Freedom Games 2015 “How to Save Democracy?”
Freedom Games is an interdisciplinary conference that serves as a common ground for intellectuals and artists. It is a platform for leaders and thinkers of various backgrounds to share their experiences and exchange ideas. The main objective of the second edition of the event is to gather 100 agents of change, who already work on improving the situation in Poland as well as in Europe as a whole. Our intention is to make Freedom Games a place where also residents of Lodz can debate the current issues they face, to bring them closer to the intellectual and cultural sphere of Europe, what will eventually result in strengthening the social potential of the city. The starting point for a debate during Freedom Games 2015 is one of the most fundamental questions of our times: “How to Save Democracy?”.
The second edition of the event will be devoted to two main thematic blocks:
1. City – Revitalisation – Culture
City as a space for civic participation, that sometimes proves more attractive than democracy in traditional understanding itself, will be one of key topics during Freedom Games 2015. We will focus on revitalisation of post-industrial cities and cultural initiatives that assist this process.
In the ancient Greece, agora constituted an outlet for democracy. Nowadays, a marketplace seems to be a similar extension of a vibrant, entrepreneurial society. This is why our main objective is to create in the EC1 a symbolic marketplace of our city – a new agora full of civic activities, dialogue and ideas.
2. Democracy – Human Rights
The citizens’ influence on the politics of a given state gradually decreases. Global market and the ever-tightening co-dependence of certain agents, increasing influence of big corporations and, on the other hand, populism, decreasing civic participation and political radicalism may pose a real threat to democracy. We will discuss the issues of protecting human rights in countries neighbouring the European Union and the states that continue to destabilise the situation in the region.
Freedom Games is a great opportunity for networking and sharing individual experiences and transferring good practices. Thanks to the interdisciplinary nature of the event – a mixture of experts, media, political scientists, politicians, artists, writers and business – Freedom Games has also a fantastic cultural and artistic dimension.
Freedom Games 2015 include the following blocks:
- workshops and networking (limited number of participants)
- open lectures delivered by representatives of socio-political and cultural spheres of European life
- market square for Lodz
- concerts of jazz, improvised and alternative music.
Find out more about the previous edition of the event: Freedom Games 2014