Arqus Alliance Cultural Community Network: 2023-2024 season

Arqus Cultural Community Network, initiated by the Vilnius University (VU) Culture Centre in April 2023, has had an active and meaningful season of building connections and establishing foundations for future creative projects.

Community of Practice (CoP) – Arqus Cultural Community Network aims to bring together the cultural community of the Arqus Alliance into a long-term and sustainable network of partners maintain and community relations, and seek closer inter-institutional cooperation. The goal of the initiators of this CoP – is to get acquainted with the cultural, art and artistic activities carried out at universities and the specifics of their work, to share and exchange good practices and experiences, learn from each other, create a space and opportunity for sharing ideas, joint development, and implementation of international cultural initiatives, events, and projects, add a new dimension “Culture” on Arqus Alliance cooperation activities and agenda.

Arqus Cultural Community Network was initiated by VU Culture Centre project manager Sonata Adomaitienė and currently has 5 universities that are part of this Network:
• Vilnius University (VU Culture Centre)
• the University of Lyon 1 (Mission Culture)
• The University of Granada (La Madraza)
• Leipzig University
• The University of Padua

Building bridges

After successful mutual exchange visits at partner university Lyon 1 Mission Culture in autumn 2023 (read more here), in November 2023, a new partner – the University of Granada and its Center of Contemporary Culture La Madraza – joined this CoP. In March 2024, Mrs. S. Adomaitienė, along with Gintė Jokubaitienė, Director of the VU Culture Centre, and Irina Bukina, Communication Specialist, visited the University of Granada and its Arqus Alliance Department, as well as La Madraza.

During the visit, the VU Culture Centre team met with and presented the CoP initiative to the Arqus Officer of Granada University, Inma Yuste Martínez. Ms. Martínez shared her insights about the possibilities for expanding this network's practice, expressed her support for the project, and encouraged the Lithuanian team to continue developing the Network.

Regarding La Madraza – Center for Contemporary Culture of UGR – it serves as the reference centre for the university's cultural programming, encompassing a wide range of activities related to artistic, musical, stage, and cinematographic practice, as well as humanities, social and legal sciences, and experimental, environmental, and technological sciences. Marina Hervás, the vice-director of La Madraza, hosted the VU Culture Centre team, showcasing the centre, organizing the meeting with the Vice-Rector for Outreach, Heritage and Institutional Relations, Margarita Sánchez Romero, and extending an invitation to the performance of the University of Granada Orchestra.

At the same time as the Lithuanian visit, La Madraza hosted the 21st International Theatre Festival of the University of Granada. Not only the VU Kinetic Theatre troupe (dir. Andrius Pulkauninkas) showcased their 2023 performance "Starting Point", but also a spin-off initiative to establish Arqus Theatre Network and bring together Arqus university theatres for joint collaboration and projects was suggested by the Coordinator of the Performing Arts Mario de la Torre.

Mrs. S. Adomaitienė reflects on the visit to the UGR: "La Madraza Cultural Centre is a very valuable partner to us, with its experience in initiating, developing, implementing, and organizing various cultural and art activities at the university. During the meetings, we discussed our individual approaches towards cultural and art promotions at the universities, our traditions, and offers of cultural activities for students, the community and the residents of the city. All this resulted in a very useful comparison of both Vilnius and Granada universities and findings of common ground for the joint work together in the future. During the visit, we had a unique possibility not just to explore the premises of the Cultural Centre but also to see two wonderful performances of La Madraza art groups – UGR Theatre performance “Hommo” directed by M. de La Torre and UGR Chamber orchestra’s concert."

After some networking in the previous months, on April 8-9, Mrs. S. Adomaitienė attended the Arqus Communities of Practice Board & CoPs Leaders meeting at the University of Wroclaw (Poland), where she reported on the CoP Arqus Cultural Community Network activities (read more here). At the meeting in Wroclaw, Arqus representatives decided it was important to visualize the diversity of the Community of Practices across the universities to the rest of the Arqus Alliance at the Annual Conference (this year organized by another Arqus university – University of Minho, Portugal), where CoPs will be presented in an exhibition.

Future of the Network

So, the 2023-2024 season has been very active – many connections were established, friendships and collaborations began and the seeds for cultural projects were planted. Today this CoP has 5 members, but hopefully, more Arqus Alliance universities will also join. For instance, a new member – Virtual Museum of Lusophony, a Cultural Unit of the University of Minho – has recently reached out about the possibility to join the CoP.

In any case, the VU Culture Centre team is planning further meetings with other universities' representatives in the coming season as well.