The WORLD CULTURE FORUM 2016

The World Culture Forum (WCF) 2016 is an initiative organized by the Ministry of Education and Culture, Republic of Indonesia, and will be held in Bali, from 10 to 14 October 2016. Previously, the 1st WCF was held in Bali, from 24 to 27 November 2013, organized and hosted by the Government of Indonesia under the patronage of UNESCO. The first World Culture Forum produced the Bali Promise, which was welcomed in the UN General Assembly Resolution 68/223 on 20 December 2013. It highlighted the power of culture as the fourth dimension of sustainable development. Several working groups and high level discussions followed, yet at the release of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 Targets, relevance and place were not given to culture.

All participants of the 2013 World Culture Forum realized that mainstreaming culture in development is a long-winding uphill struggle that requires plenty of touchstones and a healthy portion of sound arguments. The 2016 World Culture Forum aims to bring forward yet another one, building on the delightful ability of the Balinese to harmonize various elements in one mesmerizing the musical orchestra. It is hoped that with the Sound of Bali, nobody is left playing out of tune.

A central problem in the linkage between culture and development is the different rhythm between the two. Cultural realm moves within the rhythm of social life as a whole (the rhythm of production and reproduction of social relations), whereas developmental sphere tends to move within the rhythm of the accumulation of wealth. The two realms are not necessarily synchronous with each other. Where there is an asynchronicity between the rhythm of social life and the rhythm of economic development, the result will be an unsustainable development which, in the end, leads to multi-dimensional crisis (bearing on many sectors such as food, energy and environment).

Thus a cultural bridge to make culture relevant in sustainable development is necessary because the rhythm of people and the rhythm of development are out of sync. Here, culture must exercise its role as the glue that holds together the various elements of everyday life and it does so by way of synchronizing rhythms. As the French philosopher cum sociologist Henri Lefebvre famously stated:

“Were there is orhytmia between two temporalities, they would coincide. Equivalence entails identity (and reciprocally, non-identity implies difference); polyrhythmia is composed of diverse rhythms. Eurhythmia (that of a living body, normal and healthy) presupposes the association of different rhythms. In arrhythmia, rhythms break apart, alter and bypass synchronisation …. Intervention through rhythm … has a goal, an objective: to strengthen or re-establish eurhythmia” (Henri Lefebvre, Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life, London: Continuum, 2004/1992, p. 67-8).

An unsustainable development is the result of arrhythmia, that is the conflicting relationship between the rhythm of social life and the rhythm of economic development. In order to overcome this undesirable state of affairs and to achieve a sustainable development, the rhythm of development must be made embedded on the rhythm of social life. In this respect, culture will play its role as the harmonizing agent: to introduce a social life-based different rhythm into the rhythm of development; thus producing a more sustainable development, an eurhythmy between social life and development.

All information: https://worldcultureforum-bali.org/