Rural Cultural Planning (CBSS)

Project title: Rural Cultural Planning (project site);

Description and goal: Smaller towns and rural communities offer many advantages which cities lack, such as easy access to nature, local traditions and skills, place-based food systems, etc. However, to take full advantage of the rebalancing between the urban and the rural, smaller rural communities need to activate or attract resources and ideas. Here, the Cultural Planning method will come into play. Rural cultural planning focuses on four tasks:

• Anchoring the Cultural Planning method as a policy instrument with relevant policy makers dealing with rural development;
• Transferring the knowledge and methods accumulated and tested in UrbCultural to agents of change in rural areas;
• Adapting the Cultural Planning method to rural BSR typologies by setting up pilot projects (Community Mapping);
• Expanding the BSR network of practitioners based on the Hubs of Excellence created as a result of UrbCulturalPlanning.

Partners: Danish Cultural Institute (leader), Billund Kommunes Museer, Vidzeme Planning Region, Laboratory for Urban Games and Research Laimikis.LT

Locations: Billund (Denmark), Ligatne (Latvia, Vidzeme region), Papilė (Akmenė district);

Activities by Laimikis cooperating with Ugnė Pališaitytė, whose family comes from Papilė:
• mapping cultural resources, identifying elements essential to the identity of the place and to its communication;
• conducting a series of interviews with the local actors whose activities contribute to the sense of place, the image of the place and its communication;
• roundtable with the representatives of the national Ventė park, municipality, city council, eldership, community leaders, museums, enterprises and local guides;
• roundtable with the teachers’ community of Simonas Daukantas Gymnasium in Papilė;
• arranging a transnational meeting in Papilė with the representatives of the Danish cultural institute, Billund Kommunes Museer, Vidzeme Planning Region at the Daukantas Museum;
• workshop “Dinosaurs Walk” with the Daukantas Gymnasium schoolchildren;
• workshop “Papilė for the youngsters” – mapping the places that young people would like to develop in Papilė; this workshop provided us with new insights about the potential of Papilė from the perspective of the young generation;
• presenting the results to the community.

Supported by: CBSS (Council of the Baltic Sea States)
Duration: 2022-2023