European Capitals of CultureΠοιειν Και Πραττειν - create and do

According to the bid the following concrete activities are planned:

¡Olé!

Wrocław will immediately and actively proceed to collaborate with San Sebastian on symbolic, organisational, educational, tourism, and emotional areas.

Symbolic Area

Spanish Square in Wrocław. Upon the designation of Wrocław as European Capital of Culture, we will name one of our city’s central squares Spanish Square.

Kids’ Guernica. We have joined the Kids’ Guernica project initiated 15 years ago by Takuya Kaneda. Wrocław is particularly entitled to participation in the project, as Wolfram von Richthofen, who was personally responsible for bombing the Spanish city, was born nearby. If our bid is successful, we want to include all European Union countries in this original project, which relates to the tragic fate of Spain and other nations afflicted by war. In this way Wrocław’s children will make their contribution to world peace. See Action in Wroclaw

A Wrocław Gnome in Spain. One of the icons of Wrocław is the Gnome, a figure created by the Orange Alternative political and artistic movement back in communist days. The gnomes became Wrocław’s symbol of opposition to the absurdities of the communist regime. Wrocław has proved to be a friendly ecological niche for the Gnome: he has a lot of offspring, currently more than 160, inhabiting various corners of the city. Immediately after its designation, Wrocław will ask its partner European Capital of Culture in Spain to adopt the latest member of the vast family, a sculpted gnome named Delegate.

Organisational Área

We will ask San Sebastian to prepare a ceremony during which a delegation from Wrocław will present the Wrocław gnome sculpture. This occasion, combined with the signing of an official cultural agreement, will mark the beginning of cooperation with the partner city in Spain.

We will create mechanisms to support non-institutional initiatives, and we declare openness to independent projects, whether originating in Wrocław or in San Sebastian’s 2016 Bid region.
Hoping to work in partnership with San Sebastian, we declare our commitment to the exchange of schoolchildren, students, journalists, and artists. After 2012, we are planning to fund several musical scholarships per year for artists nominated by the board of the Spanish European Capital of Culture.

Cultural Education Area

In 2012, we intend to build a pavilion in the city centre, on Spanish Square, where major works of the culture representing San Sebastian 2016 will be presented on plasma screens. The programme will continue throughout 2012, and then the cultures of other European Union countries will be presented.

In addition to introducing Spanish culture, we would also like to encourage the citizens of Wrocław to learn Spanish. We will launch a special programme encouraging inhabitants of our city to take part in the project; through joint lessons and conversations we want to overcome their reluctance to study foreign languages and resistance to other cultures. We would like the numerous Spanish students coming to Wrocław under the Erasmus scheme to play the role of teachers.

We want to make Wrocław’s Spanish Square a place where the regional cultures of Poland and Spain meet. Through regular cultural and artistic events and joint festivals of local cultures of the two regions, we will promote attitudes of cross-border dialogue and mutual exploration.

A Spanish Bookshop will soon open in Wrocław to promote the literatures and cultures of Spanish-speaking countries.

Tourism and Promotion Area

Cooperation between Wrocław and San Sebastian will also include more vigorous joint tourism policy. The two cities will jointly develop cultural tourism packages to facilitate exploration of the heritages of both cities and their respective regions and foster direct contacts between their inhabitants. Instytucja Kultury Wrocław 2016 in cooperation with the Lower Silesia Tourism Association will develop a programme for the promotion of Spain’s culture and tourism offering.

Emotional Area

Joint participation in great cultural events fosters a sense of community and promotes openness to, respect for, and appreciation of other cultures.

During the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Wrocław supported Spain, which had the largest following of Polish fans. For that reason we built a Fan Zone in the city centre, where fans could watch all the fixtures. In future, we will seek out similar opportunities for building ties between Poles and Spaniards. Football is particularly close to the hearts of both nations. We want to use this opportunity to borrow good models from future Spanish partners and shape the customs prevailing at Polish stadiums. We want sports grounds and arenas to become safe and friendly places of family recreation. Together with the Spanish partner, we will propagate a culture of tolerance at stadiums and promote the programme ‘Let’s Kick Racism out of Stadiums’.

Source: http://www.donostiasansebastian2016.eu/web/guest/capitalidad_europea/wroclaw-relaciones-con-dss2016