Day 2 – Keynote Hans Mommaas

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

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

Destination Maastricht

As elsewhere, in Maastricht the relative decline of industrial labor has led to a search for new imaginaries that can guide urban development. From Maastricht as a shopping city and major tourist destination to Maastricht as an internationally-oriented university town, all of these new imaginaries are unthinkable without acknowledging the role of increased mobility. What is the role of mobility for culture in Maastricht? How does the city brand itself as a destination across the region and the world? In what ways do the internationalization of education and the temporary presence of students shape the very cultural texture of the city?

Speakers:
Peter Peters (Moderator – Hogeschool Zuyd, Maastricht, Netherlands)
Jeroen Boomgaard (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Anne Lorentzen (Aalborg University, Denmark)
Zora Jaurova (Košice 2013 European Capital of Culture, Slovakia)