamber. Tel: 0131 348 5200 for more information on attending. www.culturesummit.com @CultureSummit #edculturesummit
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