EUROCITIES Culture Forum

Culture Opening Spaces for Dialogue: The role of arts and creativity in improving social cohesion in cities

25-27 April 2018, Dresden

 

At the end of April the City of Dresden hosted the EUROCITIES Culture Forum focusing on the role of arts and creativity in improving social cohesion in cities. 

Dresden has become a focal point of political polarisation and an increasing community division. The local situation reflects a European schism that has taken place over the last years. While protests against immigration have been a key feature of this division, these have also become a “catch-all movement” for those harbouring a wide array of grievances and resentments not least against “Europe” as a whole. 

In these tense local contexts and in times of protectionist and isolationist tendencies all over Europe, many local decision makers, cultural institutions and artists feel a need to contribute to strengthening a European communality or in thinking it in a new way. How it could look like and what they can do has been the topic of the EUROCITIES Culture Forum in Dresden. 

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Following key questions have been addressed: How can cities defend the European values of democracy, peaceful diversity, open borders and unlimited mobility? Can cities invent a new narrative on how to live together? What can local culture and arts’ stakeholders do together to foster social cohesion? Participants were representatives of other European cities that are members of EUROCITIES. The City of Dresden is since 2004 member of EUROCITIES, the European network of major cities.