 I think it's quite obvious to point out that money is minted and was always fabricated by kings and princes and leaders and governments and banks. So, unless we are bartering, it's very difficult to do an escape to that reality. But the extent to which we want to compromise our principles and take money which might be dirty and all money is dirty might take more according to our values. The other image that I wanted to start with is something that a few people of my generation in ITM may have heard, a fellow called Neil Wallace who used to be very active in ITM who said once ITM is a network of professionals in the performing arts sector and we are either resource givers, like a festival director who came to deal with the commission or resource seekers. Now that was a few years ago and I think the situation has changed to a real deal. For one, the sources of funding that we can approach now have changed a lot in this region cultural institutes used to be the place where we all went whether we were European or non-European funding. That has significantly changed over the years. The cultural institutes have formed clusters and groups in an association called UNIC, which you probably know, which goes to the same sources of funding that we in the independence sector goes to kind of a shop for competing for funds. Foundations which have been a traditional source of funding for all of us who live have started to also go to some other foundations that we can go to to raise money. So the foundations we are going to are also competing with the independence sector. Foundations have also become initiatives, they become festival creatives, they become performance and co-production commissioners. So I think that the whole situation is much more fluid and probably it will become much more fluid. And that gives me a good segue to introduce the panel because people are here and for also not one thing or the other. They have done some of them artists for our architects. They have worked for organizations which have sought resources and they have been working for organizations which give resources. So I'm very pleased to be able to introduce one of the most well-known sources. Who is now in a position of managing clusters and clusters of projects, rebranding, but also as we know as one of the founders of Etihad and the Commission or DeNosus and many other projects which commission. We've been in both paths, one at least, both paths. I'm Jesper, looking for festival. I'm a dramatic festival in history. So you were looking for the source, now you're giving one. And you've been living in at least four countries. You have been a theater director, festival director, commission, they put me and Matt in our English council looking after money and partnerships. Pascal Brunet, I know that you started life as an architect, student at least. You've gone through many different challenges in your life including being very involved in the Mediterranean, setting up networks and so on and for the last. Then we're coming in at the director of an interface between European sources that comes in Amar. You are amongst us, the opposition, the policy analyst, the person who's working for the Algerian Development Bank, Africans about to make money, okay. And so we were going to start with you because we hope that you will give us a theoretical background. I'll be using a very short PowerPoint presentation. I'll be speaking about my experience, not in the African Development Bank but as a person who's lived in different countries and a person who has dealt with different donor institutions. Mary asked us to work on this title or question and since the question is quite complicated and needs many hours to answer, I decided to use a caricature, a caricature but not in the artistic meaning but in the caricature meaning so that I facilitate my own work and the way I want to lay down my ideas. When there is an artist who asks for a donation or for a grant from a state whether from the public or the private sector if it's of course an authoritarian state then his or her art will be constrained and his work should be to clarify the meaning. An example about that is Algeria who lives also under an authoritarian system but asks for international funding so I think there's something impossible and here I can give you also the example of Algeria it's not authorized for the foreign entities to fund the artists who are resident in our country. Now what about an artist who lives in a democratic country and asks for public funding here I think that there will be some kind of an artistic freedom now if we have an artist also in a democratic context asking for private funding so from a private entity then we will have an art oriented market and now if you have an artist living under a democratic system that has a strong freedom and asks for a grant or a donation from the international level so here the result is the same he or she doesn't need the funding from the international arena because the country or his state is taking care of that and my last example and this is where I'll be focusing if there is an artist living in a democratic context but where the economy is weak and asks for international funding then his art will be ideologically oriented or will be being distracted by the donation so I'll be focusing on this example because as I said I'm living in the Ivory Coast in Côte d'Ivoire and I traveled to Benin for example that is a state a democratic state and since the economy is weak and also the funding from the national activities is weak so most of the artists go towards the foreign or international funding let me give you an example about an artwork that was done by an artist he asked some people from Benin to lie down inside the French cultural center so that people can walk on their backs and as you see most of those who go to the cultural center can continue our French, our European and if they want they can also take their children with them so they can take their first steps on the backs of the African so we see how children are trained to step on the backs of the African and I was able to speak to the artist and he told me this is a performance so I said to him I challenged you to put five Europeans in the place of those people from Benin and of course he wasn't able to do this I gave him one year to do it and I was able to do it so this is what I wanted to show you to explain that when we have democracy when an artist needs international funding this means that his or her art will be oriented the way the deniting entity wants it and here the deniting entity the third French cultural center in Kotone so this can be top of the international funding of course not if there is an entity that has good intentions in supporting the artist and the democratic context that has a weak economy then they need to show their positive intentions and put transparent criteria for this and criteria