Day 1 – Session ‘Mind the Gap!’

In her introduction of the workshop, the moderator, Nora Bieberstein stated that students in Maastricht experience and participate in the widespread student culture which offers e.g. music festivals, cinema, student theatre, organized parties and so on. However, as inhabitants of Maastricht it can also be observed that there is a local culture with its own traditions and cultural circles bearing cultural events like Carnival, Tefaf. These two different types of cultural offer and people who seem to make use of it seem to be separated from each other. The aim of this session was to discuss this potentially existent gap between student life and local Maastricht citizens in order to come to answers for questions like:

- Is it possible to define or characterize the University’s and its student’s relationship with Maastricht and its citizens in general terms?
- Can we argue that the integration of students to Maastricht’s cultural life is hindered by rather practical problems such as a lack of information and the rather pricy activities?
- Is Maastricht a special case or can we draw comparisons to other ‘college towns’?

After a short a video clip produced by students of Maastricht University, each of the four speakers was given time to give a general statement about his or her view on the cultural life in Maastricht regarding the gap between student body and local citizen culture.

Leo zum Vörde sive Vörding started the discussion by telling students to not bridge the gap. He said that a city like Maastricht cannot do without young urban professionals and students. Furthermore, there is always the controversy between a) the city should take care of us and b) these young urban people have to find there own way within the citylife. Therefore, he thinks that we need more commitment to each other and more public debate. According to him, the ECOC competition could be used as a framework that necessitates change in this aspect. Nevertheless, he repeatedly stated that the student body plays a very crucial role in the city since they think and feel ‘from the outside’. He concluded that we need more courageous students that speak out, act and dare to dream. He stated that this session is an excellent example that shows how crucial critical students are that produce interpretations. During the open discussion at the end of the session, he remarked that a city like Maastricht is a ‘public mental space’ with dynamics and movements and “if students adapt too soon, we lose the place for interpretation”.

According to Ruta Norvaisaite, student at Maastricht University, students come to Maastricht with one major goal – to study, or at least we should assume that. Therefore, we cannot expect from them more than minimum effort to find the cultural activities. No doubt, those who search – find it. However, those who would like to participate, but simply do not have time for searching (which includes not only Googling but learning Dutch, building up social networks, being part of various organizations and mailing lists) are left completely behind. Much of the information is either in Dutch or circulated through personal networks. Thus, she stated that the gap can be filled in by better and more thorough provision of information.

Rein de Wilde, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University pointed out that all university cities have experienced tensions between the student body and ”ordinary’” citizens. In small cities with a long university tradition, such as Oxford, Heidelberg or Leiden, it took centuries for students and citizens to realize that they really depend upon each other. Then, Maastricht is a small university city as Oxford and the like, but does not have this long history of cohabitation. Therefore quite some ‘locals’ still perceive the university as an alien element. Even the municipality does not quite know how to handle or approach the university. On the other hand, de Wilde said that most people studying in Maastricht or working in the university are not born in Maastricht or its region. They feel no incentive to integrate in what they perceive as a rather closed regional culture. “Yet there are signs of change” as is illustrated by the fact that the movie theater Lumière leads the way in taking students and foreigners serious by offering English subtitling on special evenings or that Studium Generale has become bilingual within just a few years. Concluding, de Wilde stressed that if Maastricht wants to welcome art projects and cultural initiatives of world class quality, its cultural (and economic) policies should be coordinated on the level of the (Eu)region.

Finally, Maike van Storch from ‘Weekin/Weekuit’, the weekly cultural agenda of Maastricht that is coupled to the website http://www.maastricht.net noted that she seems to be standing in the middle of the gap as a journalist with an informing role. She said that an English website is recently under construction and pointed to the existence of a magazine like ‘Crossroads’. She argued that they don’t get a lot of input from students who live in their own circle and that is why “it’s not easy to approach students” since they don’t easily react. Besides, she added that there is a new cultural initiative for new students at Maastricht University, the pimpas which gives students price reductions for cultural highlights in the region. Recognizing the enclosed character of Maastricht she affirmed that “you would have to marry a local to truly integrate yourself in the local culture”.

Summarizing the results of the discussion Nora Bieberstein argued that “there is a gap” and it has both its positive and negative aspects. Because, on the one hand, the gap leads to a greater cultural diversity that should not be changed but productively used, but, on the other hand, the gap produces separation and exclusion of students from Maastricht’s cultural life. Thus, integration and diversity are opposing each other and this is what constitutes the gap. Leo zum Vörde sive Vörding stated that self-organization is one part of the solution and Rein de Wilde introduced a new concept – an ‘urban campus’ that is a serious interest of the university. Evaluating the gap, de Wilde said that in the short-term the only solution seems to become bilingual.

