TOSTA: SYNOPSIS/ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
What will TOSTA involve?
TOSTA is a collaboration between cultural organisations in nine of Europe’s small-language nations,
all situated on the continent’s coastline and all with strong maritime traditions. The TOSTA initiative
will take place between Spring 2015 and Autumn 2016, and will be made up of three closely related
elements:
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Nine artists’ residencies, enabling native-language artists to live, work and communicate in
other small cultures, developing a body of work and also preparing events in their host
community. The residencies will not be restricted to any specific art forms.
Nine skills placements, enabling young native-speakers from each of these cultures to
undertake training in specialist settings in other small nations, in fields of work associated
with maritime crafts and cultures. The training will not be restricted to conventional crafts,
and could include media and communications, curation and arts administration.
Nine opportunities for groups of community entrepreneurs to work with professional
support towards the production of a full business plan, feasibility study and call for
investment.
Nine major festival events will be co-ordinated, drawing together the strands outlined above, to
celebrate the arrival in each nation of the re-built Basque whaling ship the San Juan during 2016,
carrying its cargo of culture and its message of diversity and reconciliation. The artists and
administrators involved will also help create and maintain a digital San Juan, enabling a world-wide
audience to take part in, and benefit, from the voyage and associated events.
What are the project’s over-riding aims?
By offering opportunities to young and creative people in our fragile languages, we believe we can
reinforce their cultural confidence, help build greater capacity both in individuals and amongst
communities, and by sharing skills and aspirations build open, sustainable, networks of mutual
support across the minority cultures of Europe.
Many of these areas are economically vulnerable, and people living within them suffer many
different kinds of poverty: of income, of opportunity, of facilities and of confidence in the future.
Separated for centuries by politics and religion, by economic centralisation and force majeure, we
are more and more aware how much we have in common, and how creative our differences can also
be. So we seek to strengthen each other through active collaboration, as well as share our messages
of diversity, tolerance, reconciliation and creativity with our larger neighbours.
The process of TOSTA will be valuable in itself, building collaborations and relationships where none
existed before, and the impact on participants will be a major one. More importantly perhaps than
either will be a legacy of shared trust, of resilient interaction between a wide range of organisations
and cultures that until now have felt isolated, exposed and sometimes inadequate.
Who will be involved?
Ealain na Gaeltachta, the support organisation for the arts in the Irish language, will act as lead
partner in this collaboration. The four co-ordinating partners will be:
AFUK, the language and cultural support agency for Frŷslan in the Netherlands
Celtic Neighbours, the cultural support agency tor native-language arts across the UK and Ireland
Donostia/ San Sebastian 2016, the organising group for that city’s European City of Culture events,
from Euskal Herria/ the Basque Country
Museo do Pobo Gallego, the national museum of living and traditional culture in Galiza.
Associate partners, playing a supporting role in the prolect, will be: Albaola Maritime Museum,
Euskal Herria; Aras Eanna Arts Centre, Ireland; Belmullet Arts Centre, Ireland: Island of Sipan
Council, Croatia; ‘t Fiskershúske Maritime Museum, Friesland; Menter y Felin Newydd, Wales;
Oriel Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, Wales; Proisect nan Ealan, Scotland; Sabhal Mòr Ostaig University
College, Scotland; Taigh Chearsabhagh Arts Centre, Scotland; Thing Project, Faroe Islands.
Why TOSTA?
Tosta is a name for the thwart of a traditional vessel, a
word shared - with minor variations -across many of the
small communities of the European coastline. It was
probably originally a Basque word, carried around
Europe and beyond by their mariners. In all these
cultures the sea has always been a pathway to
opportunities and collaborations, economic and social
as well as cultural. The building and manning of small
boats has been integral to our way of life, and the boat
is a powerful metaphor of our languages and the
cultures we love. The sea has always been a
thoroughfare for us rather than a barrier. Ancient maps
of Galicia, for example, show Ireland just beyond its
horizon: Basque words incorporated into the Faroese
language remind us that fishermen returning from the
Grand Banks with a cargo of salt cod would winter there
and dry their fish: Viking settlers in their longboats,
Celtic monks in their currachs and coracles, and traders
from Ragusa in their galleys, have over the centuries all
found shelter and opportunities in the tiny harbours of the Atlantic seaboard. TOSTA will re-create
that culture of enterprise, daring and collaboration.
Nations involved: Alba (Scotland), Cymru (Wales) Éire (Ireland), Euskal Herria (Basque Country),
Faeroe (Faroe Islands), Frŷslan (Friesland), Galiza (Galicia), Hrvatska (Croatia),