• Time for Cultural Mediation
  • Foreword by Carmen Mörsch
  • Foreword by Andrew Holland
• 1 What is Cultural Mediation?
  Quick Reads:
  • 1.0 Intro
  • 1.1 “Kulturvermittlung” as collective term in German-speaking regions
  • 1.2 Médiation culturelle
  • 1.3 English terminology
  • 1.4 Italian terminology
  • 1.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 1.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 2 Cultural Mediation for Whom?
  Quick Reads:
  • 2.0 Intro
  • 2.1 Target-group categories
  • 2.2 Critique of target-group thinking
  • 2.3 Other approaches to defining audiences
  • 2.4 Cultural mediation for institutional development and renewal
  • 2.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 2.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 3 What is Transmitted?
  Quick Reads:
  • 3.0 Intro
  • 3.1 Works and productions as subject-matter
  • 3.2 Artistic techniques as subject-matter
  • 3.3 Institutions as subject-matter
  • 3.4 Art as a system as subject matter
  • 3.5 Artistic processes in business
  • 3.6 Artistic processes in social, pedagogic and activist contexts
  • 3.7 Learning methods as subject-matter
  • 3.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 3.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 4 How is Cultural Mediation Carried Out?
  Quick Reads:
  • 4.0 Intro
  • 4.1 Participation level: receptive
  • 4.2 Participation level: interactive
  • 4.3 Participation level: participative
  • 4.4 Participation level: collaborative
  • 4.5 Participation level: demand-based
  • 4.6 Teaching and learning concepts: instructionist
  • 4.7 Teaching and learning concepts: action-oriented
  • 4.8 Teaching and learning concepts: constructivist and social-constructivist
  • 4.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 4.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 5 What Does Cultural Mediation Do?
  Quick Reads:
  • 5.0 Intro
  • 5.1 Affirmative function of cultural mediation
  • 5.2 Reproductive function of cultural mediation
  • 5.3 Deconstructive function of cultural mediation
  • 5.4 Reformative function of cultural mediation
  • 5.5 Transformative function of cultural mediation
  • 5.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 5.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 6 Cultural Mediation: Why (Not)?
  Quick Reads:
  • 6.0 Intro
  • 6.1 Rationale: cultural mediation has an influence on the economy
  • 6.2 Rationale: cultural mediation promotes cognitive performance
  • 6.3 Rationale: Expanding cultural mediation as a matter of fiscal responsibility
  • 6.4 Rationale: Cultural mediation as an instrument for inclusion
  • 6.5 Rationale: The arts as universal educational good
  • 6.6 Rationale: Cultural mediation as means to actively contribute to shaping the arts
  • 6.7 Rationale: Cultural mediation to compensate for social injustice
  • 6.8 Objections to cultural mediation and its promotion
  • 6.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 6.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 7 Who “does” Cultural Mediation?
  Quick Reads:
  • 7.0 Intro
  • 7.1 Occupation: cultural mediator
  • 7.2 Conditions of employment in cultural mediation
  • 7.3 (Swiss) Training options and professional associations of cultural mediators
  • 7.4 Volunteer work in cultural mediation
  • 7.5 Cultural mediation as a research field
  • 7.6 Funding of cultural mediation in Switzerland
  • 7.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 7.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 8 Good Cultural Mediation?
  Quick Reads:
  • 8.0 Intro
  • 8.1 Quality in cultural mediation: current activities
  • 8.2 Critiques of quality management in cultural mediation
  • 8.3 Attempt to define a framework of criteria for evaluating cultural mediation
  • 8.4 Criteria for a primarily affirmative cultural mediation
  • 8.5 Criteria for a primarily reproductive cultural mediation
  • 8.6 Criteria for a primarily deconstructive cultural mediation
  • 8.7 Criteria for a primarily transformative cultural mediation
  • 8.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 8.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 9 Transmitting Cultural Mediation?
  Quick Reads:
  • 9.0 Intro
  • 9.1 Guiding questions for use in the documentation of cultural mediation
  • 9.2 Challenges in transmitting cultural mediation
  • 9.3 Cultural mediation in this publication
  • 9.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 9.RL For Reading at Leisure
• Service
  Case Studies:
  • SC Intro
  • SC.1 Case Study 1
  • SC.2 Case Study 2
  • Glossary
  • Resource Pool
  • Literature and Links
  • List of bookmarks
  • PDF Download
  • Bibliographic information and legal notice

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Foreword by Pro Helvetia

What is the current situation of cultural mediation in Switzerland, and where do its true needs lie? What role can Pro Helvetia, a national foundation, play in cultural mediation? On what criteria should we base our funding decisions for cultural mediation projects? These were the questions confronting us when Pro Helvetia took over the responsibility for promoting cultural mediation in 2012. Clearly, we would not be able to answer them on our own. For that reason, we launched our four-year Arts and Audiences Programme in 2009. With it, we hoped to enhance the practice of cultural mediation in Switzerland and create spaces for new formats to be developed through partnerships with experts in the field and other funding bodies.

To link the programme with the international scholarship in this field, we requested the Institute for Art Education of the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) to conduct research that would support the programme. Among their other activities, Carmen Mörsch and Anna Chrusciel, the researchers, studied five partner projects as they were being carried out by coalitions of funding agencies at the municipal and cantonal governmental level as well as by those undertaken by local institutions and educators. The intensive and critical exchange that resulted provided stimuli for the projects and influenced the content of this publication. In addition to the voices and views of the research team, the publication contains texts written by several other people who worked in the programme, as well as texts from the Swiss Federal Office for Culture, and Pro Helvetia itself; their views on the various subjects are presented in the “Changing Perspective” texts.

“Time for Cultural Mediation” marks the completion of an important phase. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to everyone who contributed to the Arts and Audiences Programme. In particular, we wish to thank the researchers, and the people who worked in the partner projects in the cities of Biel, Geneva, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Neuchâtel, Winterthur, St.Gallen, Thun, and Zurich and in the Swiss cantons of Aargau, Appenzell Innerrhoden and Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Geneva, Thurgau and St.Gallen. Many thanks go to our forum partners as well: the cities of Bern and Biel and the Swiss cantons of Basel and Valais, and also to PHBern, the Swiss UNESCO Commission and over 20 other institutional partners. We thank Reso (the Swiss dance network) for their important work developing dance mediation, and Migros Kulturprozent for the joint final conference on the programme held in Basel on 7 November 2012.

The texts make it clear that cultural mediation is in flux and constantly giving rise to new questions. In the future, Pro Helvetia will continue to respond to this challenge and to support the practices of cultural mediation as they evolve.

Andrew Holland
Director of Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council