2nd encounter of the cycle "Cultural Action as a Tool for Social Cohesion"

Friday, March 28, 2025 – 3PM-5:30PM
Halle Tropisme, conference room B & video conference

In a context where social and territorial inequalities are widening, where public funding for culture is being questioned, and where social policies sometimes struggle to meet the needs of the most vulnerable populations, cultural actors are asserting themselves as figures of resistance.

Through their commitments, they refuse to let culture become a privilege reserved for a few, and instead advocate for its fundamental role in building a fairer and more inclusive society. They act on the ground to create spaces for expression, social connection, and individual and collective transformation, despite budgetary constraints or the lack of public funding, despite institutional resistance and the contradictory demands of public policies.

During the first encounter held at the opening of the HYPE OCC festival in December in Montpellier, we opened the debate on the challenges and issues of cultural action in the face of social and territorial inequalities.

This second meeting aims to go further in analyzing and sharing experiences by highlighting initiatives carried out in different national contexts—in Germany, Burkina Faso, France, and Sweden. We will have the pleasure of welcoming, in person and via video conference, representatives of initiatives with diverse and original approaches and levers. They will share their experiences with us, presenting their projects, the methodologies used, as well as the challenges and successes encountered in their respective contexts.

This cross-perspective on our experiences and their effects seems important to us in order to examine what makes these different models strong, but also to shed light on how, in Europe and Africa, cultural actors resist the logics of exclusion and the commodification of culture.

Following these presentations, a Q&A session will allow participants to react, compare experiences, and open the discussion toward potential actions and improvements. This will also be an opportunity to explore what can be transposed from one national and cultural context to another, and how different approaches to cultural and social action can inspire one another.

This series of meetings, open to all professionals engaged in or interested in the topic, aims to generate concrete avenues for collaboration, strengthen synergies between culture and social action, and co-construct inclusive and citizen-driven projects.

Join us on March 28 from 3:00 PM to 5:30 PM at Halle Tropisme (121 rue de Fontcouverte – conference room B – 34070 Montpellier, France) or via video conference for this second meeting.

English/French translations will be provided during the exchanges.

The venue is wheelchair accessible.

The third encounter, with a more practical focus, is scheduled for Thursday, June 19, 2025.

Photo © Dirk Korell