that are based on competition so that artists or citizens can have an idea about the intentions of the Dona in my conclusion I would like to say that in the best case scenario artists need a democratic context with a strong economy to be able to have the freedom of expression without any constraints or problems because for me the artist accepts grants from foreign entities from international funding then they will not or they will not defend the criteria then it's like he got his money from an authoritarian regime that is telling him how to do his job and I think that within both these meaning when we have the authoritarian regime or the other then if the artist doesn't want to achieve this funding we need to call this as being a resistance when they live under a democratic context but they don't have national funding so if they refuse much funding like what we saw in Benin then this is called dignity or Karama in Arabic, thank you very much 6 hours talk about your presentation and deconstruct it I think there would be a lot of interesting discussions just around it wow, I heard that the last session was supposed to be pretty quick there are lots of discussions in the bar at night I may need to control myself to react to that but I will provocative take notes the question is that you have a provocative person who has written an article for the plummish what was used to be called the plummish theater institutes in Quran and he very kindly a long time ago he very kindly worked on the translation to put it into English but I would really like ITM on a funding student point or whatever these are called to be able to publish that article because it's extremely good Jasper, what do you think about the role of institutions public institutions funding in foreign countries this article is just an easy kind of answer in a very busy period when the question came how are we going to coordinate this session I said something was said about a long time ago but I think some of the ideas maybe because of the urgency of our plans have come a little stronger and in that sense on my point of view but all of the ideas are still the same and maybe the one thing that one would start to fit in this initial phrase in this session was is that there is inevitably always a power relationship always a agenda on the part of funders and if we're talking about funders that this whole discussion about argument conflict some of you earlier expressed that you're not very happy with the term argument conflict I think it's very hard to find a place in the world that's not in conflict if we're going to find the correct definition of what conflict is so I think the correct definition is maybe that there is a context whereby there is a certain conflict and good conditions to create a great interest towards context where conditions to create are there from an institutional point of view from a sort of money infrastructure point of view in certain cases from a quite direct influence from the government from the view and so where international institutions with an agenda with an agenda which for the largest part can often subscribe as people in this room with a certain level is about where we should go to but we should also problematic very often because there is a decision which is quite strong so within that context I think these kind of organizations always have an agenda and we always have to mediate there's always a power relationship that we just cannot avoid and that's I think the starting point that we must take to give a few examples one which in the articles about this projects now already more than 10 years ago from the Spanish government in South Africa where the ideas of the Spanish government was we do it correctly if we let the government in South Africa decide on where our funding goes because that's our actual eye partner and that's when we're doing things in a non-colonial way of course the department of art and culture in South Africa is not serious for its lack of capacity unfortunately working for its very very few of those are selected in their positions because of any kind of and the result of that is also very problematic on the other hand we have the Swedish cooperation that for the case of Zimbabwe decided to give a complete grant basically the whole fund that they were supporting in arts and culture in Zimbabwe two organizations which they created arts and culture trust fund which is going to be run by Zimbabwe which are the board of Zimbabwe undoubtedly the board of Zimbabwe and I stand to be correct with and that's of course a very different model because of the choice of these people and very often as well the choice of the right individuals in the right context in which to do that at that time this was an extremely effective tool to support arts and culture in Zimbabwe in both cases the decision to of the funder in that sense our position of the fund is something that a quick illusion to say that we should work on a sort of partnership basis we should restrain this post position that we can't work in a colonial way it is I think a colonial remand in a colonial practice and it's also I think at this point we should use words everywhere in a slightly provocative way maybe to say this is the reality of working today if you're talking about post-colonial or neo-colonialism maybe we should just continue to talk about colonialism for the time being and also see certain of the value represented as a colonial country at this point risky other studies about how colonial countries are not necessarily countries that have formal colonies and in the colonial context that's what we're doing so if you put the fifth side of the question of course with this big picture should we stop doing it and of course if we stop doing it there's no money for the project that we support which very often we believe the way to go about that for me is very clearly in this sort of clarity what we create about one's intentions I think there is something to say probably there's a need for the specific foundations that Apple mentioned in all kinds of issues that we do that once people do great work that supports this kind of direction there are other foundations that are ours that we look very clearly at the development the professional development of the independent arts sector as such and one to do that from the front of view of the professional artists and their sort of professional environment and their and the the most important thing is that smart people at the head of that who can take the opportunity to consult us very wild widely about what really the immediate differences are in the artistic context I think our concerns with this burning world at this point are not only the funder's concerns very much the artists' concerns and the world come from that side as well so for these organizations it's very very important to consult very wildly and we say that again if you talk to 