 Yes, do we have sound? We have sound. Good morning, everybody. There are more chairs here, so please fill them up. Five more, six, seven. There's sound and video screen upstairs, so if you see too many people move in at the back, please inform them that they can also watch and listen upstairs. Welcome at the start of the ITM, and I think it's the second day of the Trans-Arupal meeting, isn't it? I would love to introduce you to my colleague Birgitta Persen, Secretary General of Trans-Arupal. And this is my dear colleague Nan van Hote, Secretary General of ITM. And we are very good colleagues and very happy that we could organize this one event in collaboration. And we do several collaborations together now. We started a big EU project together, Creative Lenses, and now for the first time we actually come together with our meetings in the same place. And it's very timely that we come together to Hungary, to Budapest today, and we wanted to... It's important for us that we organize this event in solidarity with the independent cultural actors here in Hungary, who are fighting for an open and inclusive Hungary. And we are very happy that today we get an opportunity to hear some stories behind the pictures and the short messages that we get through the media. So I'm happy to hand over the mic to Nick Thorpe, BBC journalist living in this country for over 29 years now. So he is an insider from the outside. And we have two insiders from the inside sitting next to him. Give a hand to Nick Thorpe, please. Thank you very much. And welcome to Budapest on this beautiful sunny morning, on this beautiful river, on this beautiful white room. I'm very pleased to be joined in the panel in our discussion this morning by Ildiko Tokaj. Ildiko is a freelance consultant on cultural projects. She's the former head of the Hungarian Cultural Centre in London and is also working very closely today in the Hungarian Film Foundation training programme. Also on the panel is Mate Gashbari, formerly of the Kretakör, of the Csork Circle Theatre Company project. And nowadays, development director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra and he also teaches at the University of Film and Drama, a very well-known figure in Hungarian cultural life like Ildiko. Is Hans van Vliet in the room, anyway? There was a gentleman called Hans van Vliet, who if he arrives, please join us on the panel. We were also meant to be joined by András Dončev of the Hungarian government. I know many of us here on the panel and in the audience, no doubt, would have had questions. It would have been very nice to welcome him today. Unfortunately, he did drop out yesterday at the last minute. He has other very important commitments. There are a lot of changes, as ever, in Hungarian cultural life. But if anybody in his place from the audience would like to represent Hungarian government cultural policy, we would very much welcome your views. And we'll do our best also to try, and I as moderator will do my best to try and weave in what András might have said were he here. I think we should sit down. And Júri, Júri, are you going to take part with us? Yes, very good. Thank you for a bit. We're very pleased that Júri Sobo is stepping in at the last minute as founder and managing director of Trafal, the House of Contemporary Arts here in Budapest. And again, another iconic figure of Hungarian artistic and cultural life. Please join us on the panel. So I think we'll sit down and start. I thought to get the discussion going this morning. And I'd also like to impress on you. We're very keen to hear your views, have your contribution in the next hour and a quarter or so of this discussion. The main theme of which is to introduce to you Hungarian culture, Hungarian artistic life today. What's going on? What's at stake today in Hungary? And so we're very keen to hear your own views, your own comparisons with what's happening in this relatively short time that we've got in your own countries, but also from the Hungarians in the audience as well. Very much like your participation. And I thought as a sort of to get the discussion going, I as a journalist covering Eastern Europe have spent most of the last three months at one or other of Hungary's borders covering the refugee crisis. I also noticed that on the opening page of the IETM website, there is a call for artistic projects dealing with and artistic responses across Europe to the refugee crisis. The deadline for that, as you may have noticed, is November the 16th, so you still have 11 days to apply. But I thought I'd start by asking Ildiko, Juri and Mati what they know of the artistic responses so far, what they're aware of at this moment going on in Hungary in response to this great Greek drama. Okay, Mati. I start. Good morning, everybody. Well, okay, I turn my back to you, please don't feel offended. Okay, like it will be better. So you're absolutely right to start by this question because it has really been the most important topic and it has really been a dramatic situation in Hungary the last three or four months. First, as I'm sure that most of you have followed closely, first there was a real invasion of all kinds of migrants coming from different areas and it really was something absolutely unattended both for the officials but also for the general public, the Hungarian civil society. And we had very moving times to find good reactions because the official reactions of course were rather hostile and also quite impotent actually at the very beginning but the civil society has mobilized itself in an amazing way. So we witnessed a wave of solidarity which was absolutely unknown and absolutely not as spectacular as it became during these few very hot summer weeks and I think that with this help and with this really very touching and also very efficient help which was basically a humanitarian aid from inhabitants of Budapest and also inhabitants of those cities living at the south of the country where the migrants massively entered helped those people to survive their few days or weeks that they passed in Hungary because obviously no one really wanted to stay in Hungary and this is still the case but it has been the case the few past years as well so Hungary is not a destination country for people coming to Europe in search of a better life so that's why it was particularly alarming to hear the official propaganda saying that we as Hungarians and we as Hungarian state have to defend ourselves and have to defend our way of living and our culture and that's why I think it's a pertinent question because culture has not been mentioned as often as it is now it became again a main topic what is our culture, what is Hungarian culture and what is European culture in large Let me quote our Prime Minister who just yesterday delivered a speech at the Hungarian Academy of Science which hosts an event similar to ours or even a bit bigger, it's the World Science Forum taking place in Budapest with some 4,000 delegates from all over the world and Mr. Orbán gave the opening speech and he told that we as Europeans have to be very aware of what's going on he feels that the real stake is not considered by the European societies and if we don't watch out our culture, our way of living and our former life will be challenged and can collapse so this is the official opinion and what kind of responses can be done and what's the room for alternative voices very little partially because of, I think, by fear of interfering with the official propaganda which has been very massively spread in all kind of public media surfaces but also because according to a recent survey we more than 75% of Hungarians are happy, for instance, with the fence and endorse the government's policy to close the country with physical barriers from people who are trying to pass through the country so there is a sort of neutral consensus between the majority of the population and the official opinion so we have relatively few the smallest part of the society who thinks differently and who dares to speak out along those venues so just let me quote two examples that I'm aware of a well-known filmmaker and theatre director Courtney Mundruzzo he's just opened an autumn festival which is called the Budapest Cafe Festival a play that he had presented before in the Netherlands and I think it was in the Rotterdam Opera which is an adaptation of the Winterreise of Schubert where the video installation part showed pictures of refugees and this whole wandering story was somehow matched with the current lives of a refugee coming to Europe so this was one of the examples that I saw recently and the other one is a new production in