Inclusion, arts and culture

Round table discussion, 1 March 2011
The Trampoline House, Copenhagen

From the left: Anne Boukris and Mik Aidt from the Danish Centre for Arts and Interculture, Tijana Miskovic – a Danish Arts Council mentor, Anwar Akhtar from the Samosa – a UK NGO promoting human rights and equality

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The British Council provided a platform for this round table discussion as part of its Our Shared Europe programme. The main aim of meeting was to share experiences and generate solutions – both the UK and Denmark are interested in exploring how arts and culture can contribute to greater community cohesion.

Ten panellists provided a range of views from both the UK and Denmark. Among them there were artists, representatives of NGOs and the municipal government, and a political refugee.

Some thoughts from the round table discussion:

• The work on inclusion starts with you yourself.
• To bring out what is the most positive in human beings, they need a sense of belonging; they need to feel that they are welcome. Trampoline House is doing just that.
• We need to know an artist not by his/her ethnicity but who the person behind the work of art is as a human being, his/her artistic expression.
• Artists have an important role in creating awareness that each society can have a space for different kinds of people.

The panellists were pleased to get the opportunity to network and exchange ideas. They would like to develop the new contacts they made and to co-operate further.

This event has been organised in partnership with the Trampoline House.