The ‘Between Centers and Peripheries’ workshop, moderated by Matthias Pauwels, revolved around three papers. Three different speakers critically reflected on the topic of centres and peripheries, but each chose a different angle of approach. Discussions during this workshop were lively, but also very critical. The heat of the debate turned this workshop into a very interesting one.
Therese Kaufmann explained that the European Capital of Culture project originally was used to show the grandness of European capitals. The role of culture within the EU policy slowly became more important. The first time culture was mentioned was in the Maastricht treaty of 1992 according to Kaufmann. Then Kaufmann raised the question why smaller cities and their cultural actors want to be Capital of Culture. Arguments for this are tourism, city branding, city management, but also public money. The last reason stresses the relevance of the discussion. Is the public money spent in public interest? The downsides of the Capital of Culture project have been seen in cities like Istanbul and Patras. Here a so-called cultural hangover has been seen. A cultural hegemony turned into a potential counter-hegemony. Another critical argument is that the ECOC does not contribute to cultural policy, because culture is being politicized. By politicizing it, it will also be privatized.
When talking about peripheries, Kaufman talks about the periphery within the city. Here it is about those who are excluded. Then she elaborates on the post-colonial condition of Europe. This is Europe’s cultural heritage according to her. She sees the importance of cultural policies that reach beyond the European space. In this light events like the ECOC become laboratories. Furthermore her opinion is that Maastricht is a centre and not a periphery. Because there is great freedom for artists, which is not present in other parts of the world. There is a strong imbalance in the world, also on the area of culture. There were reactions about cultural policy, tourism and politics strengthening each other. The speaker however responded with the argument that culture cannot be measured in numbers. Furthermore the audience responds by saying that because of the ECOC project, connections are made and broad layers start moving. The speaker responds by saying that this will lead to disappointment in the end.
The second speaker is Olivier Kramsch. The main line in his story is about Walter Benjamin. He is a symbol of crossing a border at a wrong time. Kramsch’s opinion is that Euregions are a dream. They have no real borders and their reality lies in their logo. They are an example of what Eric Hobsbawm called invented tradition. They politicize space and exclude other regions. Another example of politicizing space is the former colonies. When a historical map of Holland is shown, the colonies are there too. Another remarkable observation is that the Euregions are on the map where all the migration camps in Northern Europe are. This is not a coincident according to Kramsch, because they are too in the periphery. The questions referred to the Maastricht region as patchwork, showing it is reality not just an invention. Also the issue of the colonial past showed up in the discussion. Arguing that “this is our common binding factor.” Some local Maastricht people however criticized this being not relevant to the topic. Others disagreed, because it is about who we are as Europeans. Paul Lambrechts concluded by saying this was about openness and what we want to become.
The third speaker was Angela Melitopoulos. She started talking about the periphery of Europe and that of Cyprus in particular. She talked about the green line in Cyprus and its attempts to become one again. Then she elaborated on migrants, which live along the borders in Cyprus. She openly questioned how the movement of migrants can be understood. This resulted in the autonomy of