Text: Ali Konyali

Day 1 – Session ‘Destination Maastricht’

In this session three speakers provided their views on the city as a destination which is supposed to be attractive not only to local inhabitants but as well to tourists. How can a city create a cultural environment that lives up to the expectations of both groups?

Jeroen Boomgaard (Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam) started his presentation with a short German documentation about Maastricht as a tourist destination, afterwards revealing that all the words describing Maastricht used in the film came from flyers from other European cities. According to Boomgaard, one of the dangers of becoming a cultural capital lies exactly in the search for a specific and unique image, which makes the competing cities look increasingly the same. Maastricht should be careful not to become a non-destination (“onbestemming Maastricht”), which it could become when taking the notion of mobility as its (only) hallmark in the competition for ECOC. The fixation on mobility should be abandoned, and the already ‘established’ image torn down, in order to be able to discover Maastricht’s real cultural value.

In the second presentation, Anne Lorentzen (Aalborg University) talked about the problems that small European cities face due to the economic stagnation. One of the solutions to this problem can be the implementation of place bound experience products. This suggestion is in line with the concept of the experience economy (Pine & Gilmore), arguing that it’s all about staging a vivid and compelling experience. Lorentzen described how the small Danish city Frederikshavn put itself on the map by taking quite remarkable actions such as creating a sand beach with palm trees, or inviting Bill Clinton and Al Gore to public talks. Due to these measures the city came into the limelight in Denmark, and hence noticed an increase in tourism as well as quality of life for the local people. The question that remains is however if these actions have a sustainable future.

The last presentation of the session by Zora Jaurová (Košice 2013 European Capital of Culture) gave an interesting insight into the planning of the bid and event itself of the ECOC in Košice, Slovakia. For Košice, the ECOC project was an opportunity to drastically transform the post-industrial city into a place fostering creativity. For the starting point the cultural diversity in the city was of great importance, being more homogeneous than in most Western European cities. However, most of the people living in the suburbs did not have a real sense of belonging to the city, and one goal of the project was to unite these people with the city. A campaign had to change the idea of the city, by inviting people to “Use the C!ty”. Borrowing from computer technology, the term interface was used to describe a city which enables all of its users to communicate with each other and express their creativity by changing their environment. Old empty Soviet buildings in the suburbs were revived as different cultural centers, leading to a decentralization of culture in the city and giving more people the possibility to engage themselves with cultural production.

Text: Nicolas Heinz

Day 2 – Between Centers and Peripheries & Mind the Gap!

The third workshop on the 15th of May combined two workshops of the day before, Between Centres and Peripheries and the student session Mind the Gap! The sessions provided the visitors with some outcomes in both fields, mostly in the first one which dealt with the problematic status of the border and the engagement with the related regions.

During the workshop several important themes were pointed out. At first one of the speakers pushed the importance of migration forward. Maastricht is a city which is crossed by many itineraries, several travel routes which brings a lot of people with them. Looking at the city of Maastricht from their point of view could give us a new and interesting view on the city and her cultural production. By giving attention to these views fundamental differences will become clear compared to the view of the local people. When it comes to a more practical approach, it would be interesting to compose a platform in which people of a broad range of groups are engaged. Most likely this platform should not be connected with political structures, it should consist of free people doing free research.

Related to this was a second speaker who pointed to the importance of excess for everybody and the chance of participation in the process. We should search for a democratic cultural life. Although the cultural field should take the lead, the political actors and institutions should take the responsibility and include the citizens. The past has shown us that too much privatisation leads to oppression of experimental approaches. Let the cultural field develop a project, but without repeating which is already known. Collaboration with partner regions and cities is very important in this process. Position the region in a wider context, which also fits in our historical context. Culture is not only a national issue anymore, but also a European one.

Becoming the European Capital of Culture is a project which means for many people becoming the best. Nevertheless we should not focus on this, but on the process, the way to get there. We should use all potentials and this will create new opportunities to get actually in touch with our neighbours. One of the speakers pleaded for the remapping of the Euregion. At this moment we are too much bounded to the map and the fixed identities. We should search for a more open territory. Next to that we should focus on something sustainable.

When it comes to the gap between students and the local culture of Maastricht, everyone agreed that there is a gap between the two groups. Several ways of dealing with this gap were put forward. At first we could approach the gap as something positive. It provides diversity, which a city needs. Other people would want to bridge the gap by an urban campus. Although students need their own life and living space, there are benefits of bridging the gap. Culture should be a medium in this process of connecting people. An important way to reach this goal would be a more active attitude among students and self organization. There is not only a gap existing during their studentlife. The gap also appears after the period of studying and while searching for a job.

Text: Rianne Stijnen