Consortium Meeting

The week opened with a welcome from Jens and Runa, followed by a keynote from Sylvia Antonia Nakimera Nannyonga-Tamusuza, “Beyond Inclusion, Towards Decolonial Praxis in Performing Arts Education: Critical Perspectives from Uganda,” setting a reflective tone for the days ahead.

Across the week, work package teams engaged in joint analysis, co-validation, and dedicated decolonial-perspective sessions covering WP2 through WP7, including hands-on feedback on T5.4’s emerging Portfolio of Collective Competences. Sessions on dissemination strategy, ethics, and planning for the project’s final event in Berlin in 2027 rounded out a packed programme.

Throughout the week, the consortium also took part in a series of “orange box” sessions — short, interactive moments led by different consortium members, inviting participants to step away from the table and engage through singing, dancing, walking, and drawing. These playful interludes embodied d@rts’ own belief that dialogue and learning happen not only through discussion, but through shared embodied experience.

Public Events

The consortium’s time in Oulu also opened outward to the public, with two evenings at the Oulu Music Centre forming part of the city’s European Capital of Culture 2026 cultural programme.

Echoes of the North: Spatial Sound, Kantele and Meditation (Monday 22 June) brought together the Finnish duo hakosalo_tuohino and Spanish-Finnish musician Javier Sánchez Pérez in a meeting of spatial sound, kantele, and meditative listening practice — the artists’ first time performing together in person after weeks of virtual creative exchange through the d@rts project itself.

Frode Fjellheim: Yoik, Memory and Contemporary Sound (Wednesday 24 June) presented an intimate concert by the Norwegian Southern Sámi artist, internationally known for bringing yoik to new audiences. The concert was followed by a public conversation, moderated by Rosemary Kate Martin, exploring the ethics of transmitting indigenous artistic traditions across generations:  questions of cultural ownership, authority, and responsibility.

Looking Ahead

Tuesday afternoon sessions were led by the AEC and included planning for d@rts’ final project event, to be held in Berlin in April, 2027, alongside dedicated communication and dissemination strategy sessions.

The week wrapped up on Thursday with policy work, an ethics session, and a final round of interactive moments.