The ‘Cultural DNA?’ workshop examined whether cities have a distinct cultural identity and if so, how it could be employed within the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) programme. Therefore Jorijn Neyrinck (tapis plein, Bruges) and Neil Peterson (Liverpool Culture Company) were invited as speakers. The moderator of the discussion was Sjaak Koenis from Maastricht University.
After introducing the topic and the speakers, Koenis stated that it is quite difficult to come up with a clear cut definition of a city’s identity. In her presentation, Jorijn Neyrinck briefly traced Bruges’ identity construction before, while and after being the European Capital of Culture in 2002. She reflected on the effects of Bruges 2002 in order to prognosticate what this could mean for Maastricht 2018.
Neyrinck pointed out that Bruges has not got the contemporary dynamics of the modern European city. The idea of bidding for the ECOC title was based on a strive for sustainable long-term consequences, as a new chance for Bruges to digest its identity. Inspired by the competition, the aim was to (re)think the rather medieval city of Bruges in terms of durableness. In contrast, Neyrinck claimed that Maastricht is dynamic already, that it is a city with layered identities. And therefore, according to her before setting out to become ECOC, Maastricht should be clear about the purpose of its bid – the crucial question therefore is: “what do you want to be tomorrow”? In Bruges they had to make the choice between presenting a programme for citizens and a programme for visitors. Neyrinck said that in the end “it was a programme for all”. The crucial dialogue between city officials and the public was kept up by conferences and a public call for proposals. More than 150 projects were chosen and realized “without forgetting to think about the day after”. Responding to a question from the audience about the changes on the cultural level, Neyrinck put forward that culture in Bruges is more institutionalised than before with a lot of new organisations and the emergence of contemporary architecture.
Then, Sjaak Koenis handed the word over to Neil Peterson from the Liverpool Culture Company who presented a case study on the European Capital of Culture programme in 2008 in Liverpool. According to him, Liverpool did not expect to win the UK competition; the actual purpose of bidding was “just to be on the map”. “Things were improving anyway”, Peterson argued. Thus, the ECOC title was employed by Liverpool to present itself with a sustainable strategy that went beyond the popular conception of having ‘merely’ football and the Beatles. Peterson claimed that the ECOC “is like a big experiment to use culture for different things”. Furthermore, he stated that unlike the successful process of regeneration of a working-class town, economically the whole project “was not very attractive”. Six big strands of organization made Liverpool to become one of the most successful ECOCs in history:
- 1) Liverpool Commissions
- 2) Cultural Partner Enhancement
- 3) Festivals and Events
- 4) Creative Communities
- 5) Talks, Conferences, Lectures
- 6) Intercultural Dialogue
Peterson illustrated his presentation with a lot of examples of how to use a city’s DNA as an inspiration for cultural innovation such as the ‘Tall Ships’ reminiscent of Liverpool’s history of slave trade. “Don’t be afraid to do different things” was his argument justifying the extraordinarily expensive ‘Giant Spider’ or the spread of 120 ‘Superlambanas’ that were afterwards sold for charity. Furthermore, he pointed out that it was the title as a major event that raised the international profile, so that underlying cultural events put it together. Liverpool developed and promoted the programme through ‘themed years’ since 2003. In his presentation, Peterson stressed the importance of public engagement and dialogue that should encourage citizens to “create, participate, debate and state” without regard to ethnicity or cultural background. Peterson remarked that as a result of the event, Liverpool became the third popular city of the UK after London & Edinburgh. He concluded by saying that Maastricht should build on its cultural strengths without limiting its ambitions.
During the open discussion after the presentations, Pieter Caljé from Maastricht University noticed that unlike Bruges and Liverpool, Maastricht enjoys the status of having an image that is already attractive at first glance. However, he added that it is an enclosed city that should look across the national borders of the ‘Euroregion’ as one way of repositioning regardless of the actual bid for becoming ECOC. Moreover, although Peterson said that a city like Maastricht does not necessarily have to have a number of problems to solve in order to profile itself, the discussion made clear that the project of Maastricht 2018 needs a compelling reason besides its ambition to become the European Capital of Culture. Until then, ‘knowledge transfer’ as it happened during this session has to be used in order to critically assess its bid even though it is clear that “you never gonna convince everybody” as Peterson noted.
Text: Ali Konyali
