TEH Nordic Hub

What

TEH Nordic Hub is a regional subnetwork of Trans Europe Halles. Main focus is to bring existing and new members from the Nordic and Baltic region to meet, discuss, learn and co-operare in the context of developing activities and policies that are beneficial for their local operations but also have an effect on the whole Nordic region. The hub operates as a test bed and extension to TEH activities. The membership remains voluntary for the first year. 2020 season is co-funded by the Nordic Culture Point of the Nordic Council of Ministers. 

Why

The initiative to setup a regional hub arise from the true need for more structured and focused co-operations in the Nordic realm. After years of networking, a group of culture centers came together with a proposal to start a voluntary action at the same time when Trans Europe Halles project Factories of Imagination (FOI) was established. FOI supported different hubs to be started under the TEH umbrella. 

The Hub will increase cooperation and collaboration between the self-organised cultural centres in the Nordic and Baltic region located in spaces of industrial and cultural heritage. Trans Europe Halles network will also strengthen focus in the Nordic and Baltic region through this initiative in order to set up a regional platform for exchanging knowledge and practices, peer-to-peer learning, pooling resources for innovative practices and building on existing knowledge. The Hub will also advocate the message of the bottom up creative field.

Members of the Hub

• Space of Milk, Borgarbyggd, Iceland
• Institut for (X), Aarhus, Denmark 
• Maltfabrikken, Ebeltoft, Denmark 
• Tou Scene, Stavanger, Norway
• Not Quite, Fengersfors, Sweden
• Subtopia, Stockholm, Sweden 
• Kaapeli/Suvilahti, Helsinki, Finland
• Korjaamo, Helsinki, Finland 
• Verkatehdas, Hämeenlinna, Finland
• Aparaaditehas, Tartu, Estonia
• Institute for Environmental Solutions, Cesis, Latvia
• Kanepes, Riga, Latvia
• Arts Printing House, Vilnius, Lithuania
• IFÖ Center, Bromölla, Sweden
• Mejeriet, Lund, Sweden
• NOASS, Riga, Latvia
• Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg, Sweden
• Inkonst, Malmö, Sweden 
• Põhjala tehas, Tallinn, Estonia

The duration of the project

1 January – 31 December 2020

Planned activities and events

2020 season of activities:

1. Mapping and Researching challenges, needs and opportunities (Dec 2019 – June 2020)

2. Organise a kick-off meeting and follow-ups (Feb, June, Nov 2020):

• Meeting #1 on 19 – 21 Feb 2020. Was hosted by Institute for Environmental Solutions/ Science and Art Centre “Brewery”, Cesis, Latvia.
• Meeting #2 on 4-7 June 2020. During  European Conference of Cultural and Creatives Spaces in Ebeltoft at Maltfabrikken.
• Meeting #3 on 5-8 November 2020 in Cyprus at NIMAC during TEH Camp Meeting 90.

3. Supporting emerging centres in the Region (Dec 2019-June 2020): Open call in spring 2020

4. Researching, Prototyping and sharing practices

5. Starting School of Advocacy

Background

In the summer of 2018, the TEH Nordic Hub announced an open call for potential participants. In September 2018, a preliminary meeting of the TEH Nordic Hub was organised at a Trans Europe Halles meeting in Paris with a purpose to discuss the need for networking in the prescribed geographic region. The first official meeting for the establishment of the Nordic Hub took place in Kaapelitehdas, Helsinki, on 13-14 February, 2019. Two additional meetings were held in Dresden in May 2019 and in Timisoara in October 2019. In December 2019 the Hub was granted a one year funding from Nordic Culture Point. The first major event after the funding was held in Cesis, Latvia in February 2020 with participants from nearly 30 organisations and with 40 people joining in. 

The location of the involved centres require specific knowledge for the artistic, technical, operational and managerial maintenance of culture centres and skills to operate in Nordic/Baltic market. The Hub will develop a competent platform and pool of knowledge to support and strengthen each other and to build more resilience. In the mid-term, the capacity building, built up within the mere participants of TEH Nordic Hub, will spread beyond it, to more participants of the cultural sector in Nordics and Baltics. The proposed project foresees a series of joint meetings and workshops that will contribute to the TEH Nordic Hub network development, including closer acquaintance with each other, mapping of existing resources and joint challenges, and elaboration of the need-based work-plan for the next three years. TEH Nordic Hub will establish a platform for the development of joint projects and build and test new cooperation forms and processes, whilst collecting data and document experiences in between Nordics and Baltics. Whilst building up recognition for bottom up cultural and creative organisations in the policy making, it will take into consideration the upcoming challenges caused by climate change and raising competition towards natural resources, and the Nordic Hub and its involved centres will support the implementation of project activities by sustainable approaches.