100 different people you get another different opinions about that so it also is in the end some are depending on your capacity of analysis on your experience on your good user experience to give to touch into effective policies and make different decisions so basically that's a little bit in the direction where I went to with the other part of the point that was important there which I continue to believe very strongly which I look under as last point in a lot of these funding mechanisms that go from people that are working in a context where there is a lot of money and lost conditions to work in a working culture setting towards context where those positions it's extremely important for us to always make the kind of hypothetical exercise of what we require from our grantees is that something we would require from our own artists and if that's not the case I think we're doing the wrong if you want an artist to make something about their impoverished context or about that is something that is culturally and clearly African don't do that because you would not ask from a Spanish artist to make something Spanish or to make something about a very comfortable context so it's not that is actually perpetuating this kind of collaboration that's a simplistic example I think these kind of requirements and pressures can become very complex and so complex that a lot of us would apply to them in moments that we are not even aware that we're applying Thank you, Amar in your very good model that you gave us was suggested that democratic countries can give funding with objective transparent criteria Jasper just said that it has to do with our relation there is always an agenda and it very much depends on the person, the personality and the post and the sensitivities that they have can you comment on how that relates to objective and transparent criteria? Is that a dream or does that relate to this? I think that what I've presented here is not a limited experience or an experience in terms of the framework of what the example I presented here some successful examples are there, the example of international funding for diversity for cultural diversity of the UNESCO that was inspected in a transparent way based on transparent standards that's why I do believe that we can have initiatives where arbitration is acceptable where the artist can express freely thank you Rania you called yourself one of our emails an intermediary and you also questioned or asked some questions about what Jasper was referring to as this power relationships and you were wondering about independence and funding very well in the years when the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture was just a dream there was a lot of discussion about the fact that not all the funds shouldn't be coming from Western sources and why couldn't there be some Arab sources for this now you are kind of the intermediary being able to play a role in those world relationships can you talk about that thank you very much Rania I can't answer your question through any three points switching the most important that question from the first day we had this question without having a session concerning funding was if that funding having an influence on the values and the freedom of expression and the freedom of choosing a subject the freedom of the experience freedom of the innovation and as well the freedom of the cultural institution in building cultural systems and cultural projects so here I'm not only talking about freedom of the art as an individual but as a whole dynamic and here I am talking about a personal point of view and we are all trying to be we all be pro and we might all be here provocative because we are in front of a problematic the answer is clear the relationship between the founder and the recipient of the want is a forced relationship but I hope it's always a relationship where we have a certain balance between both where we have negotiation where we can find or where we can strike a balance between the powers and what I mean here I'm talking first of all about a region where we have no public funding except in some countries where governments dedicate a certain amount of money to the cultural project but in general we don't have that kind of project unless the event has a lot of PR so and we have exceptions of course but in general there is no awareness concerning that subject and individual contributions where many individuals are interested they are contributing they are supporting but it's always a limited resource so this I'm talking based on that how in that region and that orient where we are trying hopelessly to find forces in terms of financing can we continue when I deal with funders I deal with them as partners and as people that need me as I need them I need their funds but there are institutions as well having objectives results that needs to be achieved so at the end of the day we are parties that will help them achieve their goals as they are helping us achieve our goals so I always hope that we as Arab artists can build on that and can have a word to say in that relationship the negotiation spaces are related to our capacity to have a clear agenda I once said during the first day that any donor will have his agenda but it's not something bad because we do have our agenda as individuals and institutions we have our concerns we have our agendas so fixing an agenda against an agenda is a strength it becomes a weakness when the funding is related to the agendas of the donors rather than people seeking funds and the third aspect is to try to find more common grounds with partners and donors and common grounds can be achieved not only when the agendas are interlinked but through accumulation and that will lead to long term relationships where the issue of funding won't be that problematic long term relationships means transforming the relationship from being a relationship related to an economic aspect to a certain positivity to a certain coalition so when the donor and the Arab institution working in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq or anywhere and else can be able to build a coalition with the donors serving its objective so by this we change as well the dynamic of the relationship that is bothering us all second concerning this system for the region as Marianne mentioned one of the main important things that I've mentioned when we were preparing through the emails was a question do we have mediators such as us, we mediators we cultural mediators do we can we as Arab institution be mediators between artists and donors is this role important or necessary I'm not completely sure about my answer what do we mean by mediators we have strategies annual plans the donors have strategies and annual plans and some donors are interested in supporting the artists of the region for different reasons so how this work is done most of the important donors cannot