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The Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) is organising, September 19-22, under its MoldArte project, a series of research visits to cultural institutions in the Moldovan cities of Soroca and Balti.
The project partners participate in meetings with local decision-makers, with people who lead various cultural and tourism establishments, educational institutions, theatres, libraries, and also with folk crafts people and independent artists or artists on regular employment in order to improve knowledge of the cultural sector in Moldova and the development of possible partnerships and joint projects.
"These visits aim to create a panorama of the cultural life in these cities, of the expectations of the local people: what they expect from the outside, from the inside, from anywhere, what their expectations are that would motivate them to open up to cultural co-operation, to this kind of relationship with Europe and with Romania. I hope that this project will continue to materialise some thoughts formulated now, because when those in the field formulate some needs and discover that perhaps international collaboration can answer these needs, they could become more open to this kind of interaction. I think things happen both ways. It's not something unilateral, Europe doesn't come up with money and respond to them, but they also open up to Europe and then things are somehow in both directions and it's naturally that it should be so. I think that this project is like a plinth for what is going to happen and I think that the resources that are on the moldarte.eu platform are very useful for any European cultural operator that would have Moldova as his or herpoint of interest," MoldArte artistic director Mirela Spataru told AGERPRES.
Head of the Soroca Department of Culture and Tourism Grigore Bucataru pointed to the importance of allocating financial resources to support cultural activities and to promote local folk artists and craftsmen. He stated that, compared with other cities in Moldova, Soroca benefits from resources for the development of cultural activities and the organisation of events and expressed his hope that, following the meeting with MoldArte specialists, Soroca will get involved in future cultural projects both as an applicant and as a partner.
"To us, this was an opportunity to promote ourselves, to make ourselves known. We have something to be proud of, we have something to show the world from a cultural and tourist point of view, and we want the discussions during this meeting to materialise into future projects, in support for funding, in the development of new partnerships," said Bucataru.
As part of MoldArte, a series of courses and workshops by trainers from Romania will be provided in Chisinau in the coming days on subjects such as cultural management, cultural funding and participatory budgeting.
The project implemented by ICR also includes the publication of articles and interviews on the way independent cultural activities are carried out, with the aim of covering a wide range of areas, from visual arts, to music and drama. Also, under MoldArte the series of podcasts on drama, literature and filmmaking continues, alongside training sessions for creating portfolios in literature, performing arts, visual arts and music and public discussions on various subjects of interest, mainly focused on the importance of education through culture, which can be followed on the project's online platform.
MoldArte is a project funded by EUNIC under the European Spaces of Culture programme and organised by the Romanian Cultural Institute in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut of Bucharest, the Embassy of Austria in Moldova and the Delegation of the European Union in Moldova. It is devised to develop the public cultural scene in Moldova, to stimulate the participation of cultural actors and their approach to current social and political issues.
