The role of art and culture in the city is changing. Moving from the arts venue and audience, towards going ‘out’ into the city, nurturing a vision of the city itself as a creative, participative space in which citizens are themselves makers are "co-creators". 

Eleanor Pender will introduce Future DiverCities, a four-year programme funded by Creative Europe. Ten European partners in Europe and Canada are working together to encourage and support creativity, digital innovation, and art production within the cities and urban spaces of Europe and beyond; exploring the ever-changing role of art in the urban context, very much inspired by Charles Landry and his concept of the City 3.0.

Future DiverCities' ten partners consist of city making organisations to arts festivals, city councils to tech companies. Eleanor will focus upon presenting the news from the four week-long workshop ‘Labs’, delivered in the first year of the project under the theme ‘Future DiverCitizens. The talk will be joined by Norwegian partner, BEK with their ‘lab’ in progress in Bergen looking at the theme of Distance. The group of artists and participants will  be exploring the space between the minute and the small, the infinite and the large, through digital tools and drone technology, and see how this effects inhabitants relationship to their environment.  

This Lunchtime Talk is part of Open Studio Friday, which takes place at the Studio every week.

Do you want to find out what is going on at the Pervasive Media Studio? Are you interested in meeting our residents, talking about a specific project or curious about pervasive media? Why not pack a sandwich and join us for one of our Lunchtime Talks and Open Studio Friday.

Lunchtime Talks are informal presentations by Studio residents and associates. They normally take place at 1pm on Friday, are free and open to everybody who’s interested in what we do.

After the Talk, we also invite you to stay with us for the afternoon to continue the conversation or work on your own projects. We provide chairs, tables, wireless and a great space. You bring what you need to work with (laptop/mobile). Our open afternoons close at 5pm.

Let us know if you’d like a tour of the space and we'll be happy to show you around just before the talk. Send an email to studio@watershed.co.uk to book your place on a tour.


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