International Council for Cultural Centers (I3C)

The II International Congress on Culture and Social Transformation, Mar del Plata, Argentina, March 17-19, 2011 is organized by the Latin American Network of Arts for Social Transformation, RLATS, www.artestransformador.net, an I3C assocaited network, together with the Municipality of Buenos Aires.

The Culture 2020 Strategy Conference strenghtened an already forming partnership between I3C and the Budapest Observatory of Cultural Policies (www.budobs.org) with President Peter Inkei.  Emerging is a potential future international research and cooperation and capacity-building partnership aiming the revitalization of the national networks of publicly-funded community cultural centers in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia as the first countries that would later include more from the region. In relation to this project, Nadezhda Savova explored with Budobs experts community cultural centers around Budapest. The first one was Marczibányi Cultural Center ( Marczibányi Téri Muvelodési Központ), http://www.marczi.hu, specializing in theater in education techniques for all ages and home to the Kava Creative Group that has worked on various international theater and drama in education programs.

The Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union organizes the Conference "The contribution of culture to the implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy"  (www.kulturpont.hu/culture2020), inviting experts to share ideas about the role of culture in the success of the Europe 2020 Strategy. I3C representative Nadezhda Savova will present various recommendations on cultural policies geared towards community arts, intangible heritage safeguarding, and  the promotion of cultural diversity through grassroots cultural activities.

I3C, being among the major cultural networks in the world, was invited to participate in a panel on the new aspects of networks and their contributions to social development during the Third World Culturelink Conference held in Zagreb from 13 to 15 November 2009, attended by 130 participants from all continents, representing research organizations, national and international associations, foundations, cultural institutions and universities.

At the Culture Futures Conference (www.culturefutures.org), World Summit on Climate Change COP 15, December 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark, I3C launched the global BREAD Movement: Bridging Resources for Ecological and Art-based Development (http://connect2culture.culture360.org/2009/12/09/a-bread-house-in-my-great-grandmothers-house/) coordinated by the Bread Houses Network and associated with Slow Food International, which inspires pe

Nadezhda Savova and her PhD research project at Princeton University’s Anthropology Department and Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies won to be finalist for the Best Cultural Policy Research Project 2009, awarded by the European Network of Cultural Agencies and Training Centers (ENCATC).

 The African Arterial Network Annual Meeting (September 19-21, 2009, Johannesburg, South Africa)