New fund to boost Barents culture
A new Barents culture grant programme, BarentsKult, has been financed with 1.1 million EUR. The programme is initiated to promote larger border crossing culture and art-projects in the Norwegian and Russian part of the Barents Region.
The cultural part of the 15 year old Barents grant program has been dominated by small low budget people-to-people projects. These projects have been, and still are, of high importance for the Barents cooperation, but the demand to initiate larger cultural projects has for long been prominent. Therefore a new grant programme has been established to give a boost for larger culture and art projects. The new programme has been named BarentsKult and so far it has been financed with 9 million NOK (1.1 EUR).
Several artists and cultural workers have their base in the Barents Region and the cultural cooperation across borders has never been more extensive than today. This transboundary cooperation has at the same time made the region an exiting destination for artist living in other parts of the world. The area has therefore become an important arena for cross border contemporary art and culture, and this development is one of the reasons why the Norwegian Barents Secretariat took the initiative to establish BarentsKult.
BarentsKult has been financed by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affaires and the Norwegian counties of Troms and Finnmark.
The first BarentsKult application deadline will be September 1 2008. More information will soon be available at www.barents.no
