The Danish Cultural Institute
An example of one of the key actors in terms of international cultural cooperation is the Danish Cultural Insitute. The Danish Cultural Institute is a self-governing institution, which promotes dialogue and understanding across cultural differences and national borders. The activities of the Institute includes for example: exhibitions with Danish artists and informative exhibitions; courses in Danish; concerts with Danish soloists and ensembles abroad; study tours to and from Denmark within subjects such as: health and social matters, educational and cultural politics.
The Cultural Institute has foreign branches in Brazil, Belgium, Poland, Russia, Latvia (covering the Baltic States) and China. The Institute is currently working on the possibility of opening branches in India and Turkey. Section 2.2.1 provides an example of the activities of the Danish Cultural Centre in Beijing.
More information about the activities of the Institute in both Denmark and internationally is available here: http://www.dankultur.dk/Home.aspx
The Danish Cultural Centre in 798 International Arts District, Beijing, China opened in 2015, followed by the opening of a Chinese Cultural Centre in Copenhagen in 2014 in Copenhagen. The two centres are established according to a signed agreement between the PM of Denmark and the President of China in 2012 and are as such an example of international cultural cooperation. The Danish Cultural Center is a non-governmental institution that works with international cultural exchange in a wide range of areas. It promotes cultural exchanges between Danish and Chinese parties and informs about Denmark. It also supports projects that aim at long-term cooperation between Chinese and Danish cultural institutions, artists, and other professionals in the field of creative industries and economies. An example is the exhibition 'Age and the City: Copenhagen Experiments'. The exhibition is based on the research master's program 'Urbanism and Societal Change' at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Both Denmark and China are facing challenges in a much larger proportion of elderly in the population. The exhibition presents estimates of the impact of demographic trends, respectively Denmark and China will have on the development of urban typology. The posters show Danish proposals for solutions in varies cities and communities. On the center's second floor you can see the results of a workshop with Danish and Chinese architecture students, who in August was working to translate the Danish model for one of Beijing's oldest neighborhoods around Baitasi Temple west of Beihai. The centre fosters Danish-Chinese intercultural understanding and dialogue concerning issues of common concern in relation to culture and society. The scope is local (Beijing), national (China – also facilitated by touring productions) and bi-lateral/international. The Danish Cultural Institute funds the centre, in part through government funding and in part through private funding.
The Baltic Centre for Media Excellency (BCME) is a clearinghouse for journalism training and a facilitator of professional dialogue in the Baltics and beyond. The initial funding to the Centre came from The Nordic Council of Ministers and The Danish Cultural Institute.
The centre is organized as a Latvia-registered non-profit association engaged in the following activities:
- continuous assessment of journalism training needs in the Baltic states and the countries of Eastern Partnership,
- search for, development of and delivery of needs-based training modules,
- fostering professional conversation among media professionals, promoting media literacy and research of media trends.
The seat of the centre is in Riga, but its operations cover the entire region, delivering tailor-made training modules to newsrooms of nationwide and local media outlets.
Organisation and funding: BCME, founded in November, 2015 by several leading Baltic media organisations and academic institutions - the public broadcasters ERR and LTV, the Estonian Publishers’ Association, the Lithuanian Online Media Association, the Baltic Centre for Investigative Journalism RE: Baltica, the Latvian Journalist Association, the Latvian Association of Broadcasting Organisations, the Riga Stradins University and the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School of Tallinn University.
More information can be found here: http://baltic.media/
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