Third Steering Group Meeting Minutes

The third STEERING GROUP MEETING of CerDee was held from 18 to 20 of November 2020. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, the meeting needed to be switched again to an online meeting. 22 persons from all partners, the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche (MIC) in Faenza (IT), Muzeum Ceramiki w Bolesławcu (PL), New Design University St. Pölten (AU), Narodni Muzej Slovenije (NMS) in Ljubljana (SI), Porzellanikon–Staatliches Museum für Porzellan in Hohenberg a. d. Eger/Selb (DE), Technical University Ilmenau (DE), Západočeská univerzita (UWB) v Plzni (CZ) and Zavod zu turizem in kultro Kranjas (ZTKK) in Kranj (SI) as well as a representative of the Joint Secretary of Vienna took part.

Ms Dziwetzki, director of Porzellanikon opened the meeting as project leader with a welcome note to all participants, highlighted the already achieved results and thanked the partners for their constant collaboration. Ms Bober-Tubai, director of Muzeum Ceramiki w Bolesławcu gave a welcome speech as the inviting partner of the meeting. She too thanked the partners for the cooperation and highlighted the importance of European projects such as CerDee.

The meeting was again split into the work package thematic, where the partners reviewed the progress and discussed further activities of the project.

First work package session started with the outputs and next steps of WP2. First it has been announced that the transnational listing of existing design objects is finished and reported already. Also the collection of existing lectures/documentation of non-accessible location on design and art in ceramics is finished as well as the YouTube clips of selected lectures by partner museums. The National Museum of Slovenia presented the next steps, especially talked about copyrights, uploading options and 3D-scanning. They also showed the YouTube Channel of Ceramics in Europe. Improvements for the library (user form) were discussed regarding visualization, design, search options, copyrights etc. The next step of NMS will be to set up a concept for interactive learning.

In the afternoon UWB presented the activities and outputs of WP1. Especially the crisis will force us to draw up again a specific survey on the impacts of COVID-19 on this sector. It has been announced that the status quo report by country ceramic creative industry, potentials and expectations are published on https://cerdee.zcu.cz. Next step is to create the transnational status quo report of creative industry. Also the IT-based visualisation platform of all stakeholders are visualized in one single interactive map on the CerDee website. There are some improvements needed from all partners. Also best practice examples of stakeholders are required from all partners by end of the year 2020.

For WPT3 the MIC presented how to go further with the handbook on ‘How to set up a business in ceramic’. Due to continued pandemic situation all of the physical workshops has to be postponed or switched to digital solutions. So the NDU presented some educational programmes for students, which took place in the past. They did a craft studio mould making-one-week-course in Wilhelmsburg and they did some e-learnings on ceramic techniques. Also two additional craft workshops during summer with Hermann Seiser took place. Also NMS gave an overview of the organised free Autumn Ceramics Workshop. MIC Faenza held a second online workshop on October 28 2020 regarding innovations in the ceramic and artistic field. Also the upcoming conference has been discussed, which will take place on May 26^th 2021 in Faenza.

For the development of the modules in WP4 the results of the survey in WP1 were of great importance. They were presented and discussed. Ms Dziwetzki presented suggestions for assistance that could be offered to ceramists for marketing purposes.  Several other possibilities were also raised and discussed, the results will be summarised. It had been announced that the market Argillá in Faenza will not take place in 2021 but hopefully the ceramic market in Selb will be held, which is planned for August 2021. The very complex subject area of e-commerce was presented and discussed under different aspects. The partners decided to deepen and continue the discussion in a workgroup.

TU Ilmenau gave an update on the communication strategy and the recent communication results were presented. The next important action is to publish press releases by the partners. It is also required that each partner promote the website to the public, to increase the traffic and to draw the attention to this project. Different strategies were discussed to reach this action. The social media presence should be increased, the partners are requested to post information related to different actions, like work in progress, meetings, workshop videos etc. Also the corporate design of the ceramics website was presented to all partners.

In the end a general update on management topics were given, with some input by the Joint Secretary. The next steering group meetings were discussed, in regard to looking forward to meet everybody face-to-face. So hopefully the next steering group meeting will be held in Faenza in May in combination with the CerDee mid-term-conference.