“Over the last twenty years, audiences for museums, galleries, and performing arts institutions have decreased, and the audiences that remain are older and whiter than the overall population. Cultural institutions argue that their programs provide unique cultural and civic value, but increasingly people have turned to other sources for entertainment, learning, and dialogue. They share their artwork, music, and stories with each other on the Web. They participate in politics and volunteer in record numbers. They even read more. But they don’t attend museum exhibits and performances like they used to.”

The text above is a statement from the preface of The Participatory Museum: a book/guide to working with community members and visitors for cultural institutions. All the more alarming is that the statement is actually based on research done by the National Endowment for the Arts on arts attendance in the United States. Nina Simon (also the principal of Museum 2.0) decided to write The Participatory Museum as a practical guide for museums and

other cultural organizations to help them become more connected to and entwined with their community. As she continues in her preface:

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Incubate festival gives its visitors the chance to take part in the program itself. During Open Source Arts visitors can show their own art, make their own radio program, show their own films and perform their own choreographies. Starting today, anyone can hand in material for the radio station, which will then be broadcasted during the festival between 11 and 18 September 2011.

For the first time, Incubate gives its visitors the opportunity to stand in the shoes of the promoters and the curators. Beside the broad program with many cutting-edge artists that Incubate offers, the public can express its own art form and add it to the festival in the Open Source Arts program. This is part of the discussion what the visitor should or could contribute to a cultural event. Incubate previously opened up

its business plan to the public on the Internet,

and let the visitors choose what they wanted to pay for a conference on piracy.

The Incubate Open Source program consists of the following events:

- Open source expo
- Open source radio
- Open source film program
- ‘Space that must be filled’ (dance)

Check out the events page on

our website for more info and how you can participate in these open source projects.