AI, skills and real change in culture

March marked the completion of important projects for the ARTeria Foundation, whilst also heralding the launch of new initiatives. On the one hand, we concluded the AI4CREATIVITY project, which significantly transformed our approach to the role of artificial intelligence in the cultural and creative sectors. On the other hand, we launched new initiatives and partnerships that explore the themes of future skills, youth engagement and the green transition.

It was a month in which the tension between technology and responsibility was particularly evident. Discussions surrounding AI – both at the level of European policy and artistic practice – have shown that it is not the tools themselves that are key, but the way they are used. At the same time, we returned to questions about the role of the cultural sector in the green transition and how to translate values and strategies into concrete actions and everyday decisions.

Another key theme in March was working with young people and developing their skills in the creative sector – both through new projects and by exploring methods that genuinely engage them and respond to changing needs. Meetings, workshops and Living Labs demonstrated that combining experience, collaboration and an experimental approach is now essential.

March therefore brought not only summaries, but above all concrete tools, new perspectives and conclusions that we will develop in the coming months.

Wenancjusz Ochmann
Vice-President of the ARTeria Foundation

MARCH 2026

AI4CREATIVITY – project conclusion

The AI4CREATIVITY project concluded on 31 March 2026, marking the end of an important phase in our work to understand the role of artificial intelligence in the cultural sector and creative industries. However, it was not merely a development project – in practice, it became a process of changing the way we think about AI.

The starting point was the need to organise knowledge and separate the real possibilities of the technology from oversimplifications, fears and media narratives. Throughout the project, we worked on how to introduce AI into creative and educational practice in a conscious, critical and responsible manner. The resulting materials, training courses and tools demonstrated that artificial intelligence is neither solely a threat nor a simple solution – it is a tool that requires competence, context and reflection.

One of the key outcomes of the project was a shift in perspective: from a reactive approach (“will AI replace us?”) to a strategic one (“how and when does AI make sense in our work?”). In this context, ethical, environmental and creators’ rights issues proved particularly significant – topics that are increasingly defining the debate on the sector’s future.

AI4CREATIVITY also demonstrated that the greatest value lies not in the tools themselves, but in competencies – the ability to use technology critically, understand its limitations, and consciously integrate it into the creative process. This approach remains with us following the project’s conclusion and serves as a reference point for the ARTeria Foundation’s future activities at the intersection of culture, technology and education.

Although the project has formally come to an end, its results and the approach developed will continue to be developed and utilised in future initiatives.

First meeting of the Empowering Youth Talents partners

The kick-off meeting for the Empowering Youth Talents project took place on 16–18 March 2026 at Stacja Kultury, the Municipal Centre for Culture and Art in Pyskowice. This was a key moment marking the start of an international partnership focused on strengthening the skills of young people in the cultural and creative industries (CCI), with a particular emphasis on talent development, creativity and career pathways.

The meeting provided not only an opportunity for the partners to get to know each other in person, but above all to discuss in detail the project’s structure, its objectives and target groups, and to plan further activities and outcomes. Discussions centred on the project’s methodological framework, including the identification of key competences needed by young people to develop their passions and navigate the rapidly changing creative sector. Another key element was the analysis of the use of escape rooms and gamification mechanisms as educational tools to support the development of skills, engagement and teamwork.

The project forms part of a broader European approach to competence development in the CCIs sector, combining education, innovative learning methods and practical tools to support young people in transitioning from interests to tangible career paths. In this context, an approach based on experience, creativity and cross-sectoral collaboration is of particular importance.

We would like to thank the MOKiS Pyskowice team for their hospitality and for creating an inspiring space for work and the exchange of experiences.

The potential of AI in the cultural and creative sector

On 15 March 2026, a meeting was held at Studio ACM to summarise the results of the AI4CREATIVITY project and discuss their practical application in the work of artists and representatives of the creative industries. The discussion covered both the potential and the challenges associated with the development of this technology.

A key aspect of the meeting was its intergenerational format, which allowed for a range of perspectives on the changes taking place in the sector. Participants brought diverse experiences and insights, which significantly enriched the discussion.

We would like to thank all participants for their attendance and engagement, and Agnieszka Chrzanowska-Małys for providing the artistic space and organisational support for the event.

GreenCCircle in practice

The ecological transformation of the cultural sector need not be an abstract goal – it can become a tangible reality. The GreenCCircle project demonstrates how to translate the ideas of sustainable development into concrete tools and practices. All the outcomes developed are now available and ready for use by individuals and institutions operating in the cultural and creative sectors.

