The Berlin Symposium took place as an international conference
from May 4th to 6th 2009 within a context of national and international
efforts to support the arts and to secure artists' working and living
conditions.
Culture is constantly cited as a motor for the European unification
process, and creativity is described as an essential competency
and special resource for the European continent. The present reality
of working conditions for creative individuals - and in our context
this is exemplified by the artists in the performing arts - is characterized
by a continuing internationalization of the contract and employment
markets, the reduction of long-term employment contracts, a decrease
in contracts granted by public institutions and the increasing influence
of the private culture, media and new technology economies.
The social statutes decision on June 7th 2007 by the European Parliament,
made in recognition of this context, demands that member states
develop and realise a legal and institutional framework to support
artistic activity through accepting and applying a group of coherent
and expansive measures that include contract relationships, social
security, health insurance and direct and indirect taxes in accordance
with European regulations. These statutes emphasize that the "atypical
and precarious character of artists' working methods", especially
the "atypical and precarious character of all stage careers",
need to be acknowledged.
At present a variety of protagonists in European cultural politics are introducing measures to advance mobility. Examples are the pilot projects subsidized by the European Union for mobility in the arts and the conferences "Artists Mobility - Aspiration or Reality" (November 2008 in Dublin) and "New Avenues for the Dissemination of the Performing Arts in Europe" (November 2008 in Paris). It is becoming more and more clear that mobility and the sustainable protection of creative resources are only compatible when art producers can work in a stable framework with a future. This framework applies above all to the social, economic and legal situation in professional art production.
This problem was addressed by the Berlin Symposium "Performing
Arts Report". Using specific examples, it demonstrated which deficits
must be eliminated in the work conditions for artists in the member
states (German discourse will serve as an example).
Given a spectrum of questions on how to support international cultural
exchange, the symposium focused on the obstacles for artistic work
processes that result from artists' social, economic and legal positions.
The Berlin Symposium was organized by
-Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media
-German Centre of the International Theatre Institute
-Fonds Darstellende Künste, Germany
-Academy of the Arts, Berlin in cooperation with
-Culture Action Europe
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