The potential of new media technologies to facilitate “unhindered forms of artistic and cultural expression” has been widely recognised in recent years. The new media artists and researchers from Asia and Europe who gathered for the Expert Group Meeting for New Media, Civil Society and Environmental Sustainability in Bandung, Indonesia, in July 2010, reaffirmed this trend. They issued the Bandung Declaration of Open Cultures, Technologies and Ecologies, which summarises their discussions and findings.

[caption id="attachment_8709" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Expert Group Meeting, Bandung, Indonesia"][/caption]

Key messages of the Declaration include:

• New media is facilitating greater dialogue across disciplines, generations and geographical regions as “mobile” knowledge and information become bridges between cultures.

• Culture is a catalyst for sustainable human development. This notion has since been reaffirmed by the UN Millennium Development Goals Summit (20-22 September 2010, New York).

• New media technologies are promoting the diversity of cultural expressions, as emphasised in the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005).

The Declaration was issued at the Asia-Africa Museum in Bandung, Indonesia, which hosted the historic Bandung Conference of Asian and African states in 1955. The Conference aimed to promote greater economic and cultural cooperation between the participating member states.

The Expert Group Meeting was organised by the Common Room Networks Foundation with the support of the Asia-Europe Foundation through its Asia-Europe Cultural Partnership Initiatives.

Download the Bandung Declaration:

Bandung Declaration 2010

Anupama Sekhar is Project Manager for Cultural Exchange at the Asia-Europe Foundation. She is editor of "Mapping Cultural Diversity: Best Practices from around the Globe".