Podium for impact - Congress on cultural participation and education for and by difference makers

‘Not all Culture is Good.'

I was honoured to give a keynote presentation at the 'Podium for Impact' conference organised by the Fonds Voor Cultuurparticipatie in the Netherlands in Apeldoorn.

In my short talk I offered an insight into my lived and professional experience highlighting how culture can be weaponised to divide communities, create 'in and out groups,' and in the most extreme conditions, lead to violent conflict.

In my talk I exposed what I see as a 'corrupt gene' that can infect the positive and progressive aspects of all cultures to such an extent that they mutate into unrecognisable entities. I argue that such mutations are triggered by specific socio-political conditions. The material of culture such as; Language, education, the arts, history, science, family and community are manipulated and weaponised to polarise opinion and create division. This ultimately leads to the emergence of new cultures of mistrust, fear, anger and eventually hate.

Artists, educators and others are weaved into the tapestry of culture and hence must be critically aware to see and 'feel' the corruption before it mutates. With surgical precision we need to unpick and remove these threads and replace them with counter narratives of inclusion and interdependency. This culture must be developed, fertilised, harvested and shared.

Many thanks to the all the team at Fonds for Cultuurparticipatie for enabling me to share my ideas and experiences with such a large and vibrant community of cultural workers.

Read the whole summary here (in Dutch)
Image: Liza Wolters