Lights On 2023: Sustainable Crisis Management
The 2023 edition of Lights On looked at the crises affecting cultural centres and communities at large. These crises are multiple and crosscut geographical, social, personal and sectoral boundaries. How do we cope with them? Are there common strategies to be used? Which factors can we weigh on? Are crises necessarily bad? What is the role of socio-cultural organisations in this context, and how do crises influence their relationship with local communities? How to move from crisis management to (systemic) change?
We took time to explore these questions and analyse the realities participants are living in, creating a safe space for peer-to-peer learning and support. The 5-day training took place in Ostend, Belgium, hosted by our member De Grote Post. Exchanges between participants were implemented between June and November 2023.
Discover more about the Lights On programme here
Maarten Soete is a freelance process facilitator and trainer for various cultural organisations and networks. He gained
experience in the arts and culture sector at the Flemish Theatre Institute, as a curator at the festivals Bâtard
(Brussels) and Theater aan Zee (Ostend), as a coordinator at Rocsa / Manoeuvre, at Sint-Lucas secondary arts
school, and at Arts Centre Vooruit / VIERNULVIER (Ghent), where he developed participative arts projects.
In 2011, he co-founded Oetang Learning Designers. As a facilitator, Maarten provides support in the area of organisational care with a view to boosting the well-being of cultural workers and enabling sustainable change.
His expertise embraces positive leadership, agile strategy development, inclusiveness, dynamic organisational processes, roles and mandates definition.
Dagna Gmitrowicz is a senior trainer and facilitator in the fields of self-directed learning, art and culture. She is the creator of innovative educational tools merging personal development and arts.
A member of the International Society for Self-Directed Learning, in 2020 she founded KulturNest eV, a Berlin-
based organisation promoting social and environmental responsibility, personal empowerment and dialogue
among communities. As a certified art therapist, forest therapy guide and professional painter, she believes in participatory art and searches for beauty and balance through visual expression. The expertise she brings to the Lights On 2023 Training embraces learning, inclusion, innovation and creativity.