know the details of the region and the artist of the region as well as their experiences even if they are aware of the general situation of the region because generally these donors don't have persons in the field to know more how to disperse the sponsorship for individuals so do we have institutions that can play this role in a very positive way and be able to influence the politics of donors and not only cooperate with them do we have a role to play I will give an example today is part of the steering committee preparing for the meeting of donors of artistic donors in the Arab region that encompasses many stakeholders supporting art in the region so during these meetings I've asked and one of them was Halden Beirut I've asked what is the role expected of cultural institutions in the Arab world to work hand in hand with the donors in terms of sponsorship policies and the policies in general I do believe that a gathering for all the donors can be a good platform and we should publish what they are deciding and try through this platform or other meetings such as our meeting today to talk about what is expected from the cultural institutions in order to have an influence on the donors politics and not only open the channels of funds for the region the third point I don't know so I don't know if that point was clear but I will move to the third point we can take a lot of ethical decisions concerning refusing funds sometimes I do agree that we need to reject fundings from certain parties but because we have to make sure that we are always independent having our word to say concerning our political, economic social ideas and based on that we can accept the funding yes or no but at the end of the day if you want to talk about sustainability I know that many people here have questions concerning the ethical aspect of the funding I am with that dialogue if we propose alternatives and if we suggest alternatives we've been talking a lot about these alternatives but we need to build on the experiences of the world and try to talk about many projects many projects that can help our art work we have to think about the alternatives because till now in the Arab region we still lack funding so how we can revive the local funding because as Maria mentioned when the fund when the Arab fund was accepted it was to have funding for the region and to have fund where all the capital of investors funding of investors can be harnessed for in order to help the art work but till now the fund didn't achieve its objective though having a lot of improvement and development so till now the objectives are not met what are the alternatives this is a very important questions instead of asking ourselves shall we accept the funding guess or no shall we think about the international funding in a different way shall the Gulf country think that at the end of the day the oil resources will be depleted so we can talk about that and I believe that many entities in the innovation production industry are talking about that or that in order to diversify the funding sources and I do believe that the other parties the other stakeholders will need to take that to talk about that and that's in order to find the alternatives thank you thank you does everybody know that what she was talking about when she said the meeting of the Arab world how many people don't know could you explain a little bit about that I'm quite excited so thank you so thank you that started an initiative called the informal donors meeting for us and actually the Arab region it's an annual meeting so of course it's an informal meeting gathering a large group of donors who fund this project in the Arab region why not if you have a question of your mind are you have a question or you have a comment what Anna mentioned about innovation is very important and it's a subject that we are discussing now in Palestine donors won't know the exact context my question to Rana concern the independence of donors in two terms with this mediation we will be putting or creating some standards artistic standard concerning what is convenient yes or no what is contemporary art and what is not and here we will be having some monopoly and that's what we are facing currently in Palestine with some institutions so how can we overcome this problem and maintain this status that can currently be a solution for many problems my second question I will give you an example in Palestine now we have many important donors that are entering in coalition with local donors we have many important local donors or two main institutions the money was going to independent institution but now the money is transferred in the framework of this coalition this big coalition so the small institutions are not being taken into consideration so the big donor was giving funds to many small institutions but now through this big coalition funding is only going to big institutions the second question when doing this coalition the donors are not asking the point of view of the society about the priorities of the society now we don't have a strategic work and we don't know what is the opinion of the independent sector so how can we overcome all this issue because in Palestine they have bad fires they are backfires instead of being a solution for the problem I think Alma and then Iman and then it's related yeah I think in one point of the question of the relation because treating the relationship the question of the relation the donor it's very controversial when it comes to the core artistic exchange the country and two countries for example that's what the other is about those institutions becoming a character and we see the relationship is becoming very open the Coca Cola versus Pepsi Cola and I agree with you and thank you for highlighting the issue that I think a number of people will ensure transparency will answer the many actions that are happening in Kuluwa about corruption about allies coming together in forms of reports that threaten institutions and you know exactly that I'm not hallucinating and those things are happening in our region but I mean there's a lot to try to this kind of alliance can respond on an emergency basis very quickly but it's the same concept of having one dictator or having multiple artists speaking so the issue of democratization is very critical and it's very important to put into the draft of the broken it's really going into an area where how much they are understanding and keeping that the core intellectual human value of the relationship you know come let me start from the speakers of course and some donors are presenting funds in solidarity with some issues and some subjects so we can't generalize and we have to think how the institutions will respond to the funding concerning the mediation we've tried it but after a certain period of time mediation will become a burden and even a part of the funding will go to maintain this mediation