Ernst-Kohl-Str. 23
99423 Weimar
Germany
- Arts
- Democracy and community development
- Environment/Sustainable development
- Gender
- Heritage
- International/Cultural relations
- Others
The Other Music Academy (OMA) is a new kind of socio-cultural centre. Its interdisciplinary and intercultural projects always are led by its highest goal, the empowerment of participating individuals and social groups. Projects are developed based on locally pressing questions with communities and set into motion in cooperation with locally rooted partners in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. OMA projects are always hands-on practical, using artistic and scientific methods and practices and are driven by the Academy's social and intercultural vision. The OMA has its home in a former three storey school building and runs an office with 10 part-time staff, longterm volunteers and project managers. Its funders include the German Cultural Foundation, the Thuringia State Chancellory, Bosch and Mercator Foundation, the European Union, Aktion Mensch, and many more. Depending on the year, our budget is around 1mio €, including the costly and slow renovation of our building. Its projects have received recognitions including the Shimon Perez Prize, the Federal Innovation Prize Socioculture, and the "Best Practices in Favor of the Roma Community award" from the European Commission.
The Other Music Academy [OMA] is our vision of a new kind of institution – an Empowerment Center. To us, “empowerment” means developing and strengthening the human potential for autonomy, creativity, efficacy, and social connection. To reach that goal we also have to understand and overcome prejudices and structures that stand in its way. The goal of the OMA is an open and inclusive society in which the most diverse kinds of people participate actively in the design of shared culture. Thus, the OMA is a frankly utopian vision. We believe that many people today are experiencing a crisis of meaning. Neither increased consumption, the embrace of religious or political fundamentalism, nor cynicism can offer satisfactory answers to this crisis. Rather, our society needs new frameworks in which people from all backgrounds can develop their autonomy and creativity together through social connection, inclusion and participation. This is especially true for people whose opinions are usually not counted. To exclude them from actively shaping our culture is harmful not only to them, but to all of us. An institution that seeks to empower society must include everyone, not only those with the “right” kind of vocabulary and social prestige. What would such a radically inclusive platform look like? The OMA is meant to be a place where just such innovations can be imagined, tested and continually improved. The goal is a platform for creative social reconfigu- rations, based not on “tolerance” or “co-existence” but on the vision of a profound and mutually enriching transformation and shared being. All of our projects are conceived as practical research to further develop the methods, approaches and connect people and communities to co-shape our vision of bottom-up civil-society empowerment.
OMA projects include: annual intercultural study trips with Klassik Stiftung Weimar and AFS Intercultural Programs, the international festival Yiddish Summer Weimar (www.yiddishsummer.eu), the OMA Improvisation Project, "Can we afford a Vision" (Nouakchott/Weimar), "Cabinet of Local Wonders" (Antalya/Altenburg), "Contes Imbriqués" (Bamako/M'hamid/Aken) or the #openpavillon social construction sites with its cultural boat Mary Jane (www.openpavillon.eu). Our work includes community arts productions as well as laying the foundations to the formation of new intercultural bands and collectives, originating from our 20 years of Yiddish Summer Weimar as an intercultural summer institute with changing annual or bi-annual topics. A selection of our artistic and community productions can be seen here: www.omaworks.eu
The OMA always works in regional and international cooperations with partners and we are eager to expand our network, share practices and co-create with communities across regions. We are engaged in several international and national networks, such as Bosch Alumni, Mercator Global, the various MitOst programme communities (especially TANDEM and VAHA), as well as networks on cooperation and development in rural (East) Germany, such as the "Engagierte Land" and "Neulandgewinner". Through this, we would like to contribute to the community by connecting actors, contributing to others' initiatives as well as inviting partners into our open ended work contexts. We are engaged in discussing and furthering cultural policies in the context of performing and community arts, within the national and regional offices for socioculture and performing arts in Germany. We are eager to bring impulses from these work groups into civil society work across the Mediterranean.
In the past ten years, OMA has increasingly cooperated with partners across the Middle East, North and West Africa. We want to continue co-creating meaningful exchange and involve the communities around us into hands-on intercultural exchange work, to better understand each others hopes, struggles and political realities. Through the ALF, we hope to connect to an active network of civil society organisations across wider Europe and the Mediterranean, and learn from their approaches and work methods. Especially the focus on young voices and engagement of youth has been central so several of our past years projects and we want to connect to the work realities of others in that field.