Labs. Meetings and Workshops for an Open Culture

The LABS are a forum for participation in our city’s public institutions and cultural policies. They are an initiative led by Madrid City Council’s Department of Culture, a place for dialogue among cultural stakeholders, municipal authorities and citizens, representing an opportunity to work on designing and developing future actions and programmes.

They are delivered in various formats that involve working with stakeholders and groups – these may be sectoral representatives or citizens and professionals – for the purpose of opening up new channels for discussion and participation within institutional frameworks. They will take the form of open meetings (broadcast via streaming) and workshops aimed at groups and professionals from the specific sphere relating to each particular topic, with participants registering in advance and a limited number of places available. All processes will be documented with a view to making them publicly available.
 

Lab 4 Programme

 

16 and 17 November - Lab 4. District Centres and Culture of Proximity. New Models of Management, Production and Programme Development

 
This Lab will establish a forum for dialogue with a view to the creation and implementation of a strategy and an action plan to reclaim district-level Cultural Centres.

The Lab will be held across three different sessions, from November 2016 to March 2017.
 

Programmes of Labs Already Held

 

17 and 18 May - Lab 1. Institutional Openness and Participatory Forums

 
This Lab will explore various models and tools for the co-production of public policies and the development of formal participatory forums.

The resulting document will include all notes that were collected during the workshop, which compared and contrasted the general model of participation.
 
 

15 and 16 June - Lab 2. Public Aid and Other Tools to Support the Cultural Fabric

 
This Lab will analyse models of public aid along with other forms of funding and tools to support the cultural fabric.

The resulting document will be a proposal that is contrasted against the general principles of the Strategic Plan for Subsidies and Lines of Aid for 2016-2019 of Madrid City Council’s Department of Culture and Sport.
 
 

20 and 21 July - Lab 3. A Close-Up Look at Madrid's Institutional Cultural Ecosystem<

 
This Lab will present various models of public competition to managers of cultural institutions, exploring different forms of innovation in the management and governance of such institutions.