COMMISSION ON CULTURE 5^th ANNUAL SESSION

The 5^th Annual Session and meeting of the Commission on Culture was held in the 7^th - 8^th September in Finland, the cities of Espoo and Helsinki hosting the meeting. The convention had close to 30 participants from Kolding (Denmark), Tartu and Tallinn (Estonia), Espoo, Helsinki, Kotka and Vaasa (Finland), Liepâja and Riga (Latvia), Šiauliai and Vilnius (Lithuania), Bergen (Norway), Szczecin and Warsaw (Poland) and Gotland, Kalmar, Nacka and Sundsvall (Sweden), about 15 Finnish experts of art education participated the programme of the first meeting day plus the charming young and very young persons who participated demonstrations.

The theme of the session was art education concentrating mainly in the structure and teaching models adopted in Finland. The representatives of the Ministry of Culture in Poland brought Polish perspective into a discussion. In commentary speeches were brought experiences from art education in Riga and Szczecin as well as some project information. Performances by the students from East Helsinki Music Institute, the Tapiola Secondary School, Espoo, and an art exhibition of handicaped children, pupils of the Espoo School of Art, were demonstrating the methods and results of art education in Finland.

The discussion during the meeting dealt mainly with different aspects of art education. Some delegates were concerned about boys' low commitment in culture and art education. This was discussed but no clear measures were found to solve the problem how to involve boys in a greater amount in culture or how to raise their interest in joining art lessons. It was suggested that the sessions would include presentations of projects from different cities with purpose to find partners for starting projects and to give ideas for new ones. The subject was supported though the Bulletin already exists for this purpose and is a forum for the information and partner searching. The representative of Helsinki proposed a summer camp for children to be organised in Helsinki in 2003.

The Board decided to have the next annual meeting in Riga which had announced its willingness to organize the convention. It was also suggested that the meeting and sessions in the forthcoming gathering would deal with the same issue -art education. The members of the board are Mr. Slawomir Szafranski (chair) from Szczecin, Ms. Riitta Hurme (vicechair) from Espoo, Mr. Hannes Astok from Tartu, Mr. Olov Gibson from Visby and Mr. Björn Holmvik from Bergen.