a small alternative theatre called Studio Kat that I hope that you will have the chance to meet and it's a documentary play opened two weeks ago called Hot Arraying Our Borders which explores the opinion and the reaction of Hungarian citizens towards this new phenomena having people looking differently than we coming to our home so it's also quite an important work but one of the very rare ones Thanks very much Ildiko I quickly because I just don't want Judith to stay with us as long as he can and he has to leave earlier so actually to being in culturally sensitive it's very hard to live through what's happening here because culture now appear in a completely different context as before and in a way that that's the only way that I think we can somehow bridge the situation of what's happening here right now in Hungary so just joining actually the project that we were discussing that Versio Film Festival conference is right now it's documentary film festival they have a section for refugee themed films and also a workshop about this but actually when we were discussing a little bit before we met we realized that it's not so many projects and it's interesting why art and why cultural sector is not reacting stronger however as I mentioned culture is appeared in a completely different role than before because as Mate was reading loud that actually the mainstream saying about why we have to fear and why we have to be threatened about this refugee crisis because different culture is going to destroy ours and this is the main issue that all the politicians is constantly constantly repeating and making Hungarians and I think not only Hungarians are quite strongly seen as frightened and I have to say that this is a great brainwash because people even if they're not practicing culture every day this is something that they say okay Islam is going to destroy the Christian culture in Europe so this is easy easy to understand, easy to communicate so for I think culturally sensitive person it's even more how to say more sad or sadder or really makes us feel bad that they use culture in a very wrong way so I do hope that somehow the reaction for the cultural sector and the culture makers become a bit stronger but there's another example I think a lot of photographers were there so I was recently at a book launch at Open Society Archive and I was a Hungarian photographer showing very strong pictures so lots of photographers and filmmakers primary who reacted first I think in an artistic way to this Greek drama as you mentioned sorry so on my territory let's say performing art I would like to summarize what is the main change is that there's lots of money bunch of money in the institutions at the institutions and no money on civil society level so it means on project level on the top of the institutions there are let's say appointed directors and so they have they don't have a strong link to the political era but anyway there is a kind of self-censorship it's very, very, very strong building and somehow the system reminds me because I'm all so much to the one party system and which is new for me is one is in for example the traditional big theater they took over the language of independent theater which is much more straightforward because before in the 90s, 80s, 70s 60s, no, so each play had double bottom, you know, double meaning you have to read the lines or to hear out what is the essence but it's much more straightforward so I'm very happy for that but at the same time it's a big question what the independency will do in theater because this kind of aesthetic value has been taken away it became part of the market it's very strange to say that and what's new there's a the independency is the first scene which is international and where is international like Cornei Mudozo, Arpache Ling Victor Bodo and who is the Bela Pinter so they are internationally recognized and in dance it was not typical at all but now there's a young generation because they were grown up in an international context and now they are on the international scene and so it means the theater made it maybe around the beginning of the 2000 and now we can see in dance the same things and what else what I can see because there's less money much more smaller projects bigger projects can come into a life existence if there's an international network so that's why in Central Europe I guess everybody looks for international collaboration because that's the only way to make bigger pieces and that means this is the key to the freedom freedom of self-expression that's very important so for example Trafo has the major venue for this performing art so our policy is to provide as much freedom for the artists as possible so we increased our performance number from 150 up to 220 with the same stuff we became a very strong machine bad side of it we don't have relationships so much with the artists because we don't have time to speak because we have to generate this is very very sorrowful for me but you know this is the way how to serve somehow the community because if they don't have subsidy if they do good pieces we have to good very good marketing seven persons work on it but anyway at least the ticking income the most of the companies they get the ticket income so this is the big transition for me the other problem is for the independency there's no real advocate of the independency because in the former time as a Trafo director I really went to the professionals and I could really protect the independency's interest but now at the moment this kind of relationship has melted down so you can see nobody came here so that's very important sign what is the dialogue there is no discourse at all but I guess in the near future because the situation is getting so bad so missing really a vision of the future and I guess now the government maybe I'm too optimistic they feel that something is wrong because so many young artists want to leave Hungary so that's a key probably a possible keyword for them the future generation because politically they really motivated to stop all their independent generation let's say the big generation because they are very old-spoken so they are straightforward and they would like to change it you know it's very strange how they think and for example these theater makers they would like to see in the let's say the state theaters which is a very strange argument for me I don't know what is in their mind because it's so much different aesthetic so if somebody would take over a theater then they should fire the most of the actors and actresses because they have to use these special actors and actresses for their own quality so there are so many controversial so very briefly but I feel that there are many many sentences strange visions from the government but it's not coherent at all it's much more scattered and there are some certain personalities they have a certain very very strange vision and they try to impose it to the field but if that person would fall out let's say from the governmental elite then the person will disappear immediately so you know so it's a very hard to say what is this but that's important that's very clear for us it's hybro culture what we present it's for them it's absolutely not necessary they would like a much more popular culture so they want to support music including classical music new circus, creative industry but not so much documentary film for example so these are the all elements what I can see and very hard to get in the position to speak to them at the table on equal level in a partnership so that's a question to resist all the time or resist and talk with them or negotiate with them so that's the next step because this way what we are trying to protect ourselves it's okay but we cannot find all the time solutions internationally we have to make our battles at the roundtables ourselves that's my opinion because maybe I have to go very soon so that's why I would like to summarize my perspective thank you very much at this point any questions or comments? immediately before you leave can you explain because you told us that when you were a director you could defend the independent scene and now you can't anymore can you explain why? Matt is the same situation so it's very strange it's very very professional people without a job they are put aside totally so what's going here it's an intellectual tragedy it's an exile and it's really very hard I'm the person who have all the time vision and it's really difficult to tell them what to do but after three months Joseph not asked me to come back so he is the director and I'm the managing director so we can do whatever we want