Creative Spaces / Places - What can Brussels learn from Toronto

In just a few weeks, the annual conference of the cultural and creative industry (European Cultural & Creative Industries Summit) will take place in Brussels. The main topic: how to combine – in a mutually beneficial way - the often conflicting demands of creativity, industry and education.

At the end of 2009, Richard Florida and other creative spirits participated in the conference “The collaborative City“ in Canada. The summit concept demonstrated impressively how a creative frame of an event triggers productive results.

"think.create.collaborate"

- those were the imperatives in Toronto during the conference series “Creative Places + Spaces“. The title was also the main issue of the 2009 conference: „The collaborative City“. International scientists and representatives of the creative industry introduced their concepts and ideas, again and again circling three terms: people, locations and creativity.

Sophisticated Anglo-American creativity specialists like Richard Florida, Sir Ken Robinson, and Charles Landry explained how the „collaborating city“ could help the „collapsing city“ by means of united creativity, and which future potentials there are.

Local progress by means of new perspectives – new perspectives by means of global collaboration

The summit’s program itself was very creatively designed: as an introduction to the meeting marathons, the agenda consisted of interactive workshops and trips to Toronto’s creative quarters with the international guests.

Several breaks for art performances and a direct confrontation with hands-on creativity during the panels epitomised the omnipresent motto.

The unique thing about „Creative Spaces + Places“ is this organic frame, being a creative, inspiring hotbed for communication of interesting, novel, and innovative ideas – while at the same time reminding the creativity theorists and transformation scientists of pragmatics during the summit by clinging very close to reality.

Leave the global ivory towers

The global perspective can certainly solve local problems, but first, you have to answer the question how to get it across on a local level. Maybe that is also a task for the approaching annual summit in Brussels. And if the experiences made in Toronto are on the agenda in Brussels and the following insights from Brussels are intertwined and shared in a creative and vital way, we’ll perhaps reach the next level, labelled „The collaborative World“.

European Cultural Creative Industries Summit (ECCI) in Brussels on July 22

On July 22, 2010, the annual conference of cultural and creative industry will take place in Brussels. 2008, this ambitious discussion panel was established by RUHR.2010 and has been held annually since. 2010, the "European Centre for Creative Economy” (abbreviation: ECCE), the creative industry institute of RUHR.2010, will host the event. Participants of 16 European nations will discuss with representatives of the leading European creative industry centres, tackling the question in which way the creative forces could be beneficial for the industry and how educational systems would have to be changed in order to achieve that result. The superior targets are to fortify the European creative industry, to create an internationally competitive position for it, and to initiate the necessary political development.

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Go to channels: 

• Creative.Quarters
• C´n´B Convention