in this structure so how can we overcome this and build confidence because sometimes in lack of confidence we will have to pay much more much more money I will try to comment but I think that here I've set myself a trap solidarity is an agenda here not saying that all agendas are a negative they have donors have agendas even if they are agendas of solidarity so they are good agendas concerning mediation I'm not only talking about physical mediation I'm talking about cultural mediation as well and since the first session in ITM I talked about the mediation the mediation that an artist or an art institution will have to do in this society and here I'm talking about the same principle I'm talking about politics and about economic orientation some institution can play a role in being a mediator and in attracting additional funds for donors to take care of the region, have interest for the region and that if their project and if their projects are as well in the interest of the art in the region so physical mediation is there and if you want to see the first question of Athens if you want to make sure that this institution won't have a monopoly on the orientation of the art work in our region we have to make sure that they are accountable and mediation don't have to be putting an end to the relationship or impeding the relationship between the two parties because a good cultural relationship means opening the floor opening the door to transparency and this mediation will be the translation of needs and orientations as well trends in the cultural field in the Arab world but through confidence and a certain level of confidence so this institution or this donor will move things forward so we have two types of mediation the most important thing is first of all the diversity of the donors the problem is that in the region we just have like 10 institutions able to provide funds not more than that so for any program we need to diversify the donors if we only have one donor we will have to abide by its condition but if we have like five donors that will be easier for us to have a certain freedom and we have as well to make sure that none of these institution will have an influence on the cultural trends of the art work in the region we have to empower institutions, our artists in order to guarantee the freedom of expression I'd love to just end on that it's just a positive message but what we're talking about is funding is funding so once again the foundation for some of the foundations are giving there are funds to another foundation to treat so there are less possibilities for the people in the region to apply for funds for example of the SARS Foundation the Hibos Foundation are sometimes giving all of their funds for a certain region or country to the other one to deal with instead of having two doors to not have one we're also talking about gatekeepers so who is the gatekeeper why do we pay for the gatekeeper when perhaps we don't need that gatekeeper I think the same thing could be said curators and programmers because we're talking here a lot about programs and projects whereas from an individual artistic point of view they might feel the same about gatekeepers who are gatekeeping artistically but what we're also talking about here is whoever is in the position of being on the other level are they listening are they listening to the intermediary who is listening to the artist and perhaps the audience too I'm not sure and are they flexible enough because let's face this none of the people here are the ultimate people who sign the checks none of the people here are the ultimate people who are responsible for the entire policy of the entire institution we do not have the director general these are people who also have to argue for what they believe in from what they've been hearing from the field and I'm going to ask Pascal, her name who probably has one of the most difficult jobs of making the donor listen because you are working with the European Commission Well, please do your business and talk about the agenda and what the course will think and we are talking about the agenda is the technical project and the context and it's been quite interesting to both post colonial and national but we know the course will think about the context we know that the region very quickly and there are a lot of reasons it's not so optimistic but it's the reality of this context and in this area we know that for 2, 3, 5 years we have a lot of real organization a lot of foreign composition in the different countries in the regions through economies through mobility of persons through a lot of other persons so it's quite important to have this context because in front of that we have the political project and the articulation of the political project to define an agenda and if you look at the political project when we are talking about European opinion it's difficult to state if we have a political project or if we have different political projects and if we have to choose between these different countries we have decided to leave so we will see in 2 years but will happen that we are sure that this point will be organized with this project the UK has to find its own external policy has to redefine what we want to do in this area but that's the moment in Brussels we talk a lot about future and external policy and the Brexit gave quite a big impression to this new agenda and new point of the political project and we know that we have two or three interesting or dangerous point in this composition I'm not sure that we could be confident or we could be confident in the future we have to look at the situation and everything would be quite interesting one of the points is something about sexual orientation in Europe you know and when we are talking about culture and external policy and the first point is how we will articulate this issue of security and this issue of culture and the inter-cultural relationship we know that we have something about origin in this point in this area and what could happen the first thing that could happen is more money I'm quite sure in two or three years we will have a lot of money for culture in this area but culture is this difficulty to this necessity to redefine inter-cultural identity we will have to create more patterns of situations something like the horizontal diver where we could define the common approach of the political situation or if you want to say which kind of development which kind of choices the source has to do and certainly for Europe and France Europe has quite a problem so we could be quite afraid that this redefinition of inter-culturality has to become something like an imposition of a model so we have to look at this situation but at the same time really to look at the situation as a further opportunity and really to look at the opportunity the second point I want to underline is the necessity to talk about independence