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Networking – a survival strategy

FIFTITU%, the networking centre for women in the arts and culture in Upper Austria, has now been in existence for 10 years. Why a networking hub for women is needed and what elements of networking are required are questions that must be answered time and again.

‘Networking – a survival technique’ was the title of an article in the Job & Career section of the Süddeutsche Zeitung¹ in April 2008. Networking as one of those strategies in the so-called labour market that has become increasingly important and indispensable, and is intended to help you survive the day-to-day grind of work: personal relationships, cliques that help ‘pull you up’, but also catch you, carry you and support you in difficult situations. Ten years ago, committed women at KUPF (Kulturplattform Oberösterreich) were also racking their brains over what this might look like in the cultural sector and for women – back then, 1998, when women were rare in leadership positions (they still are today, but things are improving, improving...). Back then, when FIFTITU% was founded and took over the remit of the networking centre for women in art and culture in Upper Austria.

Broadly speaking, the term ‘network’ refers to all those people who support us and on whom we can rely. In this sense, networking does not mean using connections to outmanoeuvre or undermine competitors, but rather the exchange of experiences, discussion, information, solidarity and fun – even amidst differing personal, ethnic, class-based, sexual, national, regional... identities. Networking means sharing resources, building suitable (power) structures and communication channels that enable us to act (politically) and become active shapers and co-responsible agents in our everyday lives. That is why supported networking also constitutes a key point of the “Joint Demands of Women in the Creative Arts in Austria” of 16 October 2006: “Networking activities by women in the creative arts must be actively promoted by the public sector. The creation of networks is necessary to make gender symmetry a reality. Networking lends the cultural and political work of women the necessary weight, enabling empowerment and exchange. There is a need for strong nationwide representation of the interests of women working in the arts and culture, which must be publicly funded.”² The nationwide networking meetings of women in the arts and culture in Austria have laid the foundations for an Austria-wide network, with the aim of mutual exchange and joint action. This network must be maintained and further developed.

The networking centre for women in art and culture in Upper Austria, secured through the efforts of FIFTITU% and cultural activists in Linz, seeks to create a space that facilitates the above. For FIFTITU% itself, this space brings together and intertwines networking, service and information provision, cultural policy work, artistic work, further education opportunities, public relations, an archive, and much more.
Being a networking hub for women in art and culture means, in the words of the feasibility study *Take Your Place!* by Andrea Mayer-Edoloeyi, who initiated the aforementioned reorientation in 2001:

  • Partisanship for women with the aim of gender symmetry. Women considered in all their facets, formats and forms in the spirit of queer and anti-racist strategies, because a) not all women are the same and b) the images and content of what can be understood as a woman (man) are changing. That is a good thing, and FIFTITU% must continue to question, reflect on and work towards this. Not just FIFTITU%.
  • an open, democratic understanding of art and culture with room for experimentation, which places the shaping of one’s own living environments at the centre of the discourse. This is because the cultural sphere has always been, and remains, a field for experimentation and projection of broader societal developments.
  • Regional and local particularities are seen as an opportunity for further discursive development. Back home – I come from the deepest heart of Western Styria – staging something like the “Freakshow” of Forum Interkulturalität³ would be different from here in Linz at the Rothen Krebsen. There, a Rother Krebs would first have to be established... or better still, a networking hub with the stated and following aims and objectives.
  • the resolute rejection of right-wing extremism, racism, heterosexism, sexism, nationalism and authoritarian tendencies. These are mechanisms of exclusion from which the cultural field is not immune, as general societal developments have just as much an impact in this field. Due to the exemplary and projective nature of the term ‘culture’, these mechanisms can be further reinforced but also altered. These exclusionary mechanisms are often not easy to identify, and we are reliant on ongoing reflection and discussion, which FIFTITU% must engage with. Let us allow the critics to assimilate FIFTITU%.
  • Enabling the active participation of all those affected in all areas of the network centre’s work. The conditions are not the same for everyone; we must bear this in mind if we want all those involved to benefit and participate.

FIFTITU% strives to achieve, consider and implement all of this. As an information, advice and support centre, FIFTITU% produces a comprehensive monthly newsletter packed with calls for submissions and awards, events, jobs, and many other opportunities to get involved and participate. During advisory sessions, personal concerns regarding cultural policy and artistic projects are discussed, specific information is shared, and support and contacts are provided. The comprehensive database is regularly consulted and queried during research. Women are sought and found.

What do women want? What helps women? What are women?
Topics that are repeatedly brought to FIFTITU%, that arise from FIFTITU%’s work and are addressed and explored in public events (conferences, workshops, artistic interventions, discussions, film evenings, etc.) – reflect the principles and debates within, with and around FIFTITU%.

What are women – this, too, has become one of the topics that FIFTITU% has learnt to question and reflect upon: who is a woman and who is excluded by this term? What is the situation regarding trans*, inter* and queer people, and anti-racist politics? Driving queering forward to leave no room for unambiguity, because unambiguity produces hegemony! Perhaps one day the network centre will be called FIFTITU% – a queer*feminist network centre in art and culture, where everyone, beyond identity politics, can come together and find a place, seeking to shift the hetero-/sexist, heteronormative, racist, classist,... axes of de-/privileging and who want to fight for egalitarian social structures in art and culture and beyond? We shall see in which direction FIFTITU% will develop, and until then: FIFTITU% – a networking hub for women in art and culture in Upper Austria, which creates and promotes spaces for encounter, support, collaboration, discussion, participation and reflection – and actually, even now, not just for women! Drop by, have a look, get involved!

This text is based on the article “Networking – a survival strategy” by Roswitha Kröll in the publication “Ten Years of FIFTITU%” published by FIFTITU% and was revised by Sabrina Kern, Iris Aue, Gerlinde Schmierer and Roswitha Kröll.

¹See http://www.sueddeutsche.de/jobkarriere/artikel/618/167138/print [13 May 2009]
² http://www.frauenkultur.at [13 May 2009]
³ PERVERS & KWIR/R AND HYBRID BODIES are two projects selected by the Kupf Innovation Fund 07 and funded by the Province of Upper Austria. To mark the conclusion of both projects, they have joined forces for the spectacular FREAK SHOW, which will take place on 19 June in Linz at the Rothen Krebs.http://www.queeropedia.com [13 May 2009]
⁴ See Andrea Mayer-Edoloeyi: Take a seat! - Study by the Networking Centre for Women in Art and Culture, FIFTITU%, Linz, 2001, p.41

FIFTITU% - Networking Centre for Women in Art and Culture in Upper Austria
Harrachstrasse 28,
A-4020 Linz

Opening hours:
Monday to Thursday:
10.00 am – 1.30 pm
and additionally
Thursday afternoon:
3.00 pm – 6.30 pm

fiftitu@servus.at
http://www.fiftitu.at
http://www.frauenkultur.at

Kulturpolitisch
Bundesweit