The role of the artists and creative practitioners in the creation and sustenance of Sustainable, Creative Cities will serve as the focus of the Workshop on culture and the arts at ASEF’s 4th Connecting Civil Societies Conference (2-3 October 2010, Brussels) in preparation for the ASEM8 Summit (4-5 October 2010, Brussels). Titled, Sustainable Creative Cities: The role of the arts in the globalized urban context, the Workshop will address the roles of artists and creative workers in the evolution of globalized cities across Asia and Europe, assessing how an “artistic mode of knowing” can contribute to a transition from creative cities to sustainable creative cities. Recommendations by participating artists and cultural practitioners will have relevance for ASEM policy and presented by ASEF at the ASEM8 Summit. To understand the urgent need to foreground participative planning for sustainable creative cities in the ASEM policy agenda, ASEF spoke to Sacha Kagan, Research Associate and representative the European co-organiser of the Workshop, the Institute of Cultural Theory, Research and the Arts, Leuphana University (Lueneburg, Germany). Kagan is also the Founding Director of International Summer School of Arts and Sciences for Sustainability in Social Transformation (ASSiST), a project supported by ASEF through its Connect2Culture programme.

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