CUR - Grégoire PATEAU (FR)

The Union brings together 16 member organizations, representing nearly 3,000 artistic and cultural structures engaged in a wide range of activities: creation, production, and dissemination of artistic projects and events; cultural initiatives within local communities; the creation of public and civic spaces through artistic practices; transmission of skills; and support for amateur practice development. 

Recognized at both territorial and national levels, UFISC contributes to consultations on public policies led by the State and local authorities, as well as to the professional structuring of the sector. 
It supports organizations, teams, and project leaders through various programs, and provides collective working spaces to improve employment conditions, foster mutual knowledge among structures, and strengthen cooperation. 

UFISC leads cooperation initiatives and research-action projects, and works on observing practices and analyzing alternative ways of operating. It develops open initiatives, based on partnerships and the public interest, addressing key issues such as cultural diversity and cultural rights, territorial cooperation, solidarity-based economy, and ecological and civic transitions. 

Every two years, UFISC organizes POP MIND, a major collective and civic gathering aimed at “building networks” to “build common ground” with other civic stakeholders—creating spaces to exchange, support one another, innovate, and cooperate, thereby contributing, from the ground up, to the construction of an open space for culture and solidarity. 

UFISC is also active at the European level through several projects, such as COOPTERR, which brought together six countries around territorial cooperation and cultural rights, and which now continues through the training program LOOKING UP.