An Artistic Wave of Change: Cultivating Resilience in Waterfront Communities

ARTIT is a pioneering online community that connects, supports and rewards visual artists by hosting monthly publishing opportunities and a wide range of theme-specific virtual exhibitions through its digital platform. Based on the principle of art as a powerful tool that can trigger positive change, ARTIT uses art as a means to give voice to artists and organisations that strive for the best version of the world we live in.

The Vienna Education Academy is a social democratic educational institution that is committed to the fundamental values ​​of freedom, equality, justice and solidarity. Through our extensive educational offerings, we want to strengthen the democratic structures in our city and network and support those who want to further develop our city and our political system.

Intercult is an independent production and resource centre for culture based in Stockholm, Sweden. We are a hub for local, regional and international cultural exchanges, initiator and leader of collaborative cultural projects, networks, sharing intercultural and international project competence. The ideas that motivate Intercult’s activity are that cultural competence and experiences are essential in our continuously changing world, and that these are gained and developed through co-operation, exchange of ideas and encounters between people across cultural and geographical borders. We do and share!

Instytut Kultury Miejskiej (Urban Culture Institute) is a municipal cultural institution in Gdańsk (Poland). It enhances the role of culture in city life and stimulates active participation in city culture. The aim of the Urban Culture Institute actions is to strengthen and link cultural networks with different areas of residents’ life. We act through the co-working with experts within a frame of our cultural observatory and through direct activities targeted at inhabitants. We create events both in our own venue and in urban space, we examine the changes in culture, to inspire action and support the cultural sector in Gdansk and the region. We work for and with residents of neighborhoods of Gdansk. We are an open institution of culture, which regularly organizes themed lectures, film series, music concerts, theatre and dance performances, guided walks across different districts of the city and practical training.

Dear Hunter is an artistic research practice that produces maps and atlases based on ethnographic fieldwork and the founder of what is called ‘cartopology’. The practice was established in 2014 and works for (mainly) governments across Europe on mapping public space with the aim of better understanding it. In addition to practicing cartopology, the team of Dear Hunter, Marlies Vermeulen and Remy Kroese, recently started founded the Institute of Cartopology in Vaals, The Netherlands, with the purpose of intensively questioning cartopology but also sharing it through a variety of activities with a broad public. Being a ‘Dear Hunter’, referring to the behavior of hunters, means thoroughly immersing in situations in order to understand them completely, mostly by living and working on-site for relatively long periods of time. Doing so allows Dear Hunter to bridge the gap between streets and policy, people and space, bureaucratic systems and physical living worlds.

Since 1984, Fablevision has been developing practice-based artistic interventionism within grassroots community policy areas – socially engaged artists revealing untold stories have impacted changing narratives around for example disability, regeneration, planning and social policy. With a social enterprise sister organisation called StudioFV, Fablevision projects also provide training and work experience for long term unemployed/people with long term conditions. We have a firm belief that benchmarking internationally always supports local situations by raising profile and bringing fresh ideas from similarly challenged communities in other countries. Our work has always, therefore, included collaboration with members of European networks like River//Cities. Recent projects in this arena have included Riverside Solidarity; Memory of Water and Bridging Digital with Turning the Tide, a development response to findings from previous explorations. Brexit has been a disaster for the UK cultural sector, including Fablevision and while we are no longer able to play a full partnership role in Turning the Tide, we are honoured and delighted to be able to continue in a collaborative role with the project.