Study trip to Hamburg

In 2013 GivRum organized a study trip to Hamburg for 50 participants. This was the beginning of an international network of professionals working with city life and urban development.

The challenge
There are big contextual differences when working with culture and urban development. Differences between cities and between countries create great opportunities for exchange and knowledge-sharing. But how do you increase cultural understanding and create opportunities for future collaboration and partnerships across national borders?

How do you gather creative and cultural entrepreneurs and ensure they build strong and lasting ties? GivRum faced these questions when we in 2013 wanted to establish a relational cultural network between Copenhagen and Hamburg. A task that consisted of:

• Establishing a platform for contact between Danish and German cultural entrepreneurs and creative networks in the two cities.
• Clarifying the potential of new networks across national borders.
• Developing a format that engages further networking and cooperation.

The intention was to create physical meetings between the participants from the two cities and develop a platform to assist the development of transnational networks in the long run.

The solution
For two days we visited user-driven projects and initiatives at Hamburg’s cultural scenes. We held workshops with participants from the Danish and German creative environments; we went on a guided tour around the harbour city’s streets; and we shared knowledge and challenged each other’s practices and understandings of urban life. The study trip to Hamburg meant that:

• New collaborations between Copenhagen and Hamburg were established.
• The first steps in creating GivRum’s yearly cultural festival, City Link were taken.

After the study trip, the network has only grown larger and today it also includes actors from Edinburgh and Istanbul.