Hans Mommaas (Tilburg University) started his keynote by remarking that he has an in-depth knowledge of this region which “makes it easy & difficult”. His presentation based on personal experience looked at the ECOC competition as a work in progress, a space and an opportunity. He advised not to “jump into solutions but to use it as a research project”. Reminding the audience of the fact that our world is enormously expanded, he stated that the increasing mobility (also in terms of communicative interaction has an impact on spaces that now become “globalized cultural spaces” leading to an increasing competition between cultural venues.
According to Mommaas, along with globalization, localizations are still going on. People are trying to define meaningful spaces they are living in, such as cities. The question with regard to the ECOC competition is, “what sort of space will that creative economy produce”? Mommaas sees the ECOC as a challenge that forces us to rethink our identity. Thereby, ECOC can be used to reinvent ourselves and our cities. In addition, he questioned the reason of Maastricht’s bid by asking “can Maastricht add something to the list of ECOCs”? Furthermore, Mommaas argued that especially the Ruhr 2010 project should be inspiring for Maastricht. He asked whether Maastricht will go for the title by itself or whether the Euroregion will present itself? In the case of the Ruhr (Essen), regional collaboration is essential to the whole project. Thereby, a new cultural map is created. Mommaas pointed out that our everyday mental map has increased due to increased mental mobility, we have to ask ourselves, “what does that mean for traditional ideas about space”?
Challenging our “old mental images”, Mommaas spoke in favor of creating new images while debating on urbanization processes “is very much a debate on taste”. Borrowing from Sassen, Mommaas defined space in terms of territory, authority and legal rights. He warned about the administrative discourse which “has its own, destructive, dynamism – the administrative jungle”. He said one should be careful that the project is not hijacked by administrative storylines but rather be used as an innovative transformational device. The challenge for Maastricht is ‘can we use ECOC to create new storylines’? Since there is an abundance of storylines, “the challenge for the region is to find a storyline that really matters”. Therefore, one should think about a new relationship between Maastricht, the region and its surrounding. Finally, Mommaas concluded by saying that “good storylines develop themselves from the grassroots” and “these sorts of processes take their time”.
Text: Ali Konyali
