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Small City / Big Dream 2013
Thursday 16 May 2013
Conference: Valletta
6pm - 9pm
Teatru Manoel
Entrance to Teatru Manoel
Program:
Invited speakers will question V.18's vision of making Valletta a great city and how Valletta can play a greater role within Europe and the Mediterranean region.
Moderator: Adrian Mamo
Speakers:
Jon McClory
Elena Natale
Shaun Grech
Marisa Marmara
Carlo Ratti
Gathering in the street outside of Teatru Manoel
First impressions - a cafe vis a vis and discussion with Marc Cabourdin about actions to save the water / community based actions with possible link to the action on Rhodes in 2011 being an entry into a 'biotope of ideas'.
While waiting for the conference to start, people started to arrive and to mingle in the street in front of the entry door to the theatre. There came about a new acquaintance: Natalie Mundle. She had just come to Valletta three months ago to take up work at the University of Malta, and this within a European project dealing with cultural heritage. Then, there came Paul Dalli, a retired accountant and someone who heads the NGO Mentoring Society of Malta. Once he got to know the field of study and research of Natalie, he said to her that there is one man who is most competent in Malta to talk about cultural heritage, and that is Ray Bondin. And just when he mentioned his name, ambassador to Portugal and permanent representative of Malta to UNESCO, Ray Bondin came down the street.
Ambassador Ray Bondin, Natalie Mundle, Paul Dalli
The evening inside the theatre
The Teatru Manoel has many levels of balconies. They were build for special audiences to watch performances from above. As Roy Bondin would explain later when giving a tour through the famous Cathedral, once the knights of Malta became not only rich but ever less engaged in wars and crusades, they started to enjoy life and to create spaces for performances.
The Jazz performance
The speakers
Introducing the speakers
Jon McClory - city branding and the attractivity of a city
Elena Natale from Tallinn: The Creative Hub as Legacy of Tallinn 2011
Elena Natale
Elena Natale's reflections showed where Valletta will be once 2018 is over and the work on the legacy shall be taken up. In the case of Tallinn which was European Capital of Culture, this meant converting a former Power Plant into a CREATIVE HUB so as to allow for an "adventurous culture"!
Gabriel Brunnich - UNESCO: Creative Cities Network - branching out, seven different categories - Valletta in the category for design -making application process simplier
Carlo Ratti
Carlo Ratti via Skype speaking to the audience and the panel
The virtual world - measuring heat waves in a city during a football game - the water fountain - viewing the world like a Formula 1 race: the assimilation of all relevant data - tracing where the rubbish floats to - tracking - moving about but what about making contact?
Note: since he was prevented from coming to Valletta, the discussion with him took place instead via Skype - modern communication technologies making this possible.
A little discussion took place afterwards, and then some wine and good Maltese food was offered in a side street as follow-up. It was a first experience as to what Valletta 2018 can offer.
A further evaluation of the evening was made the following day during the workshop in the Chamber of Commerce.
Conference Concept: Small City / Big Dream
"Small cities and cultural policies go back a long time. The first European city states in Ancient Greece promoted strong cultural tools with the aim to develop internal coherence on social and identity matters, with trade and exchange underpinning the whole enterprise. As part of the process, new ground was broken in language use, literature, philosophy, jurisprudence and the democratic management of the city. These characteristics, longed for and appropriated time and again throughout European history, from the Enlightenment to Nazi-Fascist regimes and on to today's political and monetary incarnation of Europa, in turn projected a clear and strong personality of each city state, and allowed for confrontation, or resolution of conflict and strategic partnerships, to be constructed on solid ground. Change was, as still is, the ironic constant, but the skills and experience to manage it, were a priority.
As a relatively small yet complex entity, with different levels of expertise and interest compressed in a focal way, a city state may become aware of challenges and exploit the opportunities they raise with more stealth than larger geopolitical spaces. Italian Renaissance cities have much to teach us, but what about Singapore, Qatar or Vatican City?
Urban Policy
Arguably, urban policy has taken over cultural policy. With the exception of frameworks drawn up by and practiced by rural areas, such as the candidacy for European Capital of Culture by Leeuwarden, in Frisian Holland, or the Majjistral Local Action Group in North Western Malta, policies aiming to support civic development through cultural measures primarily take place in built environment and cities large and small. The instrumentalisation process intensified from the 1980s onwards, as the concept of culture as a fundamental right to be guaranteed by government was critically called into question. As the cultural emancipation of 1968 was stifled by conservative common sense, culture lost its status as a means of achieving liberty independently of budgetary or civic concerns. The global crisis which ushered in postmodernity in the wake of 1973 demanded calculating heads and sensible visions to save urban centres, from Chicago to Paris, from floundering in bankruptcy and inner-city strife.
A new dawn for city life in Europe came about in 1985, when on the back of his front-line experience of how cultural policy could serve and further more pressing stately affairs like economic growth through new jobs and social coherence, Jack Lang inspired Melina Mercouri to launch the European City of Culture project on culturally rich, yet economically underperforming capitals. Urban development and infrastructure projects took centre stage and brought future Capitals in line with Olympic and Expo cities. Since Glasgow, city management, sustainability and an obsession with legacy have shown the way..."
Source: Draft programme for the conference issued by V18
Each city continues the narrative since Melina Mercouri initiated this idea as a meeting of people with artists.
« Developments after the designation | Workshop »