Why I would recommend the AMSU course of Management & Development of Creative Autonomous Spaces
Maybe I am only typical - a naive and innocent stranger from Eastern Europe on his first go West. However, I am in the right place at the right time. I get off a bus at the central railway station. A beautiful city emerges before me. Having an hour to spend before meeting my hosts, I buy a city map and enjoy a walk to my destination, Felix Meritis in Amsterdam, where most of the courses take place. Reception is already overwhelming. And Felix Meritis itself amazes with architecture, history and spirit.
The chance I am presented with is due to The Amsterdam-Maastricht Summer University, a course called Development & Management of Autonomous Creative Spaces in Europe, August 16-20, 2005. I work for The Red House in Sofia, an independent centre for debate, arts, education, and social work. The AMSU compiles masterclasses, workshops and seminars on a variety of topics, but always dealing with issues of present day civil society. Most of those who take part would be young professionals between 25 and 35 years of age, although some will be younger, some older, from all over the world. Students from most Central and Eastern European Countries and Turkey are encouraged by the MATRA Programme of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs; two scholarships by the René Seydoux Foundation this year were available for participants from the South bank of Mediterranean Sea; Grundtvig Scholars were also present.
The best thing about any such courses is the human factor - colleagues and course leaders (and the team, indeed) - and the interaction that happens. Will the latter turn out to be the entertaining, learning and stimulating experience catalyzed by high levels of empathy within the group is always unpredictable; it sometimes happens, sometimes not, however thoughtful and intelligent the selection may have been. This course offered compassionate listeners and passionate talkers, attentive leaders, caring team, diversity, intelligent company and fun.
Colleagues
Colleagues in such courses are normally young and bright bunch of chaps. At this course they come from very young or emerging grass-root organizations all with some sort of social agenda but followed through various ways. As entities they are in the twilight - already visible and with some influence on the social environment, but still emerging. So, we discussed the management and development of such "spaces". An experienced corporate chap, in touch with today's business practices, may find the company bit behind times and too hippy-like, but these days I suppose corporate chaps mostly indulge their inner hippy desires while happily pretending yuppies. So they, I imagine, would not only find the discussion intriguing and worthwhile, but may well discover suddenly their real vocation.
The geographical reach was amazing: Baltics, Scandinavia, UK and Ireland, Central and Eastern Europe, South and South East Europe, Turkey and North Africa (Egypt). I could hardly keep in mind who was coming from where and what I knew about his national, cultural background or character, even though I knew not much. But the openness and the easy-going conversation turned this into a sweet nice multilateral party.
Course Leaders
The course leaders invited us and led us through their experiences and thinking with sincerity and determination. They had managed to gather impressive knowledge and information about the context where the organizations present at the course were operating. And they were ready to share: things debatable were debated; there were words particularly instructive for everyone in his/her own context; individual attention was paid to each student. I felt this was an enriching and enlightening trip.
In cases like this it seems that the particular content of the course is not really important; and whether I have got the knowledge immediately convertible to some practical gains is rather insignificant. More important to me were the patterns of thinking, the attitude, and the approach; in short, general ideas or principles which, ones you have understood and accepted, can with time lead to significant changes in the way your principal business is conducted.
Course Content
I am really content with the course content. We talked about our organizations and the good organizations that we can be. I bet everybody present at the course learned more about his or her respective environment. We were exposed to an enlightening story about how we, as cultural organizations or institutions, came to be as we were; and also to some glimpses of the current larger (intellectual) battle and our place in it; and to current problems that we've been too young, or too busy, or too lazy to have faced.
The course is a rich source of ideas, pragmatic as well as more general, but it depends on the participant himself to draw from it. A participant is well-advised to listen and discuss what he or she thinks important while at the course and that there is some form of continuation at home, after the course. I know this is not easy. Going home after the course may be a real discovery. What you would make of it depends mostly on you.
The team had also taken care to ensure information inflow about the most recent developments relevant for the course. We visited Smart Project Space, new and promising creative enterprise, and NDSM, the most recent "art factory" and former shipyard, both in Amsterdam. Cultural practitioners were invited to speak to the course and presented a very informative review of the development of the independent grass-root cultural centres springing-up in former, now disused, industrial or military buildings (Art Factories); and an in-depth look at one of the brightest examples (and also the biggest one in scale) - The Cable Factory in Helsinki.
There were many more other things about this study visit, which I would not describe here, and the overwhelming sense that all somehow combined to make of those 5 days a wonderful experience to remember and, often, to return to.