as I said to you we have more money but our partners the artist they don't have money so it's a very inconvenient situation so if you want to spend it you know this somehow but it's how because for example for us which is an essential problem if I want to work with the artist there should be a structure but no structure so how can I communicate with them how can the project be pulled up to a certain measure how can we raise the public Ildiko is there freedom of expression in Hungary today just a quick reflection because there is some kind of completely joining to what you said that for you to understand so it's now it's a huge question are you leave Hungary and you do your profession somewhere else and leading festivals and then I have lots of friends who left Hungary and were working in Germany in the UK festivals, cultural programming, great great things or that other half of my friend decided yes as I am professional so I try to stay in my profession but then your dreams and your evenings are not easy because you have to balance between doing something right and what is my border what is my border to do things and to negotiate things and talk to everyone or when do I say oh that's my stomach is not bearing anymore so it's those questions which honestly I've never thought that I would meet I have heard from our parents that it can happen so it's very very hard to create value either here or somewhere else but if you leave then of course then your responsibility your Hungarianness, all your knowledge and all your roots and everything then you can use it fine but it's not the same so it's not a black and white question so I cannot say anyone else that for example like working for the National Film Fund there's a lot of things that I love what they are doing but obviously there's a lot of things that I'm not very happy with doing so should I work for them or should I not work for them I can add something to this area so it's very very hard to decide that if you would like to create a value and it's not a good word fighting but trying to represent your values it's possible but it has a brilliant many of questions Mati would you like to comment on that? Just a last thought about this refugee question I think that the official Hungarian opinion about this whole issue is really hypocritical because as you probably know some 400,000 Hungarians left the country and migrated to the western part of Europe during the last five years so Hungarians are migrants themselves as well and partially those who are who lost their possibilities or their perspectives in the cultural life as well but many others of course who are active in different parts of the market so I think that there is a we are also part of this movement as you said also many we are also constantly thinking about whether we should stay or whether we should rather leave and try something else somewhere else and this is not because we would not love our country we would not love our culture or we would not be very motivated to make things better here but because of sheer possibilities or the restrictive environment so I think that this migration issue will remain on the agenda and in a much larger sense than it is treated now with people coming from Syria and Afghanistan just yesterday I have received an online survey from an outstanding organization based here in Budapest which is called Budapest Observatory led by Peter Inke I am sure that many of you know him very well because he is also an emblematic figure of the cultural life not only in Hungary but in Central Europe and beyond and they are doing a regular cultural climate barometer and so they just launched this online survey yesterday where they ask questions about what are the climatic conditions for culture in your country so it is not only for Hungary but for all over Europe to have a look on that survey and give your opinion and when I was opening this survey and the first question was what are the most problematic factors for culture in your country today and I am offered 25 different statements that I should choose 5 from actually I started to click on them and when I could not go after 5 out of the first 5 or first 6 I checked back the rule of the game and there I discovered that actually I can only check 5 and so I had a hard time a hard evening and a hard night as you thought yesterday because I was looking at it and I thought no come on it cannot be possible that 25 out of the 25 would be an equal match and I could argue for all of them why it is problematic let's move on and let's see the rest and then a few pages later you have the opposite what are the 5 most promising or most positive aspects influencing the cultural climate in your country where very wisely the same statements are turned into positive so I thought ok let's see and with all my good intentions and optimism towards the future I could not choose 1 because and then on the last page there was an open place that please put your comment or advice how to improve this survey and what I had to put there that I'm sorry Peter but here and now it's impossible to make statement in this white or black manner so I cannot choose the 5 most burning problems but I cannot either put 5 positive aspects if they are put at the extreme poles of the same phenomena and I think this is the reality and that's why we are struggling and we are staying with those who don't want to leave because you cannot or I don't feel like saying that this is just bad or this is just good but the network of the problems is very complex and very tough so I would not even I suggest you go and check this place this platform and you will understand what I'm talking about and I'm sure that many of these problems are very present in your countries as well but for me it was striking to see that there's really no difference between cultural policies lack relevance to fundamental issues of society which is rare and the exodus of cultural talent from the country this is right as well or low professional level of cultural managers which is well as well so one has the difficulty from which end to tackle this tough network of problems and therefore the only possibility that we focus on our little territories and maybe we will talk about it a bit later at the university for instance what can be done with small groups of young generation future professionals but on the on the policy level it's very gloomy Juri while you're still here I wanted to ask you know I notice in the media for example looking at Hungary from outside there's especially in the German press there's a lot of views that somehow or people assume that freedom of expression is dead in Hungary that somehow everything is so state controlled that people can't say their views express them but in my experience in the media in fact there is a plethora of opinions it's actually a very exciting time in terms of what one can read especially online not withstanding all the lack of advertising in anything other than pro-government media but do you feel atrafo any pressure at all on what you show on the expressions of what's going on or is there still because you know I'm like you was old enough to experience the 1980s here and the pressures which artists were under the silence imposed on a playwright like Istvan Cürka for example you know who later went in other directions but it's yeah how are you under pressure atrafo are artists in Hungary apart from all the issues of funding and so on which I know is central but are you under pressure to put on certain shows or not so it's absolutely in a way uncomfortable with the 80s because if I did very often I was I was called to to meet with the representative of the secret police you know when I did at least seven or eight times I was they didn't punish at all but they said why why why so we had a real strong quarrel nowadays not at all not at all so there's a there's no censorship I can tell you this if I can say it's too kind of censorship it self-censorship it's very strong and through the which is much more delicate way no money for less money and less and less and less money but the third thing which is also very typical but these are not special not Hungarian and they create such a such a situation when you can be easily corrupted I guess the biggest issue for me the corruption the corruption of the system so how can you draw your borderline when you say yes or no you know so you have to you have to be very strong in your values and that's I guess that's very important I guess for me the recent government in itself it's not an issue because I guess the government comes the government goes the most I'm economist basically so