From 9 to 15 October, the Creative Action Week radi! traditionally takes place throughout Latvia, inviting people to a range of interactive seminars, lectures, discussions and other creative activities involving co-creation, doing, thinking and working together. The first events leading up to radi!2017 were held the previous week, but the central events of Creative Action Week are taking place this week, including the conference and creative workshop “Riga: Empty Space + Creative Industries = Creative Placemaking?”, which will be held on 12 and 13 October at the K.K. von Stritzky Villa.

As part of Creative Action Week radi! 2017, the conference and creative workshop will bring together opinion leaders, experts, practitioners, developers and civil society representatives from Latvia, Germany, Denmark and France who know how to appreciate the potential of vacant buildings and see spatial planning and support for creative industries as an opportunity for a new beginning and Riga’s economic development. The conference will also serve as an international platform for exchanging experience, and successful projects implemented in Riga and other European countries will be presented and discussed.The seminar is also organised in cooperation with the international partners of the Art Academy of Latvia from the NXT-CREATIVES project. The project aims to promote the international mobility and business skills of young artists by fostering the development of creative business incubators.

From 11:00 this Thursday, representatives and experts from various fields will offer thought-provoking suggestions for innovation throughout the day and discuss existing challenges and opportunities. The opening session will feature Gvido Princis, director of the Riga City Architect’s Office and Riga City Architect, and Mārcis Rubenis, a representative of the association Free Riga and founder of the co-working space “Birojnīca”, who will speak about the development of abandoned buildings in the context of start-ups and creative industries. This will be followed by a lecture by Lilita Sparāne, head of the Creative Industries Division of the Cultural Policy Department, on the potential of Latvia’s creative industries.

The programme will continue with a presentation by the event’s guest from Germany, Andreas Krüger, chairman of the board of the spatial strategies office Belius Foundation, who will share his views on what is most important when revitalising vacant spaces for creative industries, start-ups and representatives of the cultural sector, citing successful examples and methods. Immediately afterwards, Michael Troelsen (Denmark), head of the Urban Innovation division of the Technology and Environment Department of the Municipality of Aarhus, will present on “The decisive role of creativity and entrepreneurship in transforming a disused freight railway station into a dynamic urban area”.

In the second half of the day, Camille Vilain (France), a lecturer at the École Supérieure d'Art et Design de Saint-Étienne, will give a presentation on the challenges of the urban scale. The series of expert lectures will conclude with Hans-Gerd Nottenboom (Hans-Gerd Nottenboom), director of the Association for Environmentally Friendly and Socially Responsible Technologies from Germany, who will speak about a cooperative approach to managing creative spaces. At the end, creative discussions between the foreign experts and Gvido Princis are planned, followed by an inspiring group tour of two of Riga’s creative districts, led by Jānis Gailītis, project manager of the Design Department of the Art Academy of Latvia. Tomorrow, 13 October, all the creative workshop participants will work together on various development strategies for Riga and present their innovative ideas.

Anyone interested can still register for the seminar by completing the online form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfPTOG97FDlpwNDOASD_PWqJPYd-fonJnZdI-x-Diu07ex2Eg/viewform?c=0&w=1. The seminar is organised as part of Creative Action Week radi!2017 by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, the Art Academy of Latvia, the Goethe-Institut in Riga and the Danish Cultural Institute in Latvia; it is supported by the European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA) and the State Culture Capital Foundation. The event languages are Latvian and English.

The full calendar of Creative Action Week events, with detailed descriptions and registration links, is available on the website http://www.radilatvija.lv/lv/notikumi. Updates on radi!2017 are also available on social media on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. #radilv. Publicity materials for radi!2017 are available in the media folder: http://ej.uz/radi_mediju_mape.

Initiators of Creative Action Week radi!: the Ministry of Culture and the British Council representative office in Latvia. Strategic partners: the Northern Dimension Partnership in Culture, the UNESCO Latvian National Commission, the Danish Cultural Institute, the French Institute, the Goethe-Institut in Latvia, the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, and the Art Academy of Latvia. Event partners: the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Office in Latvia, the Embassy of Denmark in Latvia, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Ministry of Economics, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the State Chancellery, the School of Public Administration, the Latvian Institute, the Riga City Architect’s Office, the creative industries platform FOLD, the Riga Planning Region, the Vidzeme Planning Region, the Creative Industries Business Incubator, the Latvian Music Export Association, the Latvian Academy of Culture, the University of Latvia, Creativity Lab, The Red Jackets, Design Elevator, Urban Institute, NP Properties (Sporta 2), Biļešu serviss, the Social Entrepreneurship Association, Valmiera City Council, the Valmiera Development Agency, Liepāja City Council, the Liepāja Culture Department, the Liepāja Business Incubator and others.