Cultural thinkers and practitioners gather in Rijeka, Croatia for Musagetes Café

Delegates from Canada, Croatia, Italy, The Netherlands and the United States joined colleagues in Rijeka, a mid-sized city straddling the edges of Istria and Dalmatia on the Adriatic coast. Over four days, the participants engaged in café-style conversations around three main questions:

1. Can creative practices effect social change when they take place in public, with the public, and across communities?
2. In cities undergoing cultural, social and economic transitions, can the development of new cultural spaces provide new relevance to the arts, leading to deepened public engagement?
3. Can public space be creative space? How can we establish and design public space for creative interventions?

The discussions were grounded within the context of two local sites: a 180-year-old paper mill that is now the site of the Hartera Music Festival, and a two-kilometre breakwater pier that has been opened to public access.

The report on these conversations will be ready for distribution by the end of August.

The next phase of the project in Croatia will bring an artist—selected from an international shortlist—to Rijeka for an extended period. The artist will work with the local cultural community to engage with the two sites and relate their creative practice to pertinent issues and discussions. Related to this placement, a team of architectural students from five universities in Europe and Canada will work on design proposals for site specific development.