that's why I have a different mentality whatever the problem is much more that many many valuable artists persons are pushed aside and they have to go to the commercial side and they're much much question much more question and I'm very interested in so in researching is so how can we protect the art because in a very strange way the art is the cradle of commercialism because the value is born in art and the commercial mechanism take it over when it became very obvious this is there's a value you know so I would say that it's a question of input and output what is culture policy but personally and with your institution or with your network what you can do to protect art or feed the art because that's that's a for me it's a big key question I tell you one example I don't want to say which institution a very famous institution not in Hungary I went there and I saw there a performance 1000 seats from maybe South Korea and I was really surprised because it was very pompous very colorful not so much meaning and so on and so on the public adored it really which is anyway a cut place and then I spoke to people the management so I'm surprised seeing this one of course the government was behind this event and then I started to talk why don't you invite Hungarians and for example I said to them they have a big set and I guess quite welcome and I heard that it's not our aesthetics and I said then I had a question so I saw this South Korean stuff South Korean, yes South Korean it was not your aesthetics but this is their life you know and I said okay so if you want to know for example what Gajpar was meant so you should invite this kind of company for aesthetic because anyway they will just know what's going there in the east like Kusturitsa's film you know which is not true it's a very very well done film I like Kusturitsa, which of his films other films he's all films like that yeah it's all about you know it's what makes stronger the cliches about our region but for example Kornelmudritsa or whatever so they don't come over because we have a strategy and a connection with the public so do we want to educate them so do we feel responsibility when we say Europe and diversity you know our partners I'm in the Hungarian part so they all struggle very often with the western partners but because they keep saying that oh this is not aesthetics but we have to buy the western art works which is okay but when Viktor Orbán goes to abroad he sees it's like the same thing you know and that's why he's very popular because this kind of let's say value communication, value exchange there's a stack there and his answer he says answer you know I don't agree with that because I sit down again with the people okay let's talk let's talk with the professionals I believe in small steps but in the in the in central Europe whereas the different historical background you can find much more people like Orbán Viktor they want big steps because they want to be heroes so that's my response so this would be interesting to talk about it because this is what I can see I have to tell you on our professional level Is there someone else from the floor that would like to contribute or ask something at this point if anyone there wants to come in if there isn't Ildeke I would have a comment on both I might be a bit maybe a bit black and white in that but what you were just reading out I haven't read his observatory I probably could quote a couple of problems which might change a little bit but I don't know how it will happen this is the cultural management and cultural leadership which is missing in Hungary and now we have actually Dury it's not very easy to quote 5% in Hungary who understand business and culture and I'm not saying that because you're an economist I think for the future I know it's a hard time for cultural institutions because of lack of government funding but I think this is the key for the future to learn how to be more independent from the government because if the source of the finding we rely on which happened in Hungary last I don't know how many years so then the independence will not arrive and I'm not saying because if somebody gives the money they can dictate because it would not be good but for the institution and this is a bit of my learning from the UK where I spent 5 years trying to sell Hungarian culture and I think it's possible it was always possible and I didn't want to sell it as Hungarian but as the quality of the art so that was the reason that we could organize the photography exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art and all the musical event put the festival orchestra so if the quality is there I don't have to emphasize that it is Hungarian but I agree with you we have to learn how to get in touch those decision makers more in the mainstream culture and also the alternative culture to be to participate more but that's again something that besides cultural management and cultural leadership I think we have to learn that numbers and economies enemies being in a cultural world but sometimes I'm really not very welcome saying this although I'm not an economist but still I somehow feel that there is a way that we can pursue our decision makers that culture is not just some fluffy, fluffy, lilac, not money making and not socially important things because I'm sure that some of you read what was made done by Ernst and Young about the growth which first time trying to also show numbers what cultural and creative industry makes in Europe this 540 billion euros, 7 million jobs so it's not only about money but it's about people and it's about creation and it's about as I said bridging in the refugee crisis and Europe so culture is much more than just that we are thinking about it is in Hungary so I think even if it's a bit change of the mindset would happen in this country which now I don't really feel that's the room for this then maybe there is a hope then decision makers would take culture at a bit upper level that investing in money that makes money and makes jobs and makes a healthier society and that's exactly, I have to say that first of all I was a bit like, how to say a bit negative that culture is so capitalist in the UK because I said why is everything based on money and living there and understand that it's not only negative because it's much freer it's much more professional and you can do a really relevant thing if there is a kind of measurement behind it and it's not destroying the quality at all so that was a big change in my mindset because I had a bit of prejudice that how can these two things put together but then I have to say that it changed and I think it's critical for our cultural, let's say sector Yeah, someone from the floor Thank you Willie White from Ireland just to respond to Ildigo's remark there I think we should not let go of the value that comes with public supportive culture because there are different values with private whether it be private companies or private individuals we can think of many controversies where art institutions running B&Ls, we're taking money from petroleum companies or whomever, so I think a responsibility then comes when artists make work with public money and I don't think that necessarily the interests of private companies are the interests of the public all the time so I think we should be very careful we're lucky in the UK or those in the UK are lucky because there are lots of trusts and foundations but the record of company supporting culture is not always a good one we should hold on to and then the question that we have to ask ourselves is why we do not have the trust of the public and of the politicians they elect when it comes to supporting culture that to me is an important value that should not be relinquished Yes, I have just a quick reflection John, it would be good if those public money would be as transparent as private money so I would be very curious about the prize of an opera ticket for example from our taxpayers money to see how much money invested for example in the Hungarian opera how much visitors are there and to very openly and transparently seeing which happened actually in London a Royal Opera House we had a very open debate for the members who were supporting and they were very open about the sources 90 million pounds at that time 40 million public, 30 million private 10 million supporters I think it would be nice to handle those public money so transparent as a private source I think there was someone over there but first I would come back to you perhaps on the music side as development director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra I just wanted also to give a