Layer House - The House of Connecting Arts during the COVID-19 pandemic
About this good practice
For Carnica Institute the COVID-19 pandemic was a positive challenge on how to boost their existing events and projects. They haven’t stopped doing events, but transformed physical ones into digital ones. They transformed live concerts into live streams, which were recorded by professional teams with high quality sound and picture and streamed on their FB and YT channels. Art exhibitions were transformed into virtual exhibitions accompanied with video presentations of artists and shared on FB, IG, YT and web page. When galleries were closed, they moved some of the exhibitions to the streets and cooperated with a marketing agency (specialists for city posters) to put art pieces onto billboards and made art accessible to everyone. As art also has therapeutic effect this was very well accepted among the public otherwise deprived of culture in difficult times. They also organized hybrid events, which were combination of online events (Zoom symposiums, artist talks, FB and YT live streams) and live events (when possible). Carnica also started a project named KRA KRA, in collaboration with Gorenjska Museum, Prešeren Theatre and Kranj City Library. KRA KRA was designed as a creative tool for the education of young generations about Kranj’s cultural and natural heritage and the usage of multimedia. They created a website for presentation of video podcasts and prepared webinars for teachers with video tutorials on creation of podcasts, information gathering, production of videos etc.
Resources needed
Digitalization was led by programme coordinator, art director and marketing team of Layer House (3 persons) and technical team (3 persons). Each stream was approx. 600 EUR, each virtual exhibition approx. 400 EUR, exhibition on billboards some 700 EUR each and KRA – KRA project approx. 6000 EUR.
Evidence of success
Digital events are available to everyone. In difficult and anxious times they provided cultural content that always brought some kind of satisfaction. Other artists and musicians became interested in working with Carnica because of video presentations and live streams, where number of visitors ranged from 100 - 2000. People talked about digital transformations on social media. Students became creators of multimedia content and spread knowledge about Kranj’s culture in a more relaxed manner.
Potential for learning or transfer
The Carnica Institute is initiating urban changes in Kranj and its old town centre by participating in numerous cultural, civil and urban renovation projects. Together with partners, artists and cultural workers, they’re co-creating the international cultural centre and artistic community. Cooperation is key. They have developed a sustainable and repeatable business model for management of cultural heritage sites. They are continuing with creating hybrid or online events as such events are accessible to everyone, beyond the local public. Events in digital form are available for longer time and are a very important archive and educational tool. They are adapting to the new reality and encouraging young people to actively create even in pandemic times, despite limitations. They want to further develop KRA-KRA project and the content and technical materials, include products by new students. The goal is to make the online platform a modern tool in cultural education in the long run.