The project is co-financed by the governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.

Smart Power of Culture—Challenges of a Common V4 Identity vs the Three Seas Perspective

The project is based on an innovative methodology in which art is a way to support a common V4 identity through people-to-people contacts. The focus of participants’ interest is the sustainable and fair development of the EU and V4 countries. The understanding built in this way between partners from the Visegrad Group countries becomes an inspiration for broader cooperation in the region. V4 partners invite institutions and artists from the countries of the Three Seas Initiative to artistic and scientific dialogue through art. Part of the project are, among others, artistic residencies, an exhibition and a conference coordinated by the V4 partners.

The main goal of the project is to identify and indicate new areas of influence of culture and common identity of the V4 and to strengthen people-to-people contacts within the V4 and its neighbourhood. This will be achieved by bringing together artists, educational and cultural institutions from the V4 and Central Europe to discuss, explore, analyse and define new possibilities and directions of cooperation. We will inspire artists from the region to create works of art that address the most important civilizational, social and economic issues of the moment. The project initiated by the V4 partners is to be the first step towards co-organising a cyclical Three Seas Art Festival attracting artists and societies from the entire region. Different concepts of development explored through art will be presented to a wide audience to initiate a dialogue on possible models of equitable development of Europe.

Project events will provide participants and a wide audience from the V4 countries with knowledge about individual national cultures and their perspectives on responsible and sustainable development that engages and inspires the whole of Europe. We believe that the intelligent power of culture can be an impulse to develop new ideas of social and economic cooperation in order to achieve deeper friendly interdependence and a higher level of security in the region.

project partners:

Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia
Olomouc Museum of Art, Olomouc, Czech Republic
Trance Balance Kft. / acb Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
The Peter Michal Bohúň Gallery In Liptov Region, Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia
Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art, Krakow, Poland

project leader:
University of the National Education Commission, Krakow, Poland

project coordinator:
dr hab. Łukasz Murzyn, prof. UKEN
email: lukasz.murzyn@uken.krakow.pl
tel.: +48 888 039 416