About the Congress

The key idea behind the Congress is to create a space for dialogue open to all representatives of culture from the Eastern Partnership countries. In order to achieve this goal, we have invited to Lublin some experienced culture practitioners, managers, local government representatives and civil servants responsible for overall policies on cultural issues who will work arm in arm with philosophers and cultural investigators.

Sessions and workshops will be held bringing to life an idea of agora: a space where is no division on speakers and listeners. This shall be the first step towards creating a platform of understanding, available to all the representatives of culture from our part of Europe, a place where analyses and suggestions are made, strategies and cooperation networks are established.

We want to steer away from the standard conference and academic mode with its defined structure based on a course of lectures, a mode that does not offer much space for a discussion. Instead, we present a horizontal structure resting on meetings, workgroups and workshops held on equal basis. We do not impose a closed programme framework based on the discussion on specific topics. Thanks to following these assumptions, we hope that the decisions made within the Congress will result from a wide cooperation of all the participants.

The first sessions within the Congress will focus on five themes suggested by the international Congress Programme Council: Culture facing coexistence, Culture facing development, Culture facing education, Culture facing independence, Culture facing organization. The idea of the sessions is to identify the problems and outline basic suggestions, which then will be discussed during the workshops in small groups. They will result in a set of recommendations which, aiming at practice and implementation, will convey the idea of enriching Eastern Partnership with a cultural program: significant, rational and deriving from a versatile and equal partnership.

After being discussed among all the Congress’ participants during a closing session, the recommendations will be compiled by the Congress think-tank in order to present it to the European Commission.

Good Practice Fair, presenting innovative cultural initiatives and the most interesting applications sent within „Culture above borders” contest, will take place within the Congress. We also invite all publishers and editors of cultural magazines. With a variety of their offers we will have a multicultural fair of publishers from the field of culture.