we know that this external policy and the European policy it's impossible to imagine that to develop this policy we know that we need independent actors not national actors a lot of diplomacy imagine that they have to to be ready to take the moment and walk in front of the moment so you can imagine the British ones they will leave so we will have a lot of funds new funds and we could use these funds to imagine new culturalities we know that the cultural differences certainly have something to do but we need to have a strong civil society able to imagine a new way of actions regarding this new context so which kind of things we could imagine for independence the first thing is it's really to talk about independence because we don't have the same definition when we are talking about independence it's an awesome, full of wisdom regarding possibly receiving some subsidies to develop these own works but when you talk about independence we are talking about some different definitions but not at all something about public money is something about possibility to develop in your own your own your own work so independence is important because if we don't take this point for example seriously we will have a lot of other periods like entrepreneurship we imagine that entrepreneurship will be the solution for everything for us also but it's different to imagine the work of civil society with strong independent actors and a civil society composed by entrepreneurs that's the two main jobs and we have also to face this problem the last point from that the line is where we could compose a civil society and if we look at the network at the moment we could be sure that we need to find a new state in the development of the nature and a new state in this development more connected with the context more connected with the the difficulty and the point of the line of attention in this context so we have to face something about security we never talk about the control of that security we have to talk about the entire control by strongly and not as a kind of new order in our organization things we have really to talk about but it's beyond this and what we could create and we have also to imagine able to develop and to support new communities of work new communities of little groups of independent experts able to produce this different situation of this different project we need something in this way talking with the European Commission about difficulty but if we talk with the European Commission not through culture or not through forms but through politics and through in the political debate I think we could open different doors one is open last last July for example by the United States by the European Commission with standard policy and she has opened the doors of the cultural actors and asked the cultural actors if we could do something in this situation at the moment we will be able to have a play with the door that we imagine but at the moment some politicians open space or open subject on the good act which we can do but we are not really already so I think it's quite important to have very practical things but at the same time we have also to face a necessity to have a strong political approach in order to go in this manner and reach that door don't use our funders and if I'm not the point this thing for the network is we need to choose where we want to to be in this political position in this political position of this element if I heard you well you're talking about a number of different things but you're also talking about the the kind of I'm sorry to interrupt we need the one minute because the translators has to leave and we are taking their place so we're switching the translators are doing such an amazing job here I can tell you they would only work for two they would never work for the whole day and they certainly wouldn't be translating simultaneously between three languages so how these two women are doing this I don't know but they should go home and rest with new interpreters I understood you well you're talking also about not only the kinds of trends political trends in European institutions such as what you feel is coming an obsession with security we've also seen a new program about culture and refugees which reminds me of something that Todd Lester always talks about is the refugee corn so are these real projects or are they projects that really have something to do with what juniors prefer to do with the need, the inner need and the heart you're talking about something which I've heard a long time ago is being ready to speak to politicians about these kinds of political trends and know what you want to say the first time I met a European politician years and years ago very first strong woman amazing intellect and she said you have 7 minutes I'm a very busy woman what is it that you wanted me to do cause a really good trend so you're saying that within the networks we should be talking about these issues so that we can get our story straight if we want them to listen we have to be able to know what we want and we have to be able to know what we want as a group take part of the debate really not and maybe not able to be it's quite difficult it's quite difficult to really find we couldn't end up with the answer we have so much proficient form things during the last the last few years in Europe but really we have to take part of the debate and see which kind of things we can propose and we can analysis of the situation and this kind of thing necessary in this moment of the great struggle for composition everything is open and we know that in the 2 years we will have stronger compositions that we have because we have in the same time our own project our own agenda our own problem we have to be a cultural politician in the city of Ciaran in Italy who changed from culture to I think the her department was called social inclusion and she said you know when the cultural people come to me they say we want this much money and when the social people come to me and they say we have this dream she said who do you think I like to listen to so I will turn to the poor person who has to defend Brexit if you don't have to but also just to mention a little anecdote which English people or British people will know very well for years and years I've worked for the arts council in England for about 5 years long time ago and there was a joke which is so boring that we all have heard so many times what we have to do with the gatekeepers is that actually what should happen is there should just be one little window and one person sitting there with a checkbook we don't need all these extra people and experts and all the rest of it so Steven from your position as a British council and you have been promoted so you're not the person with the little window and the checkbook but you're reading and you're in between being able to speak to that top level and being able