So I managed to get a quick ten minute interview with the Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, the Swedish minister of Culture who will be doing the introduction on the conference. (Lena is audially impaired and relies partly on lip reading, and didn't feel completely comfortable doing an impromptu interview in English so we did a standard ol written Q&A)
Q: What's do you think is most important about this conference?
A: As always, everything that is happening in between the presentations. That people get to meet. The intermingling, the networking, the swapping of business cards. There'll be a lot of people here today from other European countries and the world beyond.
Another important thing is the fact that we demonstrate that culture can actually work as bridge interconnecting the European countries and Europe to the greater world.
Q: But can it really? The cultural field and ministry is politically/economically weak compared to "the big players" of finance, immigration, health et al. Can our marginal field really move society?
A: I think that one way of doing it is thinking of culture less as something that happens separately from the rest of society and more as something that is happening in all sectors of society. This trend is accelerated by new technologies. Look at the computer gaming industry for instance. Is it commerce or culture, both obviously. It's interconnecting young people throughout the world.
LabforCulture ist eine Partnerinitiative der European Cultural Foundation. LabforCulture dankt seinen Förderern für Ihre Unterstützung.