Katharina Trabert: Germany / Italy
Name of your organisation: Ozu (Officina Zone Umane)
Website of your organisation: www.ozu.it
How is your organisation funded? Self-financed
Explain what your organisation is about (to somebody who does not know about it).
Ozu is a young arts center in a former candy factory in a very rural setting 60 km north-east of Rome. It is run by a group of artists and craftsmen (theatre, music, composition, photography, fine arts, graphics, web engineering, dance, video etc) who aim to bring culture and arts to people that have never been able to enjoy cultural activity. But it’s aim is not simply to provide artistic/cultural events, but to bring people and artists nearer towards each other, begin to communicate and exchange the everyday and the artistic. Crossing all disciplines we invite artists to come and stay and create work in relation to the place, the culture, the history, the architecture, the nature or the people. Ozu wishes to create a reference point in particular for not yet established artists practicing in any field of the arts, but using contemporary languages. This is due to the problematic situation of a) the arts in a country that due to its rich cultural heritage finds it difficult to keep up with the developments in the rest of Europe.b) A lack of support and motivation for young artists and underground movements that are very strong but lack possibility of presentation.Ozu has stared its activity only a year ago, but grown rapidly.
Describe how your organisation is engaged in international cooperation and exchange.
As Ozu is active in an extremely rural setting that has no habit of artistic events, we believe in the importance of confrontation with the strange. By inviting people from always different cultures with always changing backgrounds and artistic practices we hope to widen horizons and change habitual ways of seeing the world for both the local community and the artists themselves. The artists that come, however, don’t simply show a work that could equally be shown in any other place in the world, but make their work in the place and near the people who will see it.Ozu is a member of Trans Europe Halls since February of this year, thus hoping to meet more possibilities for exchange through both work, projects and experience. We also run a residency called TAOH (The Art Of Hospitality) for artists from anywhere in the world. The program of theatre/dance/performance/music/fine art/cinema etc is always cross cultural. Describe how your art space relates to the local community. If you are about to open an art space, explain how you related to the local community in your previous experiences.
Ozu is all about its local community. It is too far from any urban center as if it could not do so. In order to keep our audience, we need to be in continuous communication with them. Most of the work is brought there for them. At the same time we do exactly the opposite to bringing them what they might wish for it they could (the last big Hollywood film, the newest comedian or pop singer etc). The work that is happening here is not always, but to a large extend experimental and contemporary and the only reason it can attract the audience is that it has been made for them, or with them. None of the Ozu crew are from the territory, but we have been welcomed and accepted rapidly. The local politicians support us in everything we do, as they don’t have any money, their support obviously isn’t financial. We collaborate with most local realities, like ARCI (national network of student groups that are active in the organisation of cultural events), Proloco (association that promotes the culture and traditions of the place). We know we are very luck with this, it’s not common.We also work a lot on a laboratory/work-shop base, especially for young people and run an artistic civil-service program.What are the major internal and external challenges your organisation is facing?
As we started our activity one year ago, the major challenge seemed to be that of creating an audience. But the situation soon changed. From 3 visitors in the beginning the numbers went up very quickly and now we rarely have enough seats for all visitors. Our major challenge now is that of getting established in the Italian system and to become more structured on an internal level. We are an independent center, and so far we are self-financed. Only sometimes on a project basis we receive little chunks of sponsoring, but no public funding so far at all. We all work as volunteers as there is neither turnover (legally we are not yet able to issue tickets for our events) nor funding. All of our ‘staff’ has to earn money with their professions in the ‘free time’. As time goes on we become more organised, but we have not yet entirely identified clear and specific roles and responsibilities for each of us. This is something we need to elaborate in order to work more efficiently. What are the main achievements and strengths of your organisation?
Our strength is that of connecting people and creating networks. This is how we could create an audience within a very short time frame inside a difficult context. Working in proximity to the local community we manage to bring new artistic languages and experimental contemporary work into a context, that has been left culturally isolated. Though the area is at only 60 km distance from Rome, this distance is too big as if for people to make use of the capitals cultural offer on a day-to-day basis.
As the people of Ozu are not from the area, we are also able to take an important social role in the communication between the different small realities of the area. Traditionally isolated from each other, they have always preferred to stay locally, i.e. in their own village ant to neither move outside nor collaborate with any neighboring village. Only as ‘strangers’ we are able to push these limitations.
Maybe our biggest strengths is that of making the most out of very minimal possibilities. All the events organised by us have been realised with an absolute minimal financial recourse. Working creatively and using our wide network of connections, the outcome has always been incredible. In fact, our fear is, that we won’t receive public funding because they see that we do a lot without money. But our aim is to offer a much more regular artistic program and if we don’t find support at some point, we will starve…
