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Description
Despite its cultural potential, the Curonian Lagoon region is perceived by locals and visitors as a wonderful corner of nature, but not as a place of cultural attraction. Local cultural resources are left unexplored for increasing the attractiveness of the place, developing its identity, creating new services and economic benefits, enpowering the community. In the project “Culture Barn” is using contemporary professional art and creative placemaking, in order to actualize the cultural resources of the region and create the local cultural attraction, connecting the community, nature, heritage with incoming artists, tourists and other cultural initiatives. This will be achieved in completeing these stages:
- Restoring and adapting the existing infrastructure for active cultural use, cultural education and cultural entrepreneurship activities.
- Involving local community and artists in project activitiesfor further sustainable local development.
- Carrying out cultural education and cultural entrepreneurship trainings, improving skills, exchanging knowledge on local, regional and international levels and providing the necessary competence for the implementation of continuous activities.
- Implementing professional art residency programme for visual arts.
During the project, the former barn of the town will be adapted for the implementation of cultural activities, such as construction of traditional ships, production of weathervanes, loacl traditional food, handicraft products, cultural entrepreneurship activities. Parallel to the creation of “hard” infrastructure, the“soft” infrastructure will be introduced – development of competencies and skills required for implementation of sustainable activities. Cross-sectoral bilateral cooperation will connect different value chains, accelerate the diffusion of services and create added value for the place and its people.
Summary of project results
Despite its cultural potential, the Curonian Lagoon region is perceived by locals and visitors as a wonderful corner of nature, but not as a place of cultural attraction. Local cultural resources are left unexplored for increasing the attractiveness of the place, developing its identity, creating new services and economic benefits, empowering the community. Project “Culture Barn” was using contemporary professional art and creative placemaking method, in order to actualize the cultural resources of the region and create the local cultural attraction, connecting the community, nature, heritage with incoming artists, tourists and other cultural initiatives.
During project implementation:
- The basement of the Crafts Centre in Kintai was renovated and the necessary equipment for educational activities was purchased;
- Workshops on local identity development was implemented;
- 8 art residencies were implemented with the participation of 20 artists;
- Creative placemaking training was organized with over 300 participants;
- More than 6 workshops on the synergy between nature and art were implemented with 149 participants;
- More than 300 participants took part in the ceramics workshops and more than 400 participants took part in the workshops on traditional Lithuanian food making.
- Workshops on the production of traditional weathervanes were implemented with over 300 participants.
- A historical Kuršmariai boat was built. More than 400 participants attended the education sessions on the making of this boat.
- A "Community Development Strategy" was developed using a creative placemaking approach, focusing on the revitalisation of the place through cultural activities, intersectoral partnerships and active community involvement.
Achieved results:
-The renovation of the basement of the Crafts Centre has enabled the necessary infrastructure to be adapted for cultural purposes.
- New cultural services were created, such as ceramics workshop education, traditional food making education, traditional weathervane production education, vintage boat production education, etc.
- Through cultural educations and trainings and the creative placemaking approach, the cultural entrepreneurship skills of the local community were improved. More than 94% of participants reported increased cultural entrepreneurship skills.
Summary of bilateral results
The project was implemented in partnership with the Norwegian company Biotope, using their specific knowledge and expertise. The exchanges were implemented not only in the context of the Art Residencies, but also in the wider context of the installation of the Art Watching Site, cultural entrepreneurship training activities, and the construction of vintage ships. Partner Biotope designed and built, together with the local Kintai community partners - woodworking specialists, an Art Watching Site, which is used for nature observation by local residents, artists and nature specialists to find new inspiration for their creativity and activities. As a result, the Art Watching Site is becoming a tourist attraction in Kintai, attracting cultural tourists and visiting artists, and increasing the attractiveness of the place by incorporating natural resources.