At a time of profound upheaval, when the editors of Europe’s biggest newspapers relentlessly prophesize the end of the European Union, which is purported to have fallen victim to a lack of vision, to populism or to cowardice on the part of certain national leaders, Europe’s culture finds itself on the frontline of a movement that is being obliged to seek out new democratic pathways.

Shaken up by significant transformations on three fronts – digital, political and citizen – a new generation of cultural activists now find themselves straddling the fault lines that have opened up as a result: crises of budgets and of meaning; identity grievances and tensions; generational, social and territorial divides; political and citizen apathy. Not to mention the profound crisis facing the European project, whose destiny seems to be more undermined than ever.

The European Lab is calling upon the enthusiasm, imagination and innovatory spirit of these new activists, in order to shed light on the transformations affecting the cultural and creative sector in France and across Europe.

This generation of digital natives, of European natives, has to a certain extent become the generation of crisis natives, in search of new horizons. For over two decades now, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, this generation has learnt to express itself differently, to use different tools to create and conduct its cultural, creative and artistic projects. 

Today, this generation has the legitimacy and convictions to find new solutions to the crises that it has become accustomed to facing alone, every day, and on all fronts.

Caught in the eye of the storm, this generation is seeking to build a “third way”. Independent and socially-engaged, this new solution will be placed at the service of public interest, of the common good and of a democratic renewal. It will be far removed from the outdated structures of institutional culture and the capitalistic models of industrial giants, which continue to impose themselves today in a climate of media and cultural wasteland. 

This “hungover generation” – as Raphaël Glucksmann so eloquently put it – is nevertheless also a generation determined to fight on, to struggle through the bleak mornings in order to define new shared horizons. In this sense, it can play an important role in restoring meaning to the European project, particularly for young people who have become profoundly, and sometimes violently, estranged from it.

Through its projects, its new platforms, its places, its events and its media, this generation can help to restore culture to the central role that it must play in modern society: that of a weapon of mass reconstruction, placed at the service of a European society on the verge of a democratic implosion.

Vincent Carry