TANDEM - Cultural Managers Exchange Programme Turkey
Tandem – a Cultural Managers Exchange Programme between Turkey and European Union - is a new initiative by Stiftung Mercator (Essen) and the European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam) together with MitOst (Berlin), Anadolu Kültür (Istanbul) and Istanbul Bilgi University (Istanbul). It offers the chance for 15 cultural organisations based in Ger-many and other EU countries to create a co-production together with Turkish partner organisations specifically from Anatolian cities. The project extends far beyond the core elements of international understanding and provides the opportunity for participating cultural managers to get real insights into Turkey’s cultural scene.
Structure and organization
We believe in the importance of working together to create dialogue among different groups and different communities. The opportunity to experience learning first-hand in new organisational and artistic localities will offer an inspiring and stimulating space to develop partnerships and creative practise.
The project is for cultural managers from professional cultural organisations with ex-perience in international project work and an interest in long-term collaboration with Turkish partners. Language skills are a pre-requisite for the successful implementation of a co-production, therefore the project is targeted at cultural managers with a record of international co-operation and a good command of at least one of the following languages: English, German or Turkish. The working language to be used in the tandems will be determined by the co-operation partners.
A mix of visits, with intensive training sessions and specific collaborative pro-jects
The programme is designed for strengthening the managerial and specialist skills of both European and Turkish cultural managers who act as cultural mediators and to contribute international cooperation. Hence the basic activities within the programme are as follows;
- Partner meeting in Istanbul (September 2011)
- Mutual 10-day working visits of the tandem partners in Germany or other EU countries (12-26 November 2011) and Turkey (Spring 2012), with training sessions and consultation
- Specialists support for the development of specific arts projects/co-productions
- Funding of co-productions up to an amount of EUR 5,000
- Showcasing the co-productions in Turkey in September 2012 and Berlin in December 2012.
Objectives
The purpose of this project is to build long-term successful collaborations between cultural organisations/initiatives and cultural managers from Turkey, particularly from Anatolian cities, and EU countries, particularly from Germany, and to promote the pro-ject as an example of new exemplary collaboration. With 15 cultural organisations from Turkey, and 15 from EU countries, taking part in a two-year targeted development process and forming 15 European-Turkish “tandems”.