to understand the people who are working on the ground face to face with the audiences are you a criminal or a foe? First of all I see how you understand that First of all I would like to say to joy to come to I spent 5 years working with and to come to a meeting and the most interesting thing I have to deal with is UK's relationship with Europe and not about all declaration or lying to you all on the map is in a way a joy Brexit is a disaster I think a disaster in many ways but one of the saddest things about it is I don't think it changes the way the UK looks at policy and talk or even by the British Council because it didn't really see itself as doing those things to Europe in the first place which I say is a sadness a complete sadness for the truth and I think one of the few joys that may come out of Brexit is that organisations like ours now have to make euros which have never done before however I'm aware of the last I've seen the translators have already gone probably all of you wish you had gone as well but actually I'll keep it very quick because I wrote that sort of note and I've forgotten my glasses so I can't see the name on it but the most worrying thing Jasper said for me in his description of the role of international art was that the important thing was to have someone smart at the top because I moved back to the UK to be on the top of a certain fund that's been created and in no way smart I didn't go to university and the only thing I was ever trained to do would be an anchor so this is probably very worrying for everybody who's about to fly for that fund but I say that partly because also I'm not going to go into the theory of funding because I don't have the background and I probably don't have the understanding of that I'm just going to make four very practical observations from my relationship with funding and then some reflections afterwards my simple answer to the question is funding from your phone would be that is automatically neither and can be either broadly funding obviously covers funding programs covers an awful lot as I'm here to the detail and a lot of people broadly there's people with money who want to do something that thing has parameters as I've said and then if that fits with the artist that can be a threat it doesn't do very well it's a balance of frustrations if it's bad then it can be destroyed so the four observations I would make and I'm aware I'm here as a funder I'm not backing that I even wore a suit to demonstrate it but the first couple are from as an artist and I would observe when I got FIST was just before I really was aware of the idea of my relationship with funding so as a young actor I was able to live with not much money and and had a lot of time and in that sense it was all free and then I had the first element to be fortunate in my career which was to adapt a play by a famous Italian writer Dario Fo, it was published it was quite celebrated and therefore I got commissions and friends around me were struggling with writers and somebody was doing a check to do what I do and if you like that was with commerce what I would notice about that is that for one sense it's very free nobody was telling you what hours I should work, how I should do it or whatever and I got the money up front actually but it was probably the most restrictive thing I ever did because you're aware of the commercial restraints around it including how many people you write for it has to have a West End so it has to be this kind of play it has to be delivered in this way and that was my first with the sort of commercial groups for one reason or another I moved to a theatre in Scotland as a director and we were incredibly fortunate very fortunate, small city only 150,000 people we had we were the best funded theatre in Scotland I know however that front came from various things in the years so from station work sources for our work and community development from education for our work with excluded young people young people who weren't working for the education system through the health service for actually 5% roughly 5% of our funding was to make work the rest of it was for the building itself for the staff for one of those functions but nevertheless that was a huge resource great frustration and one of the frustrations was when our funders thought to do things promote new writers let's say why set up a big scheme that they do have to authorize for et cetera et cetera that was a frustration of the time we went to my third it was when I came to Cairo to be director of arts for the relational background for British Council the first question people tend to ask you when you're at meetings like this is what is the agenda what's the agenda the same way there is a very clear agenda it's not very well written it's in the name British Council obviously what you're looking to do is make direct connections say sadly with particularly one country and what I observe obviously people are coming to you in a very different way or as the question suggests support for the artistic landscape and that is a that is a difficult interaction because I think it could be a useful thing to have that variety of funding as Ronald suggested if the base of public funding is there if it's not then you could be informed by those agendas if you give a fairly benign example I guess in the British Council you were seeing artists all the time that didn't really need to be connected with the UK they would do their project much better without a British artist or without the need to go back as we call it so that's what came to that my fourth is now so weren't doing back in the UK often when I'm doing back in the UK is a fund with the UK government wanting to have a cultural protection fund and so for the first time I'm sort of looking at how it works for political funds and what I notice is that morning we just suddenly become about putting a set of parameters a set of parameters that restrict what people are about to apply to why well, because what has happened already is that otherwise you get patronage that is strictly between arts and culture the previous chance or the extent that happens to be a real friend of the guy who runs the British Museum they went to school so when they first thought of doing this the money went directly that way so to stop that you obviously say well we'll do this for you that means that there's a certain amount of companies you will work with so why not Mali, why Sudan it's in the end you put a box around it and you do that I suppose for the sake of transparency I have to think that you can take things like systems, transparency and all those things far too far because if you take it too far you lose humanity actually and if you stop looking at for example is that a good project does that feel like a good project there's no way of doing that with any amount of boxes so that should really mean my own reflections on all