The art of networking

A first overview

ECCM (1992 - 2010)

The ECCM (European Cultural Capitals and Months) started off in 1992 and folded in 2010.

The ECCM Network with Spyros Mercouris as its honorary president wanted to advance the notion of culture which would safeguard the legacy of Melina Mercouri while working together more informally than formally to pass on experience from former to current and future European Capitals of Culture and Months.

Events of the ECCM:

1997 Seminar about "Vision and Experience" held in Thessaloniki

2005 First Symposium in Athens and start of the 'network of networks'

2006 General Assembly held in Patras

along with exhibition "20 years of history" curated by Spyros Mercouris

2007 ECCM Symposium: Productivity of Culture in Athens and Kids' Guernica exhibition

2010 ECCM ceases to exist as legel entity

Spyros Mercouris - Pynx Declaration Athens 2005

A network to link former, current and future ECoC cities

The ECCM attempted to keep together old, current and future European Capitals of Culture, but the ECCM network failed increasingly so to respond to the needs of current and future cities. For who wishes to hear repeatedly claims about how great has been Athens 1985, when time was running out to prepare for the decisive year.

Eric Antonis at Pynx - Athens 2005

The network started off from a group of highly motivated, equally innovative personalities like Eric Antonis, Bob Palmer, Karin Fisher etc. This meant much more an 'informal' get together of people who agreed with each other at various levels of highly sophisticated equally practical understanding as to what needs to be undertaken, in order to further the arts and culture.

However, the newer European Capitals of Culture were organised increasingly so not only by cultural managers, if not management teams, but also as well by outside experts who came to the city for two to five years maximum and left immediately thereafter to do a similar job elsewhere. Ulrich Fuchs is a good example of this. He started in Bremen when helping the city to draft its bid but lost out against Ruhr 2010; then, he was active over five years for Linz 2009, and after that he joined Marseilles 2013. No wonder when Bob Palmer would remark in 2010 at the 25 year celebration of ECoC cities held in Brussels, that the programmes were looking more and more alike.

Also the explosing in the number of cities with such a designation (in 2000 there were named nine cities) made networking that miuch more difficult.

While the start of the ECoC project was carried by outstanding personalities like Spyros Mercouris, Bob Palmer, Eric Antonis, Karin Fisher etc., the second and third generations are no longer so much engaged in the ECoC cause as they are much more the new CEOs of culture at European level.

As for Spyros Mercouris, the brother of Melina Mercouri, he was a natural figure to continue the legacy of the ECoC since he was also the first coordinator when Athens became the first city to be designated this title of European Capital of Culture. Once the ECCM network formed, he became its key figure in the ECCM network. As brother of Melina Mercouri and as first coordinator of Athens, he wanted to safeguard her legacy.

Out goes the ECCM network, in come the new ones...

However, increasingly the criticism was heard that the ECCM was not meeting the demands of the new cities sufficiently.

Also a general feeling was reinforced that an informal network with no membership dues and therefore no formal rules would be much more flexible in passing on know-how and make possible an exchange of experiences.

Unfortunately a break occured after Patras 2006 when Luxembourg left the ECCM as member out of protest against breakage of some formal rules e.g. to make the Catalonian Xavier Tudela not only a member of the ECCM but also to vote him into the Executive Committee; relieving the old Executive Committee and voting into office a new Executive Committee without the General Assembly having approved the budget of the previous year; and not registering at the legal office in Luxembourg changes in the constitution of the ECCM Network even though changes had been made and adopted since 2002. The failure to register them meant the ECCM operated on an outdated legal basis or its practices were no longer covered, legally speaking.

There was also controversy surrounding the exhibition '20 years of history' which had been curated by Spyros Mercouris. It seemed that he had not listened to the advise of working groups within the ECCM who wished certain topics to be covered by the exhibition and this in a conjoined way with what was achieved in this regard by every European Capital of Culture e.g. publication of poetry, literature and other works of art. There was also a complaint about the expenses for the exhibition which did not match with what was put on display. Spyros Mercouris had himself great difficulties in obtaining the contributions from all the cities which had been European Capitals of Culture and he had to travel at least 15 times from Athens to Patras in order to negotiate and to obtain finally the money from the organisation running Patras 2006.

At the same time the ECOC Policy group headed by Liverpool '08 and supported by cities like Essen/Ruhr 2010 establish the form of working together through an informal network. This break between past, current and future cities needs to overcome by a transmission of knowledge.

As any kind of rupture between the old and the new has to do with inadequate models being used to reflect upon this development, more often things get stuck than allow for a new consistency. A favorite saying of Spyros Mercouris is to absorb the past, do things in the present in order to shape the future. Thus a formal network is ever more needed in the interest of wishing to further the cultural development in Europe. For that to take place an overarching agreement should be attained as to what type of networking can facilitate this passing on of knowledge about Europe's cultures. This is especially important if EU cultural policy is not to fail where it is most crucial, namely to link cities and their cultures to Europe as a whole.

The fact that by 2010 more than 45 European Capital Culturals exist, makes networking between all these cities even of greater significance. Obviously this is linked to the growing diversity of experiences made while more and more studies have enriched insights into how best to facilitate organisation, work of artistic directors, programming, communication and sustainability, in order to ascertain the extra European dimension to qualify this particular one year as a success story.