We encourage you to watch our introductory video to the project and its outcomes, which comprise three key components. GreenCCircle Academy offers free online courses to support the development of skills in sustainable development, ethical leadership and the creation of innovative operating models. GreenCCircle Hub provides access to tools, case studies and materials that can be put directly into practice. Local Alliances, meanwhile, demonstrate how to combine local action with international cooperation and transform individual initiatives into lasting systemic change. This is a set of solutions that not only inspires but, above all, enables the implementation of tangible actions towards a more sustainable cultural sector.

Second Local Living Lab in Gliwice

The second Living Lab meeting as part of the Green Circle project, which took place on 14 March 2026 at the ACM art studio in Gliwice, served as a continuation and deepening of the themes initiated during the October session. The starting point was earlier reflections on what actually works in the process of the green transition of the cultural sector, what barriers remain unresolved, and what role artists can play in initiating and supporting change.

During the meeting, participants focused on the practical dimension of the creative community’s involvement in activities promoting sustainable development. The discussion covered, among other things, raising awareness of the carbon footprint of artistic activity, the challenges associated with the growing regulatory complexity in the cultural sector, and the potential of creators as ambassadors of change – including in the context of promoting new systemic solutions, such as the deposit-refund system introduced in Poland.

Another key element of the meeting was the presentation of the Green Circle Academy and the HUB as tools supporting the development of skills and collaboration in the field of green transition. The event was attended by representatives from academia, non-governmental organisations, artists and individuals working in the creative sector, creating a space for a multi-perspective exchange of experiences.

The meeting was chaired by Wenancjusz Ochmann. We would like to thank the participants for their engagement and openness in the discussion, and Agnieszka Chrzanowska-Małys for providing the venue.

City and Nature – Harmony and Diversity; V4 Literary and Artistic Relations

We invite you to unique literary events organised as part of the PesText 2026–2027 festival, made possible thanks to the support of the Visegrad Fund. The programme “City and Nature – Harmony and Diversity; V4 Literary and Artistic Relations’ programme brings together literature, art and reflection on the relationship between urban space and nature, whilst showcasing contemporary works from the Visegrad Group countries.

In a world where culture is concentrated mainly in cities, the project poses an important question: how can we reconnect audiences with nature and, at the same time, with the lesser-known, ‘smaller’ languages and literatures of the region? The answer lies in meetings, workshops and artistic events that raise the profile of creators, support mobility and create a space for cross-border collaboration.

In spring 2026, the following events will take place in Budapest:

• 8 May 2026, 7.00 pm, Wojciech Tochman at PesText – a meeting with one of the most important representatives of the Polish school of literary reportage

• 8 May 2026, 6.00 pm, ‘Urban Forests’ – V4 poetry evening
  A multidisciplinary event combining poetry, music and visuals, exploring the tensions and relationships between the city and nature

• 8 May 2026, 4.00 pm, Flash in Translation – flash fiction workshops
  An international gathering of authors from Europe, dedicated to short literary forms, translation and collaborative writing

This is an opportunity for anyone wishing to discover contemporary Central European literature in new, engaging formats and to participate in a dialogue between cultures, languages and experiences. The ARTeria Foundation is a co-organiser of these events.

AI4CREATIVITY – discover the creative side of artificial intelligence!

We have completed the AI4CREATIVITY project, but its results are still available and, importantly, ready for practical use.

If you work in the cultural, educational or creative sectors and are wondering how to approach the topic of artificial intelligence in an informed and responsible manner, it is worth taking a look at the materials we have prepared. These are not general introductions – they are specific tools, guides and resources that help you understand where AI has real value and where it requires a critical approach.

You will find, among other things:

• educational materials explaining how AI works and its applications in culture,
• guidance on the ethical and responsible use of technology,
• inspiration for working with young people and in creative activities,
• tools to support the development of digital skills.

Now is a good time to organise your knowledge of AI and check how it can (or should not) be used in your work.

Inside the Art Market

We encourage you to read the latest issue of the ENCATC magazine ‘Inside the Art Market’, published in March 2026. This issue offers a perspective on the art market not only through the lens of the most visible transactions, but as a complex cultural, economic and social ecosystem in which values, meanings and practices are constantly being negotiated.

