Learning Lab: Support Group network-SGN & Re:Act, Valand Academy, Kultur i Väst, Outgrain, and Counterpoints Arts, London

Featured photograph courtesy of SGN, Jose Farinha at the Restad Gård Asylum Centre, Sweden

Featured photograph credits: ©Jose Farinha 2017

We wish to invite you to a Learning Lab scheduled for 30/31 May 2017, inspired by the self-organising, cooperative arts and culture work of the Restad Gård ‘’Support Group network-SGN & Re:Act project of Save the Children’ in different refugee camps and municipalities across Sweden and Europe.

The specific aim of the Learning Lab is to explore the dynamic methodologies of cooperation enacted by SGN & Re:Act and to simultaneously connect and engage artists, activists, educators, civic leaders, policy and decision makers.

Learning Lab partners include Support Group network-SGN & Re:Act, Valand Academy, Kultur i Väst, Outgrain, and Counterpoints Arts, London.

This Learning Lab is driven by a series of interconnected questions:

• What can the self-organizing arts sector learn from the deep cooperative arts and culture work at Restad Gård?

• How might the SGN Restad Gård model be a force for social change offering an inclusive and resilient model of cultural and social integration?

• How might the creative networking methodologies at Restad Gård shed light on new ways of organizing, new forms of knowledge, pedagogy and civic participation?

• What role does arts and culture play in the creation and sustaining of social and political equality and new modes of citizenship?

• How might we come together – across silos – to exchange ideas, ways of working and create meaningful change in relation to integration and civic inclusion?

The ethos of the Learning Lab method – which is directed by Counterpoints Arts – is to bring diverse actors and creative practitioners together; to learn through doing, to collectively reflect in order to make change. To this end, Learning Lab will comprise workshops, film screenings, case studies, roundtables and an open forum allowing for a rich range of activities and peer-to-peer interaction (see here: http://learninglabeditions.org/).

A central goal for the Learning Lab on 30/31st May is to co-design conceptual and practical actions in the form of a shared manifesto toward strategic cooperation and collaboration across the arts, culture, civic, educational and policy sectors.

Venue: Valand Academy

Timetable:

Tuesday 30 May: 9.30-10.00 (Registration and Teas/Coffee) – 17.00pm (with additional cooking and eating together from 17.00 to 20.00pm)

Wednesday 31 May: 9.30-10.00 (Teas/Coffee) – 17.00pm

Please RSVP to Áine O’Brien, Co-Director, Counterpoints Arts: aine@counterpointsarts.org.uk

More details on the program to follow once the full list of participants are confirmed.