Photo by Vytenis Budrys. The Lithuanian Council for Culture (LCC) that started its operations last June approved its strategic financing directions for 2019–2021. In view of the overall development of culture in Lithuania and its social climate, also with reference to the findings of the recent years’ studies in the area of culture, the LCC identified diversity, education and the accessibility of culture as its key strategic directions for financing.
In the LCC’s context cultural diversity is primarily perceived as promotion of high quality art and/or culture initiatives, and an effort to avoid inertia-driven action forms. It is assumed that products and services of high artistic and cultural value are an undoubted contribution to the cultural diversity, and by employing all the resources and instruments at its disposal the LCC seeks to ensure an open financing environment for all high-quality initiatives. Members of the LCC believe that the supply of cultural diversity creates an empathic, open, tolerant and inquisitive society able to accept different pieces of creation, but at the same time, within the framework of its routine, creating conditions for creativity (in the broad sense of the word).
Cultural education is an open factor building the view of the world encompassing not only the education in the narrow sense, i.e. as development of certain cultural or artistic abilities, or professional development projects, but also in the general sense – as a never ending process of societal development. In other words, cultural education is becoming kind of preparatory action for active societal action – as a reference to the principles of specific folklore culture activity, the purpose of which is not to raise a generation of artists, but rather to trigger curiosity, and a critical relation with the environment. Further efforts are made to create the conditions conducive to revealing and developing the creative potential and an active and meaningful participation in cultural activities for all groups of society.
Availability is a specific network of supply of cultural products and services (not necessarily active marketing) that enables the communities to get engaged into both general processes aimed at identity search, as well as specific sociocultural processes requiring additional efforts from the consumer of culture. The objective is to ensure that cultural services are accessible and attractive for all groups of residents irrespective of their venue of residence, social or economic standing, nationality, and that each and every member of the society receives information about culture, and is able to use and apply it. Therefore the project operators are encouraged to plan cultural activities providing for inclusion of all specific societal groups, and taking into account the needs of the residents based on local and other interests.