quick reaction because I fully agree with what you said about this so I think that we have to be very aware of what kind of values we are attaching to when we are establishing cooperation with private partners but I think that Ildiko has right that when working or exploring the partnership with a private partner you can be it's easy to read what this company stands for and it's easier to decide whether you would like to cope with that or not there have been cases for instance with the orchestra as well when we thought that even a prestigious company would have loved to join and become a sort of sponsor for a particular event but we have considered what kind of products they are making what kind of values they are working for what do they mean by educating future audiences and we decided not to get into cooperation because we felt that for instance these were not healthy products or these were not environmentally clean proposals so we gently decided to pull out from these conversations and I think it's feasible when you work with the privates because they are transparent enough the problem with the public funds especially here in Hungary it's not transparent and when you start having the feeling as a Hungarian citizen that you don't trust your own public subsidizers because they don't stand for the same values or I could be more critical in my sentence then it becomes problematic because and this is how far you can go in negotiations with them and how far you can align your intentions and values with the ones represented by public authorities and I think that's why we feel so nervous here because we are full of ideas and we are absolutely sure that those projects should be developed but we are getting more and more reluctant to cope with the representatives of the public authorities whether it's a grand scheme or it's a venue or just people whom you should shake hands and it's getting really more and more tough and I think this is the big news since ITM came here last time the last 10 years that this idea of the current regime about creating the and we were just laughing about it when it was first announced the system of national cooperation it's called and it's now a sort of reality so it's such a centralized hegemonical structure of the society that there is very little room left around it whichever way you would like to be around so it's a real question for everybody whether you cope with this national collaboration system or not and if you are not part of the game and if you don't feel like joining what's left Thanks, someone at the back there Hello, Anna Hopfer from France I would like to ask you in what way would you describe the relation to the public if you said in the beginning that there were 75% okay with what happened with the border so how does this change, how do you define the work with the public Whoever would like to answer it, Dury for example Yeah, it's a crucial question which is interesting because you talked about the press or you talked about the media so it's interesting because we don't work so much anymore with traditional so it would be the offline and even in the TVs and so on so we have a strong focus on online communication though we see what is the limit of it so we can do less and less so it's a big question now how to support the artworks now in the near future because there's a constant change and very, very quick change now what I can see, for example the government wants to enter into the online world it's getting very clear, it's a recent new strategy for them so you know what so with the public so the Hungarian public is quite poor mostly those are very interested in new stuff and more and more potential audience live Hungary so I met with somebody and he said Dury, your public is beyond the border and I said yes in a very true the other interesting issue for us you can still reach them I guess thanks to the new media but which is also interesting there's a new public flow in Budapest because the majority of the university students coming from the countryside or from abroad but it's two different cultures and what we can experience who come from the countryside so the main problem of Hungary the urbanization level is very low that's why there is no mobility and that's why my answer there's no management because the management needs mobility it's very clear, if there is no market no manager because the artists can do themselves, the free phone calls that's all so that's very simple so the question for us a total ignorant public potential public flows into the Budapest market, how can we work with them we have to find this new method because it needs a slow integration process the online is a very good chance to find out something but it works let's say in the last five years but I see a new tendency I guess more and more people I don't believe so much on online I heard that in Germany the youngers they don't come on Facebook now they look for something as much more but I can see you will see you will come to Munich I guess one day for example which is a new thing it's a very shocking but very positive thing in Munich every Monday there are 400 kids playing games from 12 till 2 o'clock in the night so it's unbelievable I took there some managers from our network and they were shocked positively there's an iPhone they don't use iPhones they just play different games so that's something positive we have to see there's a transition in the society we have to come closer to the smaller circles all the time and you have to do a very direct communication so that's what we can do but that's a question the society mentality will change in a larger scale that's a question and if you can see that you can build a certain relationship to these changes and that's I'm trying to figure it out what is this so what we also learned that for example I'm a member of this research group the locality is the new thing and not internationalism there was a very nice TEDx presentation by a black woman from not black it's not PC should I say it it's fine okay speaking about America her origin is something like African, different African and it was very interesting to see that and if I understand this new kind of thinking we have to understand let's say the presenters and promoters so our communication works if the references meet but in that case you have to know your target group and you have to know the value of your let's say art piece and then how to mediate it it's getting a profession I talk too much just one reaction all the way really precisely to your questions I can't really answer because now I'm not working I'm not representing an institution so I'm not really working with audiences or with public but just some thought that I could say that it's a good sign that it's not easy to get any theater tickets so I'm now an audience and saying to you my experiences so you have to be very quick to get the Kotona Georgivsin has a theater ticket which I think it's not a bad sign but on the other hand it's very sad that for example the recent movie premiere Vesetek which was funded here heavily by the National Film Fund which has a very very actual topic was visited very few people and obviously there is a lot of reason for it why? you could blame the marketing you could blame a lot of things why not but unfortunately I've said whether Hungarian society now is ready for such a film are they interested in such a film because unfortunately I have heard and I'm not sure that it's true that all these against refugee campaign which was in Hungary in the summer first I thought this is a brain wash and then someone told me no no it was a very careful market research when it came out which actually Mati said I'm not really like foreigners so let's use this and let's build on this feeling and so get more waters for my party to build on this and if it's true I'm saying I'm not sure I don't know if it's true it was just a gossip but if it's true that it's very frightening because I think that's such a responsibility from a government to build on this kind of not very good kind of perception this fear of foreigners last longer than we were live I think so this is a kind of long lasting responsibility which probably nobody thinks about but back to the audiences so that's all my experiences I can say that actually and also not easy to get ticket to truffle which is a good sign so there's a niche audience still interested in contemporary and alternative art and then we were also discussing there's an interesting thing what's happening in Hungary that there's a lot of things happening in the alternative art world which is the mainstream culture has big questions what's