The ECoC 'informal network'

More can be said about this new force making itself felt especially around Bob Scott, chairman of the official selection committee of future European Capitals of Culture. Since he is linked to Liverpool '08 he convey a very specific EU policy reflective of the British "common sense" attitude. That influence upon the selection of the ECOCs has yet to be comprehended. It has done away with the ECCM Network as formal network in favor of an 'informal network' restricted to current and future European Capitals of Culture and to those cities who were ECOC during the previous two years. The latter is designed to gain in influence and to shape EU policy not only with regards to European Capitals of Culture, but beyond that how primarily the national approach to culture shall prevail over Europe's cultural diversity.

Two distinct developments followed this. While Liverpool created the Institute of Cultural Capital to continue doing culture related research projects e.g. the impact of the London Cultural Olympics, Ruhr 2010 has handed over its archive to the 'House of History' while at regional level an new agency is being created to uphold this imaginary reference of Ruhr as a region, and this in cultural innovative terms.

The University Network of European Capitals of Culture

There has come into existence since 2006 as well the University Network of European Capitals of Culture. The latter is meant to focus on the contribution of universities located in these cities which have been European Capitals of Culture or about to become one of them. Contributions can include everything from participation in cultural events to the completion of cultural impact studies. The latter assessments are crucial not only to know what this year has brought finally brought about but is mandatory from the side of the European Commission.

For instance, the University Network of European Capitals of Culture organized in 2010 its conference in Pecs, seat of the secretariat of the network:

City of Pécs - UNeECC-Compostela Joint Conference - Events ...
Pécs, European Capital of Culture in 2010 and the fifth largest city in ... Pécs has received the prestigious title The European Capital of Culture for the ...
www.uneecc.org/htmls/city_of_pecs.html

The University Network of European Capitals of Culture has following website:www.uneecc.org

The Documentation Centre of the European Capitals of Culture

Besides the ECOC policy group as informal network, there is the University Network and the Documentation Centre in Athens. If we can get them to cooperate then the different angles may be fruitful for future transmissions of experiences made. It is, however, crucial that the cultural self understanding of European Capitals of Culture are not made, for instance, into representatives of their national cultures.

Already at the last symposium organised by the ECCM Network under the theme 'Productivity of Culture' in Athens 2007 the idea was discussed that a 'network of networks' would be needed if Europe as a whole is to face the global challenge to its cultural diversity.

The current crisis in Europe underlines the problem that we have no cultural integration but national mind sets so that the opportunity is squandered every year when a city becomes a capital of culture but does not feel responsible for what is happening to culture(s) in Europe.

The ECCM has given its documentations of the European Capitals of Culture to the City of Athens to the Documentation Centre in Athens, but which existed only from 2007 until 2009.

Documentation Centre on European Capitals of Culture (DCCC)
www.ecoc-doc-athens.eu

There can be found documents and materials linked to activities by Spyros Mercouris, former honorary president of the ECCM. It came about thanks to Rodolfo Masalias, former coordinator of the ECCM Network and cultural advisor to the Mayor of Athens until 2009. Ingo Weber, former ECCM member and advisor to Berlin when European Capital of Culture, was also involved in the set-up of the Documentation Centre.

Conclusion

Definitely if culture is both a 'search for truth' (Michael D. Higgins) and a way to sustain life despite set-backs, austerity included, then because creativity itself describes best how man can find a way through life. At the level of cities, this entails stories and memories best told by having a city museum (Lewis Mumford). Not all cities have them, and while these cities struggle in their inner core between tourist-consumer havens, they have also their pockets of resistance even if others would label them as ghettos in the making.

However, it all depends on how gentrification is understood once some severe interventions are made in the name of mega events like the Olympic Games, and in a softer but still macro version of being European Capital of Culture for one year. Who does not believe in the transformations cities go through as a consequence of being the ECoC for one year, needs only to look at Weimar 1999, Genova 2004, Liverpool 2008 or Marseilles 2013 (the latter undertaking like all previous harbor cities a massive revamping of its water front, and not alone, for many more architectural innovations have been realized in Marseilles due to re-use of former industrial buildings).

What is needed for a continuity of learning is that former, current and future ECoC cities stay connected and through the Institution of European Capital of Culture contribute to the unfolding of European culture(s). As this requires the art of networking, it might be reminded this begins and ends with the art of bringing together people. When Poiein kai Prattein held its one day conference on Rhodes on June 4th 2011, and this at the end of a week long workshop looking into water / wetland issues related to the 'open question of development' (and it is also an art to keep open potentialities for the future rather than merely use everything till exhaustion), then the artist Insa Winkler and the group interactivist Maria Bakari unfolded a red fishing net to connect all participants of the conference. And so doing they could discuss a key question posed by the poetess Katerina Anghelaki Rooke, namely 'when is a compromise not always morally wrong?' Speaking at the height of the Greek crisis, that question resounds strongly not only in terms of what politicians have agreed to when signing the Memorandum of Understanding, but also what compromises society itself accepts in order to stand up to the debt incurred and which is in need to be resolved since in history the budget has after all the most decisive voice (Schumpeter).

Insa Winkler and Maria Bakari - the art of networking

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