Taking the Initiative – Radical Processes for Public Good, Powered by Culture

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Once upon a time a Director General, who was passionate about the power of arts and culture to make a meaningful difference to society, met a Practitioner who had developed novel methods to do just that. Excited by their common goals, they got together and Taking the Initiative was born.

Harm-Christian Tolden and Lisa Baxter will explore how bureaucracy can be its own worst enemy and the meticulous steps they have taken to respond in a way that creatively disrupts the status quo, circumventing many of the bureaucratic ‘norms’ and replacing them with new ones. Inspired by ecosystemic thinking, cultural democracy, citizen-centred processes, emergent theory and socially engaged practice, our story is about being brave, taking risk and breaking the rules.

We will share our methodological approach which recasts artists as agents of change, bridging the tensions that exist between civic and civil society, top-down and bottom-up processes, and between instrumentalism and community self-determination. By positively disrupting established mindsets, process and structures within an experimental framework, we are testing and validating new ways in which artists, arts and culture can deliver value for the city and its citizens.

We are currently transitioning Taking The Initiative from an experiment to a core strand of the Cultural Department’s activity as well as embedding it in plans for Bergen to become European Capital of Culture 2036.

This session is part of the “Transforming How We Work” block, which runs from 15:45-16:30 CET. The sessions in this block will appear in the following order:

· Pan-African Innovation in Public Sector: AU Digital and Innovation Fellowship

· City Experiment Fund: Lessons Learned 5 Years In

· Bogotá’s Governance Model for Public Innovation (iBO Ampliado)

· Taking the Initiative – Radical Processes for Public Good, Powered by Culture

· The Playful Bureaucracy of Electionville, a Serious Game About Local Politics