My colleague Silvija Slaminskienė and I, invited by the Institute of Polish Culture (IKP), have recently participated in a project of culture animation which took place in Gozdowo from the 20th of June to the 1st of July. Vytautas Magnus University, collaborating with IKP, is still trying to prepare the study programme of culture animation, thus every visit of representatives of VMU to any practical workshop is really useful.
Culture animation at your Institute has been developed for a number of years. You can boast not only about tangible results, but also about tried and trusted methods of communicative activities. We could be sure of that while observing how the animators communicate with the local community, getting them involved into artistic practices. Our visit to Gozdowo was the first personal attempt not only to contribute to such a communicative activity, but also to experience ourselves what culture animation is. We received not only interesting impressions, but also useful practical skills. Observation while joining artistic activities, in my opinion, is the most effective method of culture animation study.
It’s a pity that our integration into the project was not absolutely smooth. Because of the lack of organization we found ourselves in a rather chaotic situation. Not having a tutor who could have helped us to integrate into the project, in the beginning we only tried to perceive our functions, but eventually we undertook an activity – we suggested some ideas for the project of the old station. Their implementation was not easy at all though they were accepted favorably. At this point we should talk about the culture of socializing or its differences inside the animators’ community.
Saying this, I have in mind that while getting in touch with local inhabitants of Gozdowo, we did not feel any socializing barrier which could arise due to lack of sufficient language skills. Despite language problems, people were open, benevolent and understanding. I missed such understanding and benevolence among the animators (with a few exceptions). Naturally sincere socializing always is the first step towards a new cultural experience. Our communication with the locals showed that the quality of communication does not depend on the language skills, but on a personal intention of an individual to communicate. The activity of animators, more than any other, mostly depends on the ability to enter into human interaction, so this ability should be demonstrated not only in the communication with local people, but also within the animators’ community.
I would like to raise this issue as a discussion point in your internet site. I hope that it will help to consider the problems connected with the integration of new people into this project, i.e. to discuss the issues of communicative culture in future projects where you have to face with people of different background, having different age experience, coming from different countries.
Respectfully, Lina Klusaitė
I understand your point of view and agree in general. But as your support person in preparing the exhibition (final event of the old station) I would like to point out that our effective cooperation started with the conversation about your doubts, impressions and needs. It was absolutely essential for further communication. But I am not sure if it would be possible to cooperate without this conversation. That is why I must give general remark that always both sides should take responsibility for the communication and be able to enter into human interaction. In future we should be more sensitive to others (especially those coming from different countries and with different backgrounds). But those who feel lost and confused during the project should share this experience d u r i n g t h e p r o j e c t. It is the only way to not only discuss but also to solve the problem. Of course the idea of "tutor" who is able to support the integration is very important but equally important and constructive is to express one’s own doubts and needs in the right time.
Hi Asia,
Silvija and I haven’t had yet the opportunity of saying thank you for all you had done for us. Thanks to your help our situation got better and the project was really successful. I want to say many thanks to Magda, Pamela and all who joined in with its realization.
Of cours, any kind of communicateve activities are bound up by both sides, but I was asked to express some critical points of the project and I hope it won’t stop our further collaboration. I think criticizm is a most progressive impuls improving future projects, so I believe in our positive colaboration. Thanks everybody again for having useful and challenging experience.
hi there, there are some interesting questions posed here. we’ve had some suggestions from users of the web site which are worth sharing at this point. one suggestion is to set up a forum or discussion point, where a number of practitioners are online for a specific time in order to have a conversation and discuss specific topics. for example: what are your views on the differences between the roles of a tutor and a mentor? Or, how do you share information about a project, how do you ‘publicise’ an activity?
anyway, the idea is that these conversations are both online in a ‘live’ sense and the record of the dialogue is left as a web page for users to access. a whole range of topics could be explored in a relatively structured way. your questions are welcome! we’ll keep you posted.
Lina
Thanks for your comments. I agree with much of what you said. I’ll respond briefly to what I think are key points, and hopefully this can stimulate more discussion and questioning.
Smooth integration vs. chaos – There were over 30 people, arriving and leaving at different times. We were in a new place and it was a condensed time period. It was exciting. It was unsettling. Yes, I think there could have been better induction for people as they arrived. Everything wasn’t completely organised beforehand. But how could it be and is that really a bad thing? This whole experience was never intended to be like a neatly packaged classroom lesson, where you are given instructions and follow the rules. We were experimenting with co-responsibility, with non-hierarchical learning.
Classrooms with no teachers – Instead of being told what to do and what was expected, each person had to find their own place. This was an opportunity and each person responded in their own way to this situation. When organising these kinds of opportunities, sometimes we err on the side of too much structure and sometimes we err on the side of too little. The trick is to get a balance, where people feel secure enough to take risks and to try new and scary things. We set up a system where each project had a mentor and a supporter. I think it would have been helpful to have had some contact with one another beforehand, even a small introduction by email.
Sincere socialising – This is always an issue, when lots of practitioners get together for an intensive project. It is always tempting to try and do too much, with each student wanting to run their own mini-project. Sometimes we are so focused on doing the work that we do not allow enough time to talk with one another about what we are doing, let alone time to talk about completely unrelated things. Perhaps if we’d had more preparation time all together, we could have made links between projects so that groups of students could collaborate together, creating socialising work units.