The authors analyse, amongst other things, the impact of digital transformation, growing institutional demands and changing legal and ethical frameworks on the functioning of the sector. At the same time, they emphasise the importance of heritage, authenticity and cultural continuity, demonstrating that the art market can be a vital tool for understanding broader social processes and cultural shifts.

The ARTeria Foundation, as a member of ENCATC, actively contributes to the debate on the development of the cultural sector in Europe, and the magazine is available to download online:

Culture at the heart of change: the new role of artists and the creative sector

The ARTeria Foundation, as a member of the ENCATC network, will participate in one of the most important European events dedicated to the cultural sector – the ENCATC Congress 2026, which will take place on 23–25 September 2026 in Nice (France), in collaboration with the Université Côte d’Azur.

This year’s edition, organised under the theme ‘Artists and Cultural & Creative Professionals at the Centre: Rethinking Work, Policy, and Cultural Ecosystems’, will focus on redefining the role of artists and professionals in the creative sector. The spotlight will be on issues such as the recognition of creative work, building stable and sustainable career paths, and creating more inclusive and resilient cultural ecosystems.

The congress will provide a space for international exchange of experiences between practitioners, researchers, educators and decision-makers. The programme will include keynote speeches, interactive sessions and cross-sectoral dialogue, focusing on developing new models of cooperation and cultural policies based on data and the sector’s real needs.

ArtFutures Fellowship 2026 – an insight into the creative process and the selection of artists

On 30 April 2026, a meeting will be held as part of the ArtFutures Fellowship, focusing on the creative process of Felipe Steinberg – this year’s resident artist. The event will be attended by Anna Ochmann, who is involved in the selection of artists for the residency programme.

The meeting, entitled “Looking back, thinking ahead: reflecting on ‘A Whole Formed by Itself’”, will provide an opportunity to examine the artist’s evolving project – a performative lecture based on observations of everyday life on a balcony in Athens. The work, built on the basis of hours of recordings, explores the relationships between urban space, visibility, repetitiveness and social behavioural structures.

The event is a working session and forms part of a broader process of developing artistic projects within the ArtFutures Fellowship, the results of which will be presented at an exhibition in Athens in 2027. The meeting will include a work-in-progress presentation and a discussion with programme participants, moderated by Georgios Papadopoulos.

Anna Ochmann’s participation is part of the ARTeria Foundation’s commitment to international initiatives supporting the development of contemporary art and the establishment of transparent and high-quality artist selection processes in residency programmes.

AI strategy for CCS – ARTeria in the process of shaping European policies

The ARTeria Foundation is involved in preparing recommendations for a new artificial intelligence strategy for the cultural and creative sectors (CCS), which is being developed by the European Commission. Anna Ochmann is participating in these activities by co-authoring a position paper designed to support the process of shaping future policies at EU level.

The work is being carried out as part of an international collaboration led by the Michael Culture Association, in partnership with Culture Action Europe – a network of which the ARTeria Foundation is a member. The current phase involves jointly defining key challenges and directions for development, which will be included in the document being prepared.

The discussion centres on three areas: the impact of AI on working conditions and economic models within the sector, the potential of technology to create new opportunities, and specific recommendations that should be included in the European Commission’s strategy. The process is participatory in nature – subsequent versions of the document will be subject to consultation, enabling a wide range of stakeholders to contribute their comments and experiences.

The ARTeria Foundation’s involvement in these activities represents a further step in its active participation in the European debate on the role of technology in culture and in shaping the framework that will have a direct impact on the sector’s functioning in the coming years.

Resilient Ties – invitation to an international conference in Gdańsk

We invite you to take part in the Centre Satellite BEYOND international conference “Resilient Ties”, which will take place on 19–20 May 2026 in Gdańsk, at the St John’s Centre – one of the main venues of the Baltic Sea Cultural Centre.

The event is organised by the Baltic Sea Cultural Centre in collaboration with Culture Action Europe as part of the BEYOND programme – a European platform for dialogue, exchange of experiences and joint shaping of the future of the cultural sector. The ARTeria Foundation, as a member of the Culture Action Europe network and part of the Polish HUB CAE, is actively involved in this initiative.

The Resilient Ties conference invites reflection on resilience in culture – understood not as an individual capacity for survival, but as the result of relationships, cooperation and shared responsibility. In the context of Central and Eastern Europe, where the cultural sector faces political pressure, funding instability and the curtailment of civic space, the question of the systemic conditions that enable its continued functioning becomes particularly important.

