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Cultural News of ECoC cities
Cultural news - Feb. 2014
Riga 2014
"Culture is that undeniable and irresistible force, which is able to direct changes into a positive stream, turning fear into a challenge and a venturous joy, and uncertainty – into trust in the creative spirit." - key slogan of Riga for that decisive year.
For official information: http://riga2014.org/en/
Umeå 2014
Official website: http://www.umea2014.se/inenglish
Umea will also host the next conference of the University Network come October 2014.
Talking points
The plight of artistic directors
The plight of artistic directors was already addressed during the EU consultation process in 2011 when discussing the future selection process and related matters. There are many who get simply ousted especially after they have done their duty to their respective cities. To name but a few of the most recent cases, they are Trevor Davis in Aarhus, Adam Chmielewski in Wroclam and Marshall in Valletta. Their cases can be compared to the fate of NGOs who succeed in making the bid for the title and then are likewise pushed aside by other forces e.g. Pecs and Istanbul in 2010. As this touches upon an uneasy relationship between the arts and politics, the heavy handed way of dealing with this highly vulnerable position would require from the European Commission to develop a methodology by which commitment to this need to preserve the independence of the artistic director becomes something like a part of the precondition for cities to get the title. It may be called guarantee of political stability. Clearly someone like Bob Palmer could not have been successful first in Glasgow 1990 or then in Brussels 2000 had he not enjoyed the full support of the mayor or in the case of Brussels of the 18 Municipalities which were involved.
Repeatedly the jury selecting the city to be designated the title, and afterwards the monitoring committee recommend and reprimand cities for not having such a clear commitment to their respective artistic director. Often they put all their trust into the hands of a manager or even more so into some kind of committee. It means that the political influence of the mayor and his office along still other political forces is too great and therefore fails to take into consideration the need for the independent artistic director, if true artistic inspirations will ensure that invaluable content during the implementation of a year long cultural programme shall be realized.
Within the shaping of the cultural programme for one year the working together with artists is greatly neglected. Instead the festival concept and cultural industry orientation dominate as crowd puller but without making any real investments in the arts and culture.
Ongoing research questions
Three interesting questions for further research and comparison / connecting different ECoC cities and their respective legacies:
- what have Cultural Capitals of Culture done for the youth?
- which cities did something for the Roma people?
- Kosice 2013 wanted to connect former, current and future cities but to what extent did they succeed in this effort?
SidRückblende / Looking back in the mirror - the relationship of current and future ECoC cities to former ECoC cities and their legacies
Essen / Ruhr 2010 included not merely 53 cities but the entire Ruhr region. The latter finds itself in a tremendous transition from former coal mining and steel companies to an economic region of the 21st century. Since 2010 was earmarked to promote the Cultural and Creative Industries, it is one question to what extent the one year had been able to give sufficient impulses for such a development? Unfortunately that year of 2010 was interrupted with the tragic event surrounding the 'Love Parade' when a stampede of masses of people squeezing through one tunnel as only entry and exit started to panic. But aside from this legacy which every new ECoC keeps in mind - Ulrich Fuchs marvelled how public events in Marseille could pass without any major incidence despite 500 000 people taking to the streets - there is still another way of looking at what are the changes in such a region.
Ernst Käbisch takes his bicycle to discover the entire region. It is worthwhile to follow his recommendations as his reports high light clearly how the region looks like and how it is changing along side with all the factors adding and taking away cultural elements from what is at best the making of a regional instead of a local or national identity, including the multicultural aspects, high unemployment and the very different cultures from city to city.
Wandel im Ruhrgebiet - Betrachtungen von Ernst Käbisch
Legacy of Marseille and Koscie 2013
Rue Republic in Marseille - boards covering up old houses
Official website: http://www.mp2013.fr/?lang=en
Articles include discussions about use of public spaces, as well as what the new Museum for Civilization from Europe and Mediterranean can offer in terms of another typology of culture not covered by popular or folklore narratives. It would mean departing from the classical system of categories taken from ethnology and anthropology so as to provide first of all insights into the various angles of perception of the Mediterranean region and its cultural differences even in terms of modernity. In the wake of the Arab Spring which began in 2011, the North-South dialogue has still here no real apprehension about existing borders and limits in mutual understanding.
Marseille 2013 in the archive of Poiein kai Prattein, see:
http://ecoc.poieinkaiprattein.org/european-capital-of-culture/Marseille-2013/
Košice in 2013: http://www.kosice2013.sk/en/
They had as an aim to connect former, current and future ECoC cities - but aside from creating an impressive website to gather information, so far nothing further has been heard of to what extent they reached any agreement with the other ECoC cities.
San Sebastian and Wroclaw preparing for 2016
In conjunction with Kids' Guernica - Guernica Youth, efforts are under way to initiate such actions which will fulfil the children and youth dimension of European cultures.
Valletta and Leeuwarden preparing for 2018
Valletta held in May 2013 a conference titled "small city - big dreams" to mark the reception of the official title for 2018. Since then preparing for that decisive year has started by initiating first of all a cultural mapping exercise. Departure for that is a well thought through bid book.
The city is undertaking cultural mapping exercises and is preparing for a major conference in September 2014 to see how Europe is and can be connected through culture.
Italian city for 2019
In Italy there are 21 cities competing for the title for 2019. In the past, Florenz has been in 1986 and Bologna in 2000 European Capitals of Culture.
Greece –selection of the next ECoC for 2021
It will be the turn of Greece to select a city come 2021. What procedure the government shall adopt, is not known. Will it come at all to a competition between various cities, or shall the selection be handled once again as if Greece is like Malta or Luxembourg but a single and very centralized state? And will the European Commission resist and insist upon having a competition rather than one city being merely appointed due to some internal agreement at the highest level? Athens 1985, Thessaloniki 1997 and Patras 2006 have not managed to set a premise for a continuity of learning out of these past failures. Likewise the year 2021 would allow Greece to do a retrospective of its past 200 years, provided there is a willingness to learn out of all the mistakes. But no doubt there is always the claim of being the birthplace of democracy and thus this cultural heritage shall be used by the elite to establish a new interpretation of an old myth without ever so much learning out of this claim of having a heroic past, ergo likewise the status of things in the present.
Of interest is that as of late Syros has entered the contest. It is said that some wealthy people on the island have given money in support of their bid, and that they are doing quite a lot of work to make Syros and its network of Aegean islands into a strong candidate city.
5th edition of the European Capitals of Culture Reports
by Palmer, Greg Richards and Diane Dodd
ART-idea is organising a Conversation with the authors in the Convent Sant Agustí in Barcelona on Friday, 13th of December 2013.
For more information go to
ART-idea - Creative solutions for local development
www.art-idea.eu
IGCAT - International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism
www.eigcat.org
Tel: (+34) 93 760 1472
Mobile: (+34) 655 90 15 80
info@art-idea.eu
info@igcat.org
Is doing a lot of research on legacies of ECoC, and this in conjunction with evaluation methods equally applicable to Olympic Games and their impact. One research strand focuses on digital culture.
Source: http://iccliverpool.ac.uk/about/cultural-policy/
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