Students from the program Digital Cultures under the leadership of Mikael Askander are given the opportunity to work with real challenges from Stenkrossen and Mejeriet in their student projects. The work started with an initial study trip to Mejeriet and will be followed up with another visit to Stenkrossen. The student projects are part of Lund Municipality's Urban Lab within the project CCSC, Cultural and Creative Spaces and Cities, which is about creating engagement and developing collaborations to facilitate this. Mejeriet, Stenkrossen and Science Village are local partners together with Future by Lund in CCSC, which is a large EU project with international partners and universities.

Mejeriet opened its doors in 1987 and is a culture and youth center with various ventures such as a cinema, music activities, stand-up events, and rehearsal rooms. Live concerts have always been a large part of the business, although in recent years they have become somewhat fewer. New digital cultures have changed the habits and expectations of visitors. By working with students addressing various challenges, Mejeriet hopes to discover new ideas, both for the business and to reach new audiences.

– We realized that we also need to look at things from a new perspective, and giving the students challenges to solve is an opportunity for us to discover new approaches, says Marcus Lampe at Mejeriet. We want to become better at marketing ourselves, but we also want to provide opportunities for those who prefer to work creatively in solitude. For example, we see a media lab as an opportunity, where those who participate can create culture digitally. We have also noticed that it is not as easy to reach new audiences via Facebook and therefore we are considering what channels to use. There are also artists who would like to participate in podcasts, and through us the students can connect with them and borrow equipment for interviews.

An in-depth study on young people’s creation and production processes today, conducted with Lund Urban Lab, is behind the desire to reinvent and renew the business. The study complemented existing consumption-oriented surveys of cultural habits. The study found that a connection between being place specific and digital is a necessity to reach young people today. Physical places with no digital presence as a place are not as interesting. Digital experiences can be considered more effortless than purely physical visits. The study also identified that an increasing number of people are switching to solely using digital material with less live concert activities, which will pose a challenge for Mejeriet the future. Being able to connect the physical space with the digital will be an advantage, as there is a gap in expertise that needs to be addressed.

The students have studied one month of the three-year program in Digital Cultures.

– Every semester there will be project work for the students to learn the project as a form of work, says Mikael Askander, teacher at Digital Cultures. To achieve this, we need a client, which is why we have partnered with Future by Lund. The students will be divided into six groups and each group is tasked with developing a solution for an assignment.

Students will be able to work with challenges for Mejeriet and Stenkrossen or with solutions that are suitable for both.

– Different actors are working together to make it possible for young people to create, says Marcus. It is now possible to be involved in both Mejeriet and Stenkrossen, and we have various tools to offer. This will be a new venture for us and perhaps the students will identify the link between us and Stenkrossen.

Future by Lund will be involved as a project organizer and will also use part of the work as an observation for the policy project CCSC.

– It is exciting that there will be real cases that form the basis for the students' challenges, says Jimmy Sok, project manager at Future by Lund. This also provides the opportunity for their work to have a direct impact and offers us a concrete and in-depth knowledge of Lund and young people.

Now the work has started for the students to design their challenges in collaboration with others involved. The project work is ongoing until 15 January.

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Translation: Ben Dohrmann

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