Live your culture with Danka

Danka revamps its cultural guide as the web-portal goes national.


Saadia Qamar April 27, 2011

KARACHI:


Danka — a web portal that started in 2005 in Lahore has now emerged as a complete guide at the national level. Now based in three major cities of Pakistan — Lahore,  Karachi and Islamabad — it’s a website for people who want to stay updated on cultural happenings, as well as for organisers as an online marketing tool.


Matthias Gattermeier, an Austrian national, is the manager at Danka and runs the entire show based here in Pakistan. Talking to The Express Tribune, Gattermeier shared his vision behind the project.

What is Danka?

Danka is a not-for-profit social initiative dedicated to advance Pakistan’s culture as a whole. While it started as an online event listing, Danka pursues more proactive approaches to let people explore their cultural heritage, for instance, by organising cultural trips for students.

How did the idea of a cultural portal come about?

Danka was founded in 2005 by my friends. Many of them were attached to the cultural place in Lahore called Chitrikar.

How large is your team?

We are based in three major cities, with a different number of members in every place. Currently in Lahore, we have around eight people working in Danka.

What’s Danka philosophy?

The website follows an approach of openness. Anyone can contribute by uploading events, by creating their own page or by updating an artist’s page. Just about everything is possible and we are constantly extending the features of the platform.

How is the new Danka different from Danka Lahore and Danka Karachi?

Danka is a nationwide initiative. For reasons of convenience and logistics, the old project was split into city-versions. If you have a look at the new platform, www.danka.tv, you will notice that the new filter technique made this segregation obsolete. Now Danka covers all cities in one spot.

What makes Danka different from KarachiSnob.com?

KarachiSnob.com has an entirely different objective. Danka has a horizontal and neutral approach. We communicate and appreciate the culture of our country as a whole, not making differences between different social classes or groups. Also, Danka is not aiming to generate profit but to encourage people to explore and discover their own culture. This makes us unique within the cultural scene of Pakistan.

Being six years old, how has Danka positioned itself in a niche market?

It is fair to say that Danka always was and still is the number one platform when it comes to cultural event listing and communication in Pakistan. This unique position is due to the fact that the platform was not only born out of necessity but was invented by creative artists, cultural centres and the audience itself.

How do you deal with terrorism against cultural activities?

We have never received any threat. And we do consider our work as a part of the answer to the problem. There is no reason for us to give up, there is no alternative to our work. Sometimes we even feel that the recent political development raises the need for cultural activities. Many new cultural places are popping up and the number of such events numbers is increasing all over the country.

Where do you see Danka in the next few years?

The platform now does something really new: It connects event locations and artists automatically. If you select any of our artist profiles online, you will see where he or she will perform next month or if you have a look at the location page, you will get a whole list of all cultural performances that were held or are about to take place at that place.

Danka has the potential to make the cultural scene of Pakistan more vibrant, more lively and more active. The more artists, event organisers, cultural centres and the general public participate, the more they benefit. Culture is the core ingredient of democracy, participation and peace.

One word to define Danka would be?

One word might just not be enough. Essentially Danka means to “Live your culture”.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28th, 2011.

COMMENTS (27)

Shahid Mirza | 12 years ago | Reply @ fatima, I wont even feel surprised if “people with dark skins” might have suspicions about the intentions of “people with skins of lighter shades” but that’s a psychological problem rather than cultural/anthropological problem. I am surprised at your comment miss anthropologist, It is not a psychological problem, it is a political problem.
Shahid Mirza | 12 years ago | Reply @mm: why forners have to come here and expedite cultural events is pakistani people dont want to do hard stuff. Forners dont come here or go anywhere else to expedite culture but on assignments or vacation, and the hard stuff is born and fixed if/when by locals, sponsorships are different as those are business investments and not love of art. Doing painting/music/dance in pakistan is hard now thanks to the ill conceived policies of the west and americans who promoted the jihadi groups to fight communism, the nato army is still fighting a war here, posting stuff which local do on the website is hardly hard stuff and requires average intelligence/effort, you could have just hired a sensible person and saved you the 'paid' trip to expedite culture. We are reminding you that culture is good thing for your country. Thank you very much, we are creating art since Indus valley civilization which btw is not a dead culture but a continuous one so we told you what culture was to begin with. Only if you were more intimately familiar with the local scene (any locality that is) you would have learned that culture is not something you put on walls, perform on stage or advertise on danka, you make it, live it and nurture with sweat & blood. West has better culture because it is more developed and people give value to it. It is not better you are more accustomed to it for others it could be ridiculous, the west has managed to steal enough money & man power from colonization to be in the dictating position not because they were better artists but because they were better armed and posses better advertising skills. people in the west give value to it because they have been brainwashed to buy and sell art, you have the royals & the royalty, here it is debatable, we primitives value the artistic expression more than the market value. Pakistani people should appreciate something by us instead of criticising always. no one had the idea of doing something like this when we started it. Wrong wrong & wrong, it is a local idea developed/executed by the locals with foreign friends (WE) who are not as crude as you fortunately and had the ability to appreciate local culture, engage with locals and do less talking & more concrete work. Plus the idea of having a cultural directory on net did not start with danka anyways it was an idea which was just replicated here. Eventually you will learn there is no Pakistani people as such, its a misconception, we are punjabi, baluchi, pakhtoon and sindhi people and very few understand english let alone use internet so whatever you do it only caters to a certain class of people..the worst class. @natasha, i have been a part of danka since it was born and remain a part of it till date i was about to provide you answers you sought but thanks to mm (head of operations at present) ended up being on your side, thanks for your input.
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