Lazy ZsofiWe are over the moon to announce that Lazy Women will take part in European Lab Budapest, taking place on 5 February 2022 in Auróra (a spot we truly love).
But who is behind the organisation, what is their goal, and what will the Budapest event be like? We chat to Laurent Bigarella, one of the brains behind the organisation, to find out.
Hi Laurent, nice to e-meet you! Could you tell us a little bit about who you are and what your role is at European Lab?
Hi Lazy Women! Nice to e-meet you too and thanks a lot for the invitation to answer your questions. I’ve been working for Arty Farty for 5 years now, and I’m one of the curators of European Lab, a platform for debates and new ideas. Basically, we organise events (that we call “forums”) throughout Europe where we gather a new generation of cultural actors, to discuss various topics: from climate crisis to new forms of citizenship in Europe, democratic renewal, the role of new media in today’s society, etc. My role here is to select, together with my beloved colleagues Anne-Caroline Jambaud and Juliette Josse, what we are going to discuss during these forums, and who we shall invite, depending on the topics.
How did the organisation start? What were your first couple of events like?
Arty Farty was born in 1999! Everything actually started with Nuits sonores, an electronic music festival, based in Lyon. Since then, this major event has been showcasing and promoting emerging and independent culture, with international artists and also local talents. In 2011, our NGO decided to develop a new project: European Lab – which was actually initially called ‘the European lab for festivals’ as it was aimed to explore the festival ‘object’, by gathering professionals who were attending Nuits sonores.
11 years later, the project evolved and is now definitely more open to civil society – not only professionals from the festival and music industry.
We have been organising European Lab forums each year in Lyon since 2011, but also in Paris (in several venues) since 2015 and in Brussels since 2017. Besides, we organised a few one-shot European Lab editions; in Frankfurt (2017), Delphi in Greece (2018), Cluj-Napoca and Madrid (2019). We can’t wait now to organise the first-ever edition of European Lab in Budapest!
Photo credits: Brice Robert
As far as we know, you’re a primarily French team. What makes you organise an event in the heart of Eastern Europe then?
Arty Farty is based in Lyon, so most of the team is indeed French. However, we also created a Brussels-based NGO called ‘Arty Farty Brussels’, where we also have some colleagues. This is because we organise Nuits sonores and European Lab there.
Besides Nuits sonores and European Lab (Arty Farty’s two main projects), we are very much involved in other European projects. Indeed Europe has always been Arty Farty’s playground and in its DNA: its natural horizon one could say. For example, we have been involved in a Creative Europe cooperation project called We are Europe since 2016, gathering 8 festivals-forums across Europe. Thanks to this project and to European Lab, we have been able to create strong connections with many independent cultural actors based everywhere on the continent. That’s how, one year and a half ago, we were contacted by our friends from Cafébabel, another great European media project, who asked us to join them in a new exciting project: Sphera.
The idea was to develop a new platform dedicated to GEN Z, with 9 other independent media.
We of course accepted to join the project as the 10th partner, and have been asked to organize 5 “Sphera Day” to promote this media platform. That’s how we found ourselves co-organising some events with partners we were already working with, in Lyon during European Lab, in Graz during Elevate festival, in Thessaloniki during Reworks Agora and in Krakow together with Unsound festival. The last event of the cooperation project will take place in Budapest on February 5th at Auróra, because we had some connections with this venue, as we invited its coordinator, Zsuzsa Mekler, during the last edition of European Lab in Lyon!
So, long story short: European Lab is coming to Budapest thanks to our European connections, friends and partners!
Here at Lazy Women, we think it’s really important to give voice to people with different agendas and lived experiences. Is the diversity of participants was also something you paid special attention to when selecting panellists for the event?
I totally agree with you and this is exactly what European Lab is all about. Our forum is a place to gather different profiles, from groundbreaking activists, forward thinkers, new philosophers, researchers, new media, architects, designers, photographers, movie makers, authors, cultural and creative actors and, of course, artists. Diversity is at the core of the European Lab spirit.
During each edition, depending on our main themes, we really pay attention to selecting a diversity of panellists. Mixing approaches, crossing points of views and narratives, bringing diversity on various topics: this is all about Europe actually! Also, we really try to welcome speakers from different European countries, and not only from Western Europe…
We do our best to decentralize and to “de-westernize” our curation approach throughout our activities.
For us, it is also really important to create connections with people from Eastern and Central Europe, as there is often some kind of misunderstanding and underrepresentation of this part of Europe in France or in other Western European countries, especially when we are talking about cultural events. Which is a pity as there are actually lots of great cultural and artistic initiatives with amazing people behind these projects.
Finally…What are you the most excited about regarding the programme of the Budapest Forum?
The event lasts only one day, so it’s very hard to select just one thing. In total, we will have four panel discussions, two workshops, one exhibition and a whole night of concerts and club music. What we are really excited about is the fact that we will welcome a strong diversity of speakers from Eastern and Central Europe, with people from Kosovo, Poland, Serbia, North Macedonia… and of course from Hungary! Also, this edition will be the occasion to feature young profiles, a new generation of activists, new emerging media shaping new narratives from an Eastern European perspective. We are really looking forward to meeting all these people, including the Lazy Women team!