The event programme – designed as a ‘lunch-to-lunch’ format – combines debates, workshops and more reflective, interactive sessions. Key topics will include solidarity and responsibility in unequal contexts, wellbeing and burnout in cultural work, structural pressures on institutions, the resilience of culture in the age of AI, and issues of accessibility and participation in cultural life.

The conference will be held in English. Participation in the event is free of charge, but the organisers do not cover travel and accommodation costs.

The term ‘creative artificial intelligence’ is appearing with increasing frequency in technological and marketing discourse. However, to truly understand what it means to create using AI, it is worth viewing these systems not merely as tools, but as complex socio-technical systems.

Artificial intelligence does not arise in a vacuum – every generated image is based on vast datasets, global computing infrastructure, the work of thousands of people, and specific assumptions regarding creativity, authorship and cultural values.

Therefore, reflecting on art created using AI requires not only technological analysis, but also philosophical, social and historical analysis. Contemporary technology companies are keen to describe their systems as ‘creative’, suggesting that machines can participate in the creative process in much the same way as humans.

Yet the very concept of creativity is neither neutral nor universal – it is historical and cultural in nature. It has been understood differently across different eras: Romanticism linked it to the idea of individual genius, Modernism to originality and a break with tradition, Conceptual Art to the primacy of idea over form, and Postmodernism to the remixing and recombination of existing forms.

In this context, key questions arise today: how should we understand creativity in computational systems, and where does the boundary of agency lie in the human–machine relationship? How does the concept of authorship change when the creative process is distributed among users, algorithms, platforms and data? And how does art created using AI fit into the longer history of the relationship between art and technology – along with inherited ideologies and power structures?

“Revolution does not come with a sudden switch and change, but consists of slowly forging daily habits. By making everything easier and more accessible, we tend to allow habit to become, unnoticed, part of our everyday lives. The AI revolution will not turn our hearts and brains into boxes of chips and wires…”

Read more in this inspiring article written especially for the AI4CREATIVITY project by writer and playwright Weronika Murek.

The article is available in Polish, English, French, Italian, Slovak and Spanish.

“Art based on artificial intelligence has not destroyed the idea of the artist. It has simply made it impossible to pretend that the artist was ever a solitary genius working in isolation”

In the article “Who Can Be an Artist?”, written for the AI4CREATIVITY project, Ivy Wei (UK) analyses three high-profile cases – Obvious, Jason Allen and Botto – raising questions about contemporary authorship. Where do the key moments of the creative process lie today? Whose contribution is recognised, and who remains invisible? Who actually makes the decisions: a human, a system, or perhaps a hybrid of the two? And is style still being discovered, or is it rather being shaped towards what is predictable and ‘works’ well?

Creation has never been as accessible as it is today. AI-based tools enable the generation of images, text and sound in a matter of seconds – often at a level that, until recently, required years of practice. This fundamentally changes the rules of the game, but it does not eliminate the human role.

Because art is not just about the end result. It is about decisions, context, intention and responsibility for the message. AI can generate a form, but it does not carry the experience behind it. It will not ask the question ‘why’ unless someone formulates it first.

In this sense, the artist’s role does not disappear, but becomes more demanding. An artist is someone who consciously sets the direction, selects possibilities and assigns meaning.

Article available in Polish, English, French, Italian, Slovak and Spanish.

“In one of her letters, describing the works collected in the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, Catherine the Great wrote sarcastically: ‘… and all this is viewed only by mice and myself!’ Two centuries later, I quoted this sentence in my thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. The thesis was titled ‘Exhibiting – between architecture, art and information’, and even then, that single, anecdotal sentence inspired me to question the meaning of collecting things (…) and to whom collections are actually dedicated.

Returning to these words today, I think of the long history of exhibition-making as a practice balancing between idea and matter, elitism and the public, knowledge and experience. I also think of the contemporary shift in paradigm – of accessibility understood not merely as the physical ‘opening of an institution’s doors’, but as the recognition of the multiplicity of ways of perceiving and being within the exhibition space. This text is an attempt to trace this path: from Plato’s distrust of things, through the first collections and museums, to today’s questions of inclusivity, including in the context of neuroatypical people.”

Today we recommend Anna Ochmann’s article “… and only mice and I see all this!”, written for the REACT project – Resources for European Accessible Cultural Tours.

The article is available in English and Polish on the project’s website in the BLOG section. We also invite you to explore other articles and inspiring resources in the ‘Get Inspired’, ‘Get Equipped’ and ‘Get Certified’ sections.