CCSC: Lund Urban Lab creates cultural hangouts — both real and online
Kulturföreningen Mejeriet was the focus of student work on the Digital Cultures programme. The task was to find ways to make physical meeting places interact with new digital patterns of production, consumption and experience. This was also part of the major co-European cultural project CCSC. “The student projects were extremely high quality and resulted in many viable ideas,” says project developer Katarina Scott at Future by Lund.
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As part of the major European CCSC project, Cultural and Creative Spaces and Cities were given to students from the program Digital Cultures onto Lund University under the leadership of Mikael Askander the opportunity to work with real challenges from The dairy in their project work.
The dairy began to be used in 1987 and is a cultural centre with, among other things, a cinema, music activities, standup arrangements and rope venues. In recent years, new digital habits have changed the behaviour of visitors and cultural creators. The students at Digital Cultures were therefore tasked with developing the operations of the Mejeriet taking into account the intersection of physical and digital meeting places. The question was how the physical meeting place for cultural creators can interact with digital meeting places and create something new.
The student work was very successful.
“The quality of the accounting was the highest I have experienced when it comes to student projects,” says Katarina Scott, project developer at Future by Lund. All of them came up with relevant proposals that could be implemented if time and money can be set aside. There were also many elements that could be developed in combination.
The students studied the first semester of the three-year programme Digital Cultures. The students were divided into six groups, each of which had to come up with a solution to an assignment. The accounting was made at the beginning of 2020.
“The cooperation was really good,” says Mikael Askander at the Department of Cultural Sciences. Our students received a project course on collaboration and creation of meeting places both in real life and online. Our students learned a lot, not least in terms of working in project form. Among other things, there were proposals and ideas for a new app for and about cultural institutions in Lund, a café adjacent to the Mejeriet, media workshop and digital mailbox. Some suggestions were realized, such as artists guest-logging onto Dairy's Instagram account.
Dairy was also positive about the results.
“Digital Cultures has given us valuable perspectives on parts of Mejeriet's activities - such as our communication towards students, the dairy as a physical place and changes in young people's cultural habits,” says Marcus Lampe. We also hope that we have been able to show students what reality can look like in a place like the Mejeriet, as well as the challenges and limitations that exist. The students produced good suggestions and ideas in areas of development. One perspective we have taken on is the importance of an attractive meeting place in Lund, where we have to gain from staying open in more ways than public events. This summer we opened a new space at the dairy which we call Stallet, where you can play boule or board games, listen to DJ's and enjoy food and drinks. Suggestions on how we can improve our website will also be taken into account when we launch an updated version.
Katarina Scott at Future by Lund wishes the collaboration to continue.
“The project was done during the students' first year and yet they came up with elaborate and thoughtful solutions. I would like it to establish a long-term collaboration between different cultural institutions and the Digital Cultures programme because it would provide cultural institutions with a connection to the next generation and at the same time prepare students for what will happen to them when they graduate.
In the large EU project CCSC, Cultural and Creative Spaces and Cities, Lund Municipality leads an Urban Lab dedicated to creating engagement and collaboration. The dairy, Stenrosssen and Science Village are local partners together Future by Lund. In the projects at Mejeriet, Future by Lund was the client.
