Arvo Pärt Center: Building new building – building new model for community engagement. Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.

Cultural Management  Master students of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre  have been working on the  case of Arvo Pärt Centre. The Arvo Pärt Center is facing a new situation as it is engaged to build a new premises into a rural area by forest and seaside in a small village. Throughout the process of  challenge solving  course,  the  key challenges are  how to develop concept and framework  for  working  with several communities’ expectations. During  the challenge solving the focus was put to develop the future programme of APC for kids and educators, as the main connection point of the local community is through kids and families.

The  students were piloting several methods on how  to  work  with   local communities and understand their needs and fears.  They have organized jointly with Arvo Pärt Center, for example, forest walk and meditation event to gain insight to the relationship of the locals to the nature. In addition they have worked with educators from nearby schools testing service design and creative methods. As an outcome of the process the Arvo Pärt Center will gain tools to engage with the locals and have a more comprehensive overview of their different publics on local level. The experience also opened up the barriers of the art organization to engage in using these new tools.