happening there but it's a funny thing how maybe we are used to this the mainstream culture is so oppression and so influenced by politics and that's a good response this alternative culture can flourish but I have to say that it's not my generation but below one two generation in the 20s there's lots of interesting things things happening as low budget even one of the film which was most visited in Hungary was a very low budget film and a no name filmmaker so 30,000 euro and almost 100,000 visitors which is a very high number in Hungarian cinemas so I'm just saying that it's an interesting phenomena which I encounter in Hungary today that although the mainstream culture has questions the alternative has very interesting answers and I'd like to react as well to a couple of things you've both said that have been said today I never thought I'd find myself quoting the Pope but the globalization of indifference there's a very interesting conversation in a book published relatively recently by Karacan Gabor Gabor Karacan his works not translated into English though I think some that I know of and he's a writer a participant in the 1956 revolution who died very sadly this summer but very much someone culturally on the right hand side on the profi des side of the cultural divide in Hungary today he relates a conversation between himself and his novels are very interesting that they weave in real characters and real events and in his last novel there's a conversation between himself and András Lányi who's a conservative minded environmentalist but a great opponent of the government in some ways over its nuclear building policies and so on and they're talking about what's often a taboo subject in Hungary today which is the relations between the Jewish community and the non-Jewish community and they're describing how there's a conversation between András Lányi as someone of Jewish background and Gabor Karacan as someone of non-Jewish background Hungarian national patriotic person who took part in 56 in those terms and they're talking about how the Holocaust was possible how it happened and they're speaking about Hungarian Jewishness and its patriotic nature for example in the First World War how the Jews of Hungary and this city Budapest in 1900 was 25% Jewish and the conversation goes on that what happened at Trianon when history was divided after the First World War was that the Hungarians didn't start hating the Jews but they became indifferent to them Pope Francis' word the globalization already in the 20th century of indifference and that was how so many Hungarian Jews were taken away why Hungarians didn't lift a hand to prevent that happening and this indifference I think if we look at what's going on with the refugees today it's not that Hungarians hate refugees they may be afraid of them thanks to the government's poster campaign and so on but I find it's an indifference to their fate because people aren't meeting them because they're not establishing eye contact with them at times when Hungary was allowing up until October the 16th 7, 8, 9,000 people from Syria Iraq, Afghanistan across its territory every day you couldn't actually meet them they were being put in buses immediately on trains it was very well organized and shipped across the country to Austria it's your problem now but in Hungarian kindergarten where I was the local the soldiers and the police who'd been invited by the government to patrol that border and keep these terrible people out or help them cross the country quickly they were being invited into the kindergarten to meet the children but what a fantastic opportunity it would have been for the kindergartens the primary schools, the secondary schools to invite people from Syria Afghanistan, Iraq to talk about geography to talk about their stories their adventures crossing the Aegean Sea only two weeks earlier and so on and so I think in a roundabout way coming back to what you were saying about the possibilities in the arts today about the locality about not necessarily apart from international and national cooperation this local cooperation and the contact in the media when we speak about thousands of people a flood of humanity a river or a trickle of humanity we're also guilty of not identifying the names the faces the individuality of each of the people coming and of each of the people standing there at the roadside wondering who is coming to visit to live in, to pass through our community I think this is something which the arts can always do which the media should do more even the mainstream media like the ones I represent can do more which is just to establish to make that eye contact and this is also one of my own fears about social media and about the games children play and teenagers play today on social media that there's less eye contact there between people than maybe they used to be I don't have any thoughts any more we've got a little bit more time come halfway Hi my name is Pippa I lived in the UK for 15 years but I now am based in Australia I just wanted to pick up on a couple of points of course to reiterate Willi's point about the importance of public funding but some concern over idealising what happens in the UK because I think that actually the Warwick report said that between 8 and 10% of the population is engaging with subsidised culture that's very small really and there is a very exciting movement I think that is not being talked about enough in the cultural sector but is coming through activism particularly around the environment and economics and climate change and this is particularly around food production and energy production and we are not talking enough about that in our sector and in some ways this idea of market this very old-fashioned idea of market that is failing us globally is really not the future I don't think really interesting to understand your vision because you say I have a very bad vision because what I see from Italy what happens in these 20 years is that it has been like an erosion little by little we can feel it day by day but something was missing and in the end you realise that going back 10 years ago it was like we lost many, many money in public funding but which are the strategy now I mean because is there any strategy an institutional strategy in that because if we think about that it's the point if it's a strategy it's really a risk I mean if it's not a strategy but they are trying to find a way okay we can create a dialogue I don't know but if they know where they are going to create a totalitarianism you know I agree you know I guess each institution or many institutions who have a real responsibility I guess the strategy build on responsibility so those who know where of responsibility I guess they built the strategy so what I can say I didn't talk to Katerina Jepsi at all or very profoundly you feel it if you are an expert you visit these institutions you feel it that's a question that this kind of resistance against the market against this kind of policy or politics does it have a coherent platform because that's the key issue because in Hungary we are very weak in that so that's why there is no resistance there are no crowd on the street when we want a long time ago 20,000 people last year prevented attacks being imposed it was 100,000 I heard that I was not two days ago in Romania 20,000 people brought down a government so anyway that's a question why we don't do that I have a certain answer here because of education system taxation system these are there are many things in the society which serves that your dignity your dignity and your personal sovereignty melt down but it starts from your childhood and that's what I can see here all the time so that's why we are really easy victim of this erosion which is not all the time about money it's a moral question and I guess the role of the art should be to point it out I was on a after talk he had this question what do you think about corruption and the people were really the cream of the hybrid people and they so pushed away this issue for them and so this is like the Jewish question so our 56 so many things we don't have to really go deeply to the main essence of the question so the art this is one role of the art is very important the other one is what I also learned recently because I was surprised because after when the immigration battle went on online it turned out many of my friends were against so much against the the migration how should I say it migrants I was really so it was another division in our society the line was totally somewhere else there was before it was a big big surprise and I learned one more thing it became much