BRITISH COUNCIL AND GACC HELP GEORGIAN AND ARMENIAN MUSEUM STAFF DEVELOP THEIR PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
The Messenger
July 15 2009
Georgia
>From 13-16 July 2009 a workshop for 20 Georgian and Armenian museum
staff and crafts people is being held at the Georgian Arts and Culture
Centre (GACC). The focus of this 4-day residency is ‘new ways of making
cultural industries popular – how we can turn cultural industries
into an economically profitable area of activity.’ The participants
of the residential workshop are discussing the educational value of
the museum as an institution and museum activities, including the
sale of products at the museum shops.
Two UK experts are sharing their experience and leading the training
of 20 museum staff and crafts people from 6 Georgian and Armenian
museums. As a result of the workshop, new pieces of craftwork will be
created using cultural heritage models. The Georgian participants are
the Kutaisi State Museum, Batumi Archaeological Museum, the Museum
of Dolls and the Zakaria Paliashvili House Museum in Tbilisi. From
Armenia, representatives of the National Gallery of Armenia, the
Armenian Museum of History, Erebuni Museum and the Wood Carving Museum
are taking part.
Selina Fellows, a leading UK consultant in income generation and
marketing in the cultural heritage sector and Timothy Mason, Head
of the Arts & Heritage Consultancy and a European Council expert on
cultural heritage and museum management issues in the South Caucasus,
are the facilitators of the workshop.
The GACC project which this workshop forms part of, called ‘Development
of Cultural Industries in the South Caucasus Countries: Introduction
to the UK Experience in Product Development, Business Management
and Marketing,’ was the only winner of a Creative Collaborations
grant in the South Caucasus, thus becoming a part of a large scale
South-East European project known as Creative Collaboration. The
project focuses on the cooperation between museums and producers
in the area of cultural heritage and traditional crafts. The aim of
the project is to exchange creative experience on the one hand and
generate income for cultural institutions and producers on the other.
Creative Collaboration is a major British Council arts project that
aims to increase the numbers of artists working in collaboration
with other countries in South East Europe and the UK. The overall
aim of all Creative Collaboration projects is to enrich the cultural
life of Europe and its surrounding countries and to build trust and
understanding across communities by generating dialogue and debate.