Foundation ARTeria organised a meeting of a Focus Group for the“Global FemArt – Supporting Female Artists and Creatives to Globalise their Business” project on 14th May 2019 in Kurort Qultury Gajowa 9, in Zabrze, Poland.
The main aim of the session was an in-depth needs analysis to complement the hard data of previous activities with first-hand testimonials so as to enable the partnership to develop training material that truly takes into account the specific needs of female artists and creatives running their own creative business. The event was prepared by Anna Ochmann and Wenanjcusz Ochmann, who was also a main facilitator and led the discussion.
The participants, 8 female artists and creatives from the Silesia area, discussed together about their artistic and vocational development, about their educational background, occupational and sectorial experience, personal competences, experience as female artists/creatives running their own creative businesses, and about possibilities of internationalisation of their work. The starting point for this discussion was a specially prepared questionnaire, which they completed at the beginning. Then the facilitators engaged the focus group in a discussion about the questionnaire and asked participants for feedback. The questions and the topics outlined aimed at exploring the personal knowledge of the participants, their critical awareness and their need to develop and improve their entrepreneurial competences among the 15 presented in the EntreComp (the comprehensive study carried out by the European Commission on the 15 core entrepreneurial competences identified in the Entrepreneurship Competence Framework).
The participants represented various areas in cultural and creative sector – we hosted visual artists, craft artists, but also an actress and musicians (vocalist and instrumentalist). This diverse group showed the potential of female art in Silesia! But we also talked about the barriers faced by female artists and creatives in their vocational development.