more clear so that's the cooperation so important because those who had met for example with the Lebanese or of course any African or any Asian and they knew what does it mean then they had experience they knew how they behave differently and they knew why they behave differently so they have much more open much more yielding much more cooperative and those who really just in the countryside living in a village they don't have job or even they have a job that's local they don't meet people what is for them the situation the enemy is coming they take away the job so that's what you just said so art the art must have a new role this is kind of participation how to make a kind of collaboration and to make a bigger and larger society which is in a way a communication too and it's important because this way we can generate public also so this is my question I have a quick reaction to the question about strategies and I think as Yuri mentioned if we don't know we can see that some institutions have strategies which is a good thing but the major problem and you pointed it out we would need a kind of national cultural strategy to see where our nation would like to go and it would be easier to integrate than these institutional strategies and again going back to my London work that was a major difference and obviously I'm not completely idealized the British system but at least we have strategies and that's why it was a tremendously difficult job to represent Hungarian culture there because working with the government and in Hungary all the funds is for a year period and as far as I know Arts Council England gives us three years fund and this is just a tiny thing but they understand how culture works you cannot plan things in a year so I mean that was hugely difficult for me to get in a British institution where they plan five years and my term was four years and to make understand my government that we have to dedicate yes this exhibition there two years before and it was constantly a gambling and this is maybe I'm not happy it's recorded because it's a bit off record but a lot of director we were really gambling to say in the UK yes I promise here's the kind of letter from the Ministry that we will pay we will do this exhibition etc etc but I knew that it was not true because here all the funding scheme is for a year period which is a tiny little thing but it shows that unfortunately strategies and vision in a kind of national level I think it's missing and it's equally important I think as money Hi Margaret from the United States I'm just struck by the incredible metaphor of being on this beautiful cultural space which is a ship here we are in a country whose cultural policy despite the pressure from outsiders and from their own colleagues in Europe and certainly from abroad including the US is insisting on its own sovereignty insisting on making itself an island and we are the cultural workers both inside and out who are trying to make the world a better place for us to live I'm not comparing us to immigrants of course but it's just a very powerful metaphor today I really appreciate this conversation Hi everyone Gordon Tomko from Serbia I'm really struck I guess as most of us with this image of the faceless crowds crossing our countries but I would like to draw a parallel to another crowd like a faceless publics or whatever in a very similar fashion and I think in art world we really too often maybe talk about ourselves and when we talk about others it's some distant unknown faceless other if we want to change to contribute to a change we need to change that I think thanks Yes thank you very much for this remark because this is exactly what I would like to answer to the remark of the French colleague who asked about what kind of work with the audience and what is the artists or art organizations reaction towards this new phenomena and and I to give some encouraging examples that by the end of this discussion so for instance here and now in Hungary all these kind of outreach programs and audience development programs which are in the performing arts are in their early phase so it's quite a recent phenomena but are very very enthusiastically and intensively reacted by general audiences faceless audiences as you mentioned and since there are more and more theatres more and more organizations or even the orchestra I work for is a pioneer in this work when you make direct encounters with the youngsters or less young people interested in the art work or in these creative moments of co-producing something so there this relationship changed radically and I know that in many of your countries there has been a long tradition but in Hungary it's just starting now and we have very good experiences on then and at the university of theatre where I'm teaching I'm responsible for a new class which does this theatre in education professionalism for instance and professionalization and there is also a big interest and a very good climate around this so I think that you're absolutely right we have to explore new ways of involving audiences break this wall of indifference create opportunities where this eye contact can be made and I think that there is in Hungary the percentage is the same as you mentioned 10% of the population is intensively involved in state subsidized cultural programs so we have to reach out more we have to go to places where this kind of culture never gets and we have to go there not only with an artistic vision and the ready made art program but with our toolkits and create moments where people can discover new experiences and I fortunately can witness many of these kind of initiatives here in our country of course they are extremely small scale but if you do that and if you are persistent in doing that it will help to create a new audience and ensure that there will be people attending the mainstream events also in the future or creating something completely different as they wish in alternative ways yes maybe we've just got like a few more minutes on the whole question each of you are teaching the arts in different ways just picking up on what Mattis said Ildiko what are you teaching now what needs to be taught is it the same as that always has been or is there something new or different what needs to be taught in this country today well it's now I'm going to answer it for two different perspectives one is more like the art perspective so the content perspective which I think critical critical view and braveness to ask questions and braveness to think I think that's that's crucial in Hungary to incentivize people in the universities but even younger kids to learn this kind of dialogue or discussion culture so not always accept what it's taught always question what is taught and I was just recently at the CEO on an interesting seminar and that was exactly what they were talking about even in CEU which I think it's an island in Hungary the Central European University I studied there so that's really an island where it's an issue how to engage, involve made the students more critical so that's the content answer and also just reflecting ending this that I was recently in Germany at the Schilling Children Film Festival and it's about also education and it's reflecting what you were saying about the refugee crisis at the opening of the festival one of the representative of the city asked the German pupils I mean kids to help refugee kids in the school and I'm saying this that was so strong because that was for kids there was thousands of kids different age groups from six till 14, 16 and so that was the main main kind of opinion in Germany that openly said so I would have wished that in Hungary would have happened the same which reflecting what you were saying on the practical side about education which I just did a survey about film education and film practice and training in Hungary and it came out that the practice based art education and film education for example is quite missing but I think it's an old debate in film education that how content based and how artistic based and how practice based should it be so it's not a new question but it turned out that in Hungary I think especially Marty can say about the University of Film and theater drama that I think that's not bad this kind of artistically thought film education and so actually one of the finding of my research was where Filmfund can step in that somehow connect the industry, film industry and film education so somehow make possibilities to filmmaker to try out and not immediately step in the big competition to put together a film and to apply for the Hungarian Filmfund and even they started already an