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Wrocław chosen as European Capital of Culture 2016

21st June 2011

http://www.wbj.pl/article-55086-wroclaw-chosen-as-european-capital-of-culture-2016.html?typ=ise

On Tuesday Wrocław, capital of Lower Silesia in southern Poland, was chosen as European Capital of Culture 2016 by a panel of Polish and European Union experts.

The city was competing with Gdańsk, Katowice, Lublin and Warsaw. Wrocław will be Poland’s second city (after Kraków in 2000) to benefit from this huge visibility and opportunity to boost tourism and jobs.

Upon giving their decision, the experts congratulated the city but stressed that a lot of work still needed to be done which would require strong commitment from public authorities. A final decision is expected to be made at the EU level in 2012.

Two cities, one from Poland the other from Spain, will hold the title of European Capital of Culture in 2016. The selection of a Spanish city is expected to be made on June 30.

For the report by the jury as to why they chose Wroclaw, see

http://ec.europa.eu/culture/our-programmes-and-actions/doc/ecoc/selection_report_poland2016_en.pdf

 

Introduction

Some interesting experiences could be made at the start of collaboration with the Polish city of Wroclaw, one of the five candidate cities in Poland seeking the title in 2016. Since Piotr Olszowska calls this a city of journey, the city is on the best way to examine how it can become true to itself and this as 'secret capital of Poland'. It should be recalled that while after 1989 the work of redemption has taken on another dimension since now in the context of post Stalinist and Socialist times, there was issued already in 1963 the letter of forgiveness by the bishop of Wroclaw. It should be recalled that the city was called until 1945 Breslau for it was a German city. At the end of the war the entire German population was expelled or driven out. In their stead a Polish population moved in. This was a consequence of a huge displacement from the East to the West as ordered by Stalin and which became a part of the legacy after 1945. It should be said that this letter of forgiveness was drafted with the advice of the philosopher Krucina who calls redemption a work of love. Appropriately Wroclaw is also called 'lots of love' in order to help especially those who have difficulties in pronouncing the Polish name.

With cities and regions like Sonderborg 2017 or Wroclaw 2016 seeking the title 'European Capital of Culture', there is a need to bring about a clearer understanding as to what works, what not in culture. In view of all the over commercialization, European Capitals of Culture are at risk to become huge cultural industries (Bob Palmer). Already at the conference organised by the University Network of European Capitals of Culture in Pecs, October 2010, there was being referred to a growing resistance by artists against this mere functional use of culture. The same criticism can be applied to a way to speak about culture which is completely devoid of any artistic and therefore cultural content. So thanks to the initiative taken by the philosopher Adam Chmielewski, Wroclaw 2016 does stand for the need to take serious an authentic culture. As this has many implications, it might be best to take into consideration the essay Bart Verschaffel wrote on 'authenticity as criterion in architecture'.

As for the link between Wroclaw 2016 and Kids' Guernica, it should be noted that Picasso painted his famous pigeon in Wroclaw while attending an International Peace Conference held there in 1948. As to another, more problematic linkage, it has to be said that the person who was responsible for the bombardment of Guernica in 1937, originated from there. It was the aristocrat von Richthoven who was related as the name suggests to the famous pilot called the Red Baron. Adam Chmielewski has the intention to name one public space in the city the "Spanish Square" to underline the connection to the Spanish city which shall be designated as well to be the parallel European Capital of Culture in Spain come 2016 when there will be as well one Polish city, and hopefully it shall be Wroclaw. If so, Kids' Guernica shall be a major event of the year's program and the Kids' Guernica exhibition shall be held in that Spanish square.

Since a similar proposal has been made to the Spanish city Burgos by Diane Dodd, while San Sebastian, one of the four other cities in Spain candidating for the title 'European Capital of Culture' has expressed as well interest in Kids' Guernica, all these latest developments and proposals were discussed at the one day Kids' Guernica conference held in Gent, Belgium on February 18th, 2011. The aim was to examine the cultural dimension of peace and to bring about a White Paper of Social Communication for Kids' Guernica world wide.The aim is to bring about further cultural cooperation between all these cities, since San Sebastian is but 50 km away from Guernica while Burgos was the city were Franco kept his headquarters while on the outskirts of this city can still be visited the airstrips from where the planes took off when they bombed Guernica in 1937.

Since war forces upon culture false compromises, peace means reaching true compromises by means of cultural consensus. If successful, it will have a deep impact on how people communicate in the digital age as exemplified by what brought about the downfall of Mubarak in Egypt. The key element of that type of communication is that people step outside hierarchical organisations and liberate themselves by beginning to share and to contribute to the making of a lively society based on human dignity and the freedom of man, woman and child.

Hatto Fischer

16.1.2011

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