Felix Meritis - Project - Gulliver Connect

Project

Gulliver Connect

A mobility programme through work placements for young and up-coming artists, art managers and cultural operators in Europe.

Gulliver Connect is a longest established and most flexible mobility and work placement programme in Europe. It promotes international co-operation among arts and cultural professionals from Europe. It is inspired by Günter Grass's idea ‘to overcome borders of incomplete contact and knowledge of each other'.

Gulliver Connect is for young professionals who have 2 or 3 years working experience in the field of performing and visual arts, new media, project co-ordination and arts development or management.

Thanks to a large network of cultural organisations throughout Europe, Gulliver Connect offers hands-on work experience. It's unique ability is to use such an extensive range of hosts to match the individual talents of young people. And it enables the hosting organisations to find valuable working partners for the future. Participants discover working environments so different from their own. For example, Gulliver Connect has created matches between Cluj and London, Zagreb and Krasnoyarsk, Sofia and Almaty, Graz and Istanbul, and Ljubljana and Avignon.

Each year the programme sends out calls for applications for young professionals and hosting organisations. Bursaries are available to cover international travel and accommodation costs, and a small per diem for the visitor.

The work placements develop professional skills and establish new forms of international co-operation. Both the young visitor and the hosting organisation benefit from each other's working practices. They share information, experiences and ideas, and establish far reaching professional contacts.

In the beginning Gulliver Connect concentrated on the needs of Eastern European artists and art professionals. Its focus, from 1997, was the exchange of young cultural operators in countries undergoing social and cultural transition. Later the programme was opened up to allow cultural operators from Middle and East Europe to visit a Western European organisation and vice versa.

By creating a dynamic network Gulliver Connect adds a new dimension to the social, artistic and cultural development of Europe - a stepping stone for the future of European co-operation in the arts.