that will be I think that however you look at when money is coming from if we're thinking of the money as what is broadly given in taxes or the organization's society whether we're going to touch or whether we're looking at things like the huge amounts spent by our country by the EU or things like development then in all that there I think it's I think it's vitally important that our culture has a share of that and I think therefore it's slightly dangerous to look at because in any other situation there are dangers of that street to walk away from that that whole spirit of money I think also it's equally important to be cautious about other forms of funding as any kind of relationship whether that's package to corporations and businesses or package to individuals all of these things have a certain degree of danger attached to them and finally I suppose that all sounds like it's suggested that the kind of European model of a sort of mixed funding is the answer and important I would say it isn't I think it's I think the answer is something more about kind of tailoring the balance of those things to the culture you're working with I think you guys are going to some of the wrongs at the moment I think there is a funding crisis between part two where we are basically funding institutions we're funding buildings rather than work and we tend to be judging what we're doing on efficiency on are you deploying good practice rather than other things coming in to the that's thank you so we've come full circle in a way Amar to yours that we can have democratic societies or economies or the directors back pockets yes Amar we can also have criteria that can be transparent but without humanity so we've actually come to a brilliant position of having no conclusion and we haven't talked about crowdfunding we haven't talked too much about sustainability and we haven't even approached what makes our mind at the time the populations get the politicians they deserve that's due to the performance of our funding reflect the signs of the times and somehow reflect our own desires bad habits I would like to ask one of the interpreters there how much more time we have we can be here until 10 I'm sure you love that but I would really like to take at least let's say 5 questions comments or questions I saw you first and then number 2 and then dialogue with funding bodies I'm going to talk about the Lebanese example because this is where I live and work what do we do when there are no precise priorities when there are no researches or work on the ground that actually directs the funding towards the right places especially outside when with decentralization because there is not enough researches there is not enough work that emphasizes priorities that can influence funders and these few organizations that you are representing have you taken this consideration as a priority to encourage research researchers and encourage mapping or existing forms or priorities and another idea I would like to talk about is that this discussion was limited to funding bodies but in my opinion funding covers more than just funding bodies it also covers community and crowdfunding it also includes the pressure that can be how governments can be pressured to contribute to funding culture and not only ministries of culture but also economy ministry of the economy some tax systems or the lottery systems and this is where our role comes to the surface and that's where we're not taking a responsibility fully is that we're not in coalitions that are strong enough to exercise this pressure our lack of organization is somehow a factor in the liberty of cultural practice and from Lebanon this also applies internationally how the European Union sees the future of the future and how we Europeans could build a meaningful bridge to the region here for example for the future and then the second part of this question is I'm reacting because we were saying that we cultural actors should be part of the European debate and should be political actors and I love you saying that for the long time now and we repeated it and in a way more right I mean we cultural actors of Europe try that we live this alliance for culture with ITN and for me this is more about we have a dream and we want money and it's also difficult to really know how to build a turbine and how to build a body where should really be done or is there really space for a political space to speak to the education parts of the commission it's easier you have a better dialogue with the developments parts of the European commission and so when we're speaking about Europe in this panel we're talking about the way that Europe is relating to the Middle East and North Africa just the correct and the third who was the third person who was the third person and I just have an observation from the perspective of an artisan artist and a very small organization some international experience so I think in the past maybe 10 years performing artists I'm not talking about performing artists in the East Arab world have anything pursued like free strategies outside of traditional classical functioning economy the first is to be assumed by the contemporary art circuit to adapt their work so that it's commodity to buy animals basically in galleries the second is to succumb to the use of control of these multi-geos to make that the center of the work and then the third force is to subscribe to like humanitarian and such a model which we're all familiar with I'm wondering and I guess maybe you're probably the main person who can address this question but among the funding the main planning bodies in the region I'm wondering how how seriously they're approaching particular private sector companies and thinking about strategies approaching those sectors through are these organizations these peer organizations are they, for instance, approaching infrastructure, for instance to begin to think about can we develop a planning initiative that integrates the ideas of engineering and disseminates these ideas and maybe we make some sacrifices on the level of content but at the end of the day we're going to be diversifying Are we approaching institutions who are interested in medical and what they're planning from medicine for instance I don't know or the hospitality industry what is that relationship like okay I said five questions and I had three hands that went up by Heath I know you well enough and you're not going to be well enough I'm going to cut it there because I think I'm really going to cut it there because I think that everybody is exhausted there are lots of people leaving and we can't abuse the people who have come in to help us either so normally when we get out and wait for the bus or we get into the bar or whatever the equivalent of the bar is we talk about other things can I ask you to keep continuing this conversation when you get out the door thank you so much everybody