Mobile Open Culture and Innovation

🧵 The study trips to four villages around Făgăras completed the program by showing diverse initiatives and environments for cultural and social activities in rural contexts. Just to highlight some of the findings and impressions. The building of the old school in Calbor will be developed as a space for education and research by The Fagaras Research Institute (FRI). In Cincu we could explore the complexity of a small village through local politics, public projects, and private initiatives.

A private initiative in Cincșor Village preserves the fortified church in the community and the concept of a „cultural church“ shall secure the use and maintenance of this historic space in the future. The Șona Noastra Village Association aims to rebuild the local community by capitalizing on the cultural, economic, social, ecological and natural potential.🧵

🌳 In the city of Kamza we have started with a visit to the “Kamza Cultural Palace”, which seems to be very representative of the situation in Albania. These public institutions depend fully on the political will of the mayors through financing and human resources. Own program development is rare, due to the lack of own budgets for productions. The opposite way of doing basic cultural work in communities was represented by our partner ATA.

The group makes action, knowledge, and collective creation more powerful via social theater, urban interventions, exhibitions, workshops, media productions, publishing, and the service of a legal consultancy called a legal clinic. Two examples of direct interventions by ATA in the neighboring communities were visited and discussed. The case of Valias, a neighborhood that is since the earthquake in 2019 under the pressure of gentrification and heavy changes since. And the case of Plepat e Brukes, a community-cultivated forest, where the Mayor approved the building of a slaughterhouse and the cutting of trees in 2019.

Grupi ATA stepped in with the law clinic, which offers free law assistance over three years, which ended up with the rightful decision in favor of the community.

Photo credits: Una Jovovic

🔎 We head to the city of Laç, where we met the team of Qendra Rinore Sebastia, who aims to create a conducive environment for the development of civil society. Being not an ordinary cultural space the activist group supports good governance by lobbying, counseling, and diverse community-oriented activities. We also met with a representative of the local cultural
center, which exists, but doesn’t run its own program, in fact, it is empty. The “Fara miresie” is a church-owned social space, which sometimes cooperates with Sebastia. To understand the difficulties of the city we visited the post-industrial brownfield Superfosfati. Last but not least we got the opportunity to have a look at Miss Balkans of Architecture, the Zugo bridge, which is a national heritage of the first category but is at risk of collapse due to the illegal activities under its pillows from companies in search of building material.

Photo credits: Una Jovovic

🍀 The journey brought us to the City of Lezha, where is the first and only youth center in the region and offers courses in theater and film, documentary screenings, indoor games, poetry afternoons, book clubs, etc. There we were
introduced to the start-up , a small business by two young women with a passion for crocheting and embroidery.
Keeping alive and preserving the art of craft is supported by too.

The ancient art of loom work was resumed in the villages near Lezha with several women involved in the working process of this laboratory. "Qendra Kulturore e Fmijve: Gjergj Lacaj" is a space for children to develop their talents at an early age. Currently, this building has many functions, hosting some of the activities of the Palace of Culture, which is under construction. On our way back to Tirana via Kamza we stopped at Kune Vaini Lagoon. The region’s rich biodiversity and natural assets have resulted in it becoming a protected zone, categorized as a natural reserve.

Photo credits: Una Jovovic

🌁 Our team visited the cities of Kamza, Lac, and Lezha in Albania in order to interact with regional CSOs and learn more about the area's rich cultural history. In order to develop connections and have a good influence, our study tour was focused on learning about best practices and determining the needs of the local community.

🟣 8/8 Days on the Engage tour through partner organizations in northern Albania. In Shkoder with GO2ALBANIA

Closing our last day of the tour in Shkodër, thanks to a wide cooperation between GO2, Shkodër Municipality, and Migjeni Theater, as well as with the Arka Youth Center.

During the day we had a workshop together with the students of Kolegji Hasan Riza Pasha engaged in a dynamic session of the game "Right on the City".

In the evening, we watched the film "People, the city", a production of the organization in 2018, on the occasion of the second photo exhibition "Shkodra, family, house, my history", which is dedicated to the collective memory of the city, while the film from our partners was "They've Gone Completely", produced within the urban anthropology laboratory of ATA and the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Art Studies (IAKSA). The screenings of the films were accompanied by extended conversations on the relevant topics, with special guests, such as the architect as well as the activists of the ATA of Kamza, , and moderated by Sonila Hasaj.

This fourth weekend closed the series of our activities developed within the "Engage" tour implemented by MOCI and supported by

A project of Heinrich Böll Stiftung Tirana

🟣 7/8 Days on the Engage tour in the city of Lezha with our partners GO2ALBANIA

Our last weekend or tour finds us in Shkodra at Teatri Migjeni, Shkoder screening "Citizen Jane - Battle for the city" dedicated to Jane Jacobs a journalist from the USA who managed to organise people and an entire movement to defend some of the most historical centers and a way of living in the great American cities.

This was followed of course by an open talk with the viewers and an urbanist from Tirana Doriana Musai that shared with us her expertise and personal cases from her city, we talked about how Shkodra is resembling some of the movie aspects and the similarities it had with what is happening in the city, how History is being destroyed and what can be done to preserve a healthy way of living in the neighborhood.

A project of Heinrich Böll Stiftung Tirana