Our Executive Director, Sarah Brown, Presents In Basque, Spain

Our very own Executive Director Sarah Brown returned from her trip to Basque Country in northern Spain this last week. She was invited to represent TwispWorks in participating in the final stage of an international research project about cultural creativity and innovation, lead by (and paid for!) by the Basque Government.

Here are some words she shared about her trip:

“The conference was a powerful gathering of the culture and creative industries sector from Uganda to Finland to Twisp! Attendees were working in organizations like ours, strategy work for foundations, and government policy experts. As you can imagine, there was so much to discuss, which made the time between presentations conversational and exciting.

Our host, the Basque Government, was very generous. They provided a very lovely river cruise to see how the industrial areas along the river are pivoting to address climate change and digital technology. We were also guided on a field trip to a revitalized warehouse district. This lead to some lively discussion about whether this effect could be described as gentrification and its impact artists.

We also heard from luminary Pier Luigi Sacco, a Professor of Economics at University of Chieti-Pescara, about just how critical it is for our communities, and humans in general, to integrate art and culture into our daily lives. There’s a new article in the Lancet about this if you’d like to read further.

The Washington State delegation was comprised of many folks from industry, government, and non-profit organizations like TwispWorks. We enjoyed chatting about how to implement new ideas and programs back at home.

I, of course, took advantage of being in a world-class art city by walking through the Guggenheim Museum.”

Very happy to have you home Sarah 🌿