The third workshop of AFAC’s Arts and Culture Entrepreneurship (ACE) program concluded last week at the Hammana Artist House, marking an important milestone in the first cycle of this new program launched in 2018.
The sixteen cultural managers from the ACE program’s eight participating institutions were immersed in intensive, interactive sessions over five days, touching upon processes of building public narratives, storytelling techniques, communication strategies, and reflections on sustainability and resource mobilization, delivered by regional and international experts.
The workshop opened with a full-day session animated by Nairobi-based Rob Burnet, the founder and CEO of Emmy-award winning media brand Shujaaz. Participants had the chance to engage in methods of storytelling and to strengthen their narratives and work on their own stories.
Burnet also presented a public talk at Antwork in Beirut, entitled “Driving Change through Storytelling” which was live-streamed and available on the AFAC Youtube page
Moreover, the ACE participants had the opportunity to learn from Rahaf Abu Doha and Rania Sabbah from Jordan-based nonprofit association Ahel in a full-day session on how to build their public narratives as a culmination of the Story of Self, Story of Us and Story of Now. A session on communication strategies, including positioning and identity, was animated by Hatem Imam and Maya Moumne of design and art direction Studio Safar, while Ouafa Belgacem from Culture Funding Watch worked with the group on resource mobilization and sustainability. Moreover, the participants engaged in a peer visit to the Foundation for Arab Music Archiving and Research (AMAR) with AMAR head Mustafa Said.
With the conclusion of the third ACE workshop, the eight participating institutions will now have one year to work on and complete their projects as part of their incentive grants, thereby closing the first ACE cycle.
Launched in partnership with Drosos Foundation and the support of the German Federal Foreign Office, ACE was conceived as an experiment in learning and doing by a group of specialists from the culture sector and beyond, offering insight on strategies of communication and fundraising to eight selected cultural institutions. The program is built so as to invigorate, inspire and strengthen small and medium cultural institutions throughout the Arab region, and will continue to evolve in content throughout its planned three cycles. ACE second and third workshops were facilitated by New-York based independent cultural advisor Moukhtar Kocache. Participants in the second cycle of the ACE program will be announced in the first week of August 2019.