Spain/ 3.4 International cultural co-operation  

3.4.4 Direct professional co-operation

There are many projects of international cooperation between cultural professionals, which include:

The International Theatre Institute of the Mediterranean (IITM), set up in 1991, aims to promote the production of performing arts, and other cultural projects, that develop and represent Mediterranean culture in all its forms. It fosters cultural exchange and solidarity among Mediterranean peoples. The work that IITM carries out has led to the creation and maintenance of a network involving 24 countries: 15 in Europe, 6 in Africa and 3 in the Eastern Mediterranean. IITM's work has been recognised by UNESCO, which incorporated it in its Mediterranean Programme. It has also gained the sustained support of the European Commission and the Spanish Ministries of Culture and Foreign Affairs for many of its activities, as well as the support of the autonomous communities of Madrid, Andalusia, Valencia, Extremadura and Castile-La Mancha.

Through the International Cooperation Programme of the government of Andalusia, the Andalusian Department of Culture has undertaken a number of cooperation projects in conjunction with other agencies and institutions at international level, to strengthen cultural ties with other areas. For example, the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage (IAPH) and the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico have carried out exchanges and cooperation activities in different areas of knowledge. The Deputy Ministry of Culture has participated with Morocco in FIPAC, a training, computer and research project on cultural heritage. The IAPH has also collaborated with Cuba to provide training, technical and material assistance to the National Centre for Conservation, Restoration and Museology. The Department of Culture has worked with the Cuban Book Institute to create the Cultural Centre of Dulce María Loynaz and the Havana Book Fair and with the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry on the computerisation of the National Film System.

For its part, the National Museum of Decorative Arts is participating in a European project on augmented reality (an area in virtual reality) applied to the historical and cultural heritage. It is a pioneering project, which includes the collaboration of France, Germany, Hungary, Serbia and the United Kingdom, in addition to Spain. The project will be completed in 2014 and is being run at the National Museum of Decorative Arts (Madrid), the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (Paris) and the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology Ltd (Liverpool).

Also in the field of museums, the Reina Sofia Museum and Art Centre is working on a new type of museum through its collaborations with networks that are not institutionalised in the conventional sense. The network Southern Conceptualisms, comprised of a group of researchers and curators from all over Latin America, is collaborating with Reina Sofia in giving rise to a new notion of shared heritage, through the generation of a network of archives.

Recently, the route of Prehistoric Rock Art Trail, in which Spain participates, has been incorporated to the "Cultural Route of the Council of Europe". This route, which has more than one hundred rock art sites in France, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, is the biggest tourist-cultural itinerary of European prehistory. The award reaffirms the implementation of joint research and dissemination of rock art in accordance with the aims of the Council of Europe's programme: the preservation and the enhancement of heritage as a source of social, economic and cultural development.

Additional resources:

Mobility trends and case studies

Examples of mobility schemes for artists and cultural professionals in Spain

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