WHAT IS THE MAIN IDEA OF THE PROJECT AND WHO IS THE TARGET GROUP?

Rhyzom maps emerging cultural productions related to local contexts (eco-cultures, local skills and alternative economies, traditional practices and cultures of resilience, rural/urban exchanges). It aims to reinforce these through a European interdisciplinary network, which constitutes a cultural collaborative platform for reciprocal empowerment and trans-local dissemination.

WHAT DOES THE PROJECT INCLUDE?

Rhyzom activities include:

Cross-thematic field trips that allow the collection of information in situ for a collective database. Field trips are research events arranged by a participant organisation to allow other parties to see the context in which they are currently developing work. Rhyzom includes the following field trips:

• Forms of collective organisation in isolated settlements
• Cultural production in the Irish border region
• From agriculture to culture culture
• Biennale of Istanbul
• Cooperative villages/self-managed farms
• Institutions of the common/right to the city and new cultural politics

Workshops that constitute the framework for strengthening existing local initiatives and initiating exchange involving participants from other disciplines and contexts. Some of these workshops are accompanied by educational workshops with students from different universities (Sheffield, Istanbul, Belfast, Bucharest, etc.) involved in defining contextual issues and protocols for collaborative work and dissemination.

The workshops realised so far include:

• Höfer Waren/International Village Shop Production Workshop;
• Cultural production in rural environments and small towns (Belfast and Ballykinlar, Northern Ireland);
• Abbey Gardens/International Village Shop Production Workshop;
• PUBLICation as agency mode;
• Live Project: Remote Control - Reimagining cultural accommodation in rural border regions;
• Live Project: Cultural Agencies
• EcoRoof;
• Live Project: EcoRoof.

Trans-local dissemination, including the present website and nomadic exhibitions and rhizomatic publications. Dissemination represents the product of each project (Collection of Minds, RURBAN, International Village Shop, Cultural Agencies), reflecting the research and development each partner has done by pulling it into a format to share the knowledge they have gained through working as part of the network.

HOW IS THE PROJECT FINANCED?

It is supported by European Commission (Programme Culture 2007), the European Cultural Foundation and other local institutions and agencies.