incubation program which again for first filmmakers can help to get in the market so the entry in terms of film I can speak about that only right now is really make it easier to entry to the film making practical market so it's what I experience I have to emphasize all the time that be systematic be organic look for a long vision and then I guess these are the free key points for me and there's a frame and the frame is that crisis management so because in Hungary that's typical it's an ongoing crisis no money, no system no vision and so on but in this among these circumstances you have to exist you have to work you have to get ahead and there's one point when you have to step out from one person management to work with a group group of people with employees that's a very very crucial point and I can see many many failures at this point and then the other point is that how to work internationally is a big problem because if there's no touring here it means you don't have you don't understand the system there and you have to step out everybody everybody expect from you that you have that knowledge you know this is very very specific Hungarian situation in performing art so that's all just very briefly I'm not fully agree with what you said just to create some tension by the end of the discussion because I think that talking about Hungary there is money there is system and there is a long term vision when I meet students younger generation future professionals I have the chance to work with at the theater university and I think that's a big challenge for me is how to introduce them into these existing system because what we definitely lack is transparency so it's very very difficult to understand and learn how these big structures which are crucial for the operation of our society are created and run so for me it's one of the biggest task and also to make them more reflective and critical about the systems that influence our daily life and I'm every time I'm really shocked to see how little they know about and I think it's partially connected to the media consumption so they don't reduce papers they just pick up quick information from the net but it's also a sort of indifference towards our own issues so I think I see there a huge responsibility for any kind of education whether it's management whether it's outreach or audience development projects and I see that the value of that kind of expertise is becoming more and more important and not just because artists need these kind of professional helpers or supporters but also because having this kind of mentality or having this kind of reflective position towards what's going on around us makes you more valuable and more autonomous or less easy to corrupt person in our society and I see there are still a lot of people willing to become so Thanks there's one more comment Hello sorry loud voice hello my name is Liz Pugh and I work for an independent arts organisation in the north west of England and I just want to add something to the conversation and tell you about yesterday IETM organised some pre-trips and I was I went on a pre-trip to an area of Hungary where Spec Street Association are working with Roma youth and a conversation we saw work that the organisation is doing with Roma young people and in schools and it was a really a fascinating day and I suppose I was surprised we were in a little minibus, a microbus and there was only I think 10 of us and I suppose I would say to everybody when and I know people have to take time out of work and whatever but if you're coming to an event like this, a conference and there is a pre-meeting trip organised in the interests of knowing something of where we are and looking people in the eye, we did a circus skills workshop as part of the day so there was 25 Roma young people and 10 of us informal European theatre meeting professionals and we all balanced something on our head and walked around the room and said hello to each other and to do that we had to look in each other in the eye and we became equal in that moment and I suppose my first thought is take the opportunity if it's offered there should have been more than 10 people we could have had a big bus but we only had a small bus and the other thing to say was the conversation that happened in the minibus on the way back with Balash who has that runs that organisation we were talking about leadership and he was he was talking or we were discussing how we might use theatre and the skills that we have as theatre professionals to create to help create the leaders and I suppose looking at training the other way yes of course there's the how do we train theatre professionals but also remembering that the very brilliant skills that theatre makers have of storytelling, of making connections of finding the humanity that connects us those skills are fundamental and we should be looking all of us at how we are working with the next generation I speak as a not young person and so making those connections there that's it, thank you thank you very much we should slowly be finishing I think I would offer one final image of my own as well a friend of mine was travelling to the United States with a group of Hungarian folk musicians in the last year or so and sitting next to her on the plane was a woman from Transylvania a Hungarian ethnic background from Transylvania who'd never been on an airplane before she was very worried before they got on the plane and to the surprise of the others travelling with her she slept the whole way she shut her eyes before takeoff and when they landed it wasn't in New York it was further across I can't remember where it was a nine hour journey or something she opened her eyes and people started congratulating her how did you sleep all the way if you were so worried before and she said I wasn't sleeping I was praying and as I see the refugees arriving in Europe today how many of them are praying all the way and how when we speak about defending Christian culture are we neglecting how many believers are arriving among us who are praying all the way here just as many of us are still praying in our own ways praying all our way there or wherever else we go on our holidays or on our trips around our towns so thank you all very much for taking part this morning, thank you very much for coming and some words about the organisation before everyone gets up thank you, thank you thank you Nick, thank you thank you Maté, thank you Turi it was great to have your views on the situation here the Transurabhal MOP and the ITM MOP will split our ways will split I ask the ITM people to go back to Aquarium if there's half an hour before our first working groups start be it in the Central European University in the 17 which is very near to Aquarium there has been a wrong address circulating but realise it's very it's the address is very near to Aquarium or in Aquarium there are three working groups starting at 12 30 if you don't manage to get your badge and to register before that time don't panic we have the registration desk will be open afterwards and you will be in without a badge by exception it is in Aquarium you can walk along the river until you meet the tramway 47 take that one and it brings you the terminal is at the same square as where you find Aquarium sorry it's the end of the 47 line yes or 49 okay thank you so much one of your compatriots said democracy is an acquired taste and maybe we didn't get enough time to acquire that taste we will discuss the role of the artist in democracy for the uncoming days I'm very sorry because I was in the other room following the the debate is Maurizio September from Fabrica Europa I want to ask you your help and your support because yesterday evening we get the news that our wonderful place Stazione Leopolda which is known for all the artists very well will be sold in Alasta in construction will be sold the two of December and this is the new the railway society decided to do without asking anything to the other the city, the region and everywhere so at this point it is very difficult in 25 days to organize the possibility also to participate to organize this wonderful place which is a heritage is really one station of the 18th century has been built in 1850 may I let's start a communication about that so what I ask to you if you agree that all together we ask to the institution to have to be democratic that means to open a panel of discussion about we can all together the artist and the international community with the institution to save this wonderful fantastic place for the contemporary influence thank you for your support I will send you a letter to everybody thank you