More about the Network

The Network is a child of the political changes that took place in Europe in 1989/90. At that time, there was also a sharp increase in cultural challenges. All cultural sectors were required to reappraise their content, historic sources and future forms of cultural production. The textile sector was no exception.

The Network was initiated by our current Secretary General, Beatrijs Sterk, in February 1990. Attracting 42 participants from 23 countries, our first conference was held in the East German town of Erfurt in June 1991. At that working meeting, the Network's tasks, still applicable today, were outlined and published in a brochure available in English, French, Russian and German language.

Our second conference, held in Lausanne in 1992, discussed and decided the future structure of the Network. Our intention was to establish a democratically organised, International Association as well as a Cultural Foundation committed to ETN's goals.

The Association was brought into being in April 1993, based in Strasbourg and under Council of Europe patronage. In the same year, ETN became the carrier network for textiles in the Council of Europe's Cultural Itineraries programme.

Subsequent conferences held in Budapest/Szombathely (1994), St. Petersburg (1995), Manchester (1996), Kherson/Ukraine (1996), Brussels (1997), Barcelona/Madrid (1998), Rovaniemi (1999), St. Truiden/B (2000), Riga (2001) and Prato (2003) served to develop European cooperation in the field of textile culture.

Upon an initative by the Mayor of the Lower Saxony town of Delmenhorst, representatives from textile towns and textile regions met in order to prepare the Cultural Foundation, with ETN's goals in mind.

The 'Net Cultural Foundation' was established in Brussels in June 1997. The Foundation is under the patronage of the Association of European Regions (AER), but currently out of function due to lack of financial support.

Since 1997 the Network's tasks are carried by ETN and supported by a documentation, information and coordination service (DIC service) of Textile Forum Service (TFS).

Following the establishment of NET, the division of tasks in the new ETN-NET Alliance was resolved in June '97. Those resolutions form the basis for the Network's activities as we approach the threshold to the 21st century.

MEASURE AND PROJECT PARTICIPANTS
1 Only carriers of culture (cult. org./schools/museums etc.)
2 Only public bodies and private entities
3 Cooperation between carriers of culture and private entities
4 Cooperation between carriers of culture and public bodies
5 Cooperation between participants of all Network groups

The ETN Association

The ETN Association brings together the so-called 'carriers of culture' like institutions and persons belonging to the cultural sector (in need of subventions), e.g. museums, educational institutions and artist/designer organizations. In most cases the textile departments of such cultural institutions cannot act independently e.g. regarding membership in professional associations. Therefore many ETN members are forced to pay their contribution privately. At the setting up of ETN this handicap was taken into account by allowing individual memberships, even if the Network furthermore sees itself as an association of textile-cultural institutions and organizations.

ETN is mostly carried by staff members, who are subject to directions, or by free-lance service providers/producers from the field of textile culture. This circle of persons is considering itself mostly as economically not very strong even if they carry the responsibility for the whole of the textile cultural sector and fulfill an indispensable task in society.

It was part of the impulse to set up ETN to contribute to the textile carriers of culture by joining forces in order to fulfill the necessary tasks with more self-confidence. It is for this reason that the Network is again and again appealing to the solidarity of such carriers of textile culture who could not yet decide to cooperate in this sense. It is also for this reason that the annual fees are kept relatively small and that the association is organized in a democratic way. ETN is the forum for the self-organization for carriers of textile culture in Europe.

The NET Cultural Foundation (Net of the Euregion for Textiles)

The NET Cultural Foundation is the spiritual product of the ETN members from the founder period (1990 - 93). Already at a very early point in time it was recognized in the circle of the Network that the carriers of textile culture will have to cooperate with more powerful partners if they are to gain more freedom within their institutions and more recognition in cultural life as a whole. Natural associates are the historical and contemporary textile regions as well as the companies and organizations from textile industry & trade. Both groups of partners are basically dependent on the textile cultural sector, risking to lose larger parts of their image as well as a substantial part of their material ressources when they do not support the carriers of textile culture. - The current economical crises in most of the European textile regions and in the private textile and clothing industry can also be seen as the result of a disintegration of the fields of textile culture and textile industry & trade in the last decades! Both sides are responsible in equal parts for this negative development, therefore changes can only be made together.

The ETN Association must be interested in assisting textile regions and companies in their efforts to cope with structural change. - With the NET Cultural Foundation this step towards joint action has been taken. Unfortunately the second step is still missing, therefore the Foundation is currently out of function.

The DIC Service

The documentation, information and coordination service (DIC Service) has grown from Beatrijs Sterk's work in publishing. She has produced the German 'Textilforum' magazine since 1982, and has also published an English edition under the name of Textile Forum since 1995.

In the Network's founding period (1990 - 93), the small specialist publishing house run by our initiator continued to try to cater to basic information needs. Constantly growing demands on the ETN Secretariat for administrative, documentary and communicative services meant that a new organisational arrangement had to be found. Since the establishment of the Network the DIC service has been and still is run by Textile Forum Service (TFS).

A group of 36 participants from 16 countries decided upon the new structure of the Network at the Royal Museums of Art & History in Brussels on June, 5th and 6th 1997.