..is already pretty full by series of diverse events across Europe where we meet, share, learn more about each others’ cultural, ethnic or religious backgrounds, discuss and socialise.

What does ”intercultural dialogue” mean to Europeans? Let’s look again at the survey, requested by the Directorate General Education and Culture and conducted by the Gallup Organisation Hungary in November 2007. For majority of Europeans this expression is near to “cooperation”, “exchange”, “mutual understanding” across nations, religions and cultures. Some of the common interpretations given by the 27 000 respondents of what is “intercultural dialogue” are:
• Communication among different communities
• Cooperation, exchange, transnational mobility
• Living together, knowing and understanding different cultures
• Cultural events and access to culture
• Coexistence and cultural diversity
• Dealing with linguistic diversity
• Tolerance, equal rights
• Education exchange of information and ideas

Well, on another hand, every third citizen could not attribute any specific meaning. A very small proportion of the respondents have found a negative connotation in this expression.

So, do we actually believe in the power of “intercultural dialogue”? And how we, as artists, curators, managers, policy makers, reach and respond to those who object or do not care? Do we have tools for influence and if yes, how prominent they are?

LabforCulture just launched a multilingual participatory project Open Lines to Intercultural Dialogue inviting everyone to give an interpretation in their own language and in English of the expression “intercultural dialogue”. The repetition of one and the same word (or combination of words) in the submissions would give us an idea how similar (or different) are our understandings, what are the most common words we use to describe "intercultural dialogue". The more people participate, the more we will know about the shared perspectives on understanding of this term, and why not also from those not coming from the cultural sector. I would be curious to come accross answers from doctors, lawyers, computer engineers, financial advisors, taxi drivers (by the way, the latest are an amazing “intercultural informational entry point” to every city around the world, and the 30 min dialogue while you drive from the airport to the city center is the best briefing you could get on all boiling life-related diverse matters of that city, region, country, and sometimes-of the whole planet...).

The survey asks the question: How EU citizens will be attracted to participate in the events manifesting the European year of Intercultural dialogue? Only one-fifth admitted to have a “great interest” in the Year, and 36% answered they had “rather no interest”, and 15%-no interest at all. Slovenia is among the countries, with the highest interest in a 2008 European Year of Intercultural Dialogue – maybe because of the awareness of the Slovenian presidency in the first half of the year. Cyprus and Greece are also among the most supporting countries.

Do we actually know how much the non-EU citizens care, understand and participate in the year of Intercultural Dialogue? If not, how to find out: by another survey, by cross-border artistic collaboration, or just by traveling frequently to non-EU countries and talking to people living there?

The survey covers also issues such as: cosmopolitan attitude versus isolation; the need to preserve family traditions versus the attempt to become international; the extent to which young people are enriched and benefit from being in contact with people from other cultures or beliefs. And much more....