fair cooperation in a nutshell
It’s easy to say but hard to implement: with the founding of bridgeworks, we committed ourselves to the principle of fair cooperation. What we have defined as the foundational manifesto of our work – our "fair basics" – we want to make visible and comprehensible for you here.
“Cooperation is a craft that requires diverse skills and conditions. One of these skills – besides the gift of empathy – is the ability to engage in dialogues. This includes: good listening, tactful behavior, reaching agreement, and dealing with disagreements.” (Annika Hampel: fair cooperation, p.39)
(1) Is it love?
Power and control imbalances weaken cooperation. We want to work with mutual trust, friendship, respect, and ethical standards. That's why we get to know our cooperation partners from the partner culture during a research period to find out if we are a good fit for each other. We are aware that, historically and structurally, non-hierarchical spaces are a utopia and that due to our resources, impulses are often initiated by bridgeworks.
(2) It's a match!
For each year of cooperation, we find an artistic director who is socialized in the partner region and has connections there. Thus, in every cooperation, we work as an artistic leadership duo, making all decisions together.
(3) relevant for all?
In the leadership duo, we define an overarching artistic annual theme for each cooperation and plan time for negotiating content differences. Our goal is a global perspective and themes that are relevant in the locations of both cooperation partners.
(4) anything can happen - or nothing at all
Production pressure, project pressure, money pressure, time pressure. That’s not how fair cooperation works. Our first format is an art-lab, taking place in two phases in locations of both cultures with artists from both partner regions. The art-lab is our intermediate space: a place for process-oriented freedom, where anything can happen – or nothing at all. We take time here to get to know each other.
We approach our annual themes with input from experts in various fields (sociology, political science, philosophy, etc.) from both cooperation locations. This allows us to deeply immerse ourselves in the topics from different perspectives. We aim to avoid exploiting others' crises and maintain constant dialogue about this.
(5) Take risks, feel safe
We strive to establish safe(r) spaces in every cooperation. To this end, we develop a Community Agreement at the beginning of each art-lab, where we agree on common principles of interaction with all participating artists and partners. We document these in writing.
(7) money, white money
We are aware that, structurally and historically, financial contributions create a hierarchy in collaboration. Therefore, we operate with full financial transparency in every project. We give our partners full control over the budget for the project phases in their own locations. In all cooperative projects, decisions about available resources are made jointly. We pay everyone fairly and regularly question: What does fairness mean in a structurally unequal world? We strive to distribute workloads as fairly as possible, considering the different resources on both sides.
(8) It's a two-way-street!
We aim to publicly present co-productions created in both cooperation partners' locations. At the same time, we want to offer our international partners a platform in Germany.
(8) sustainability
We are aware that the issue of sustainability cannot be viewed solely from the perspective of the Global North. Here, sustainability is often equated with ecological sustainability. In many regions of the world, sustainability has other dimensions: political, economic, cultural, historical. We continue to collaborate with our partners beyond a one-year cooperation by involving artists from previous cooperations in new productions and art-labs. We are aware of our responsibility in the global climate crisis and strive to act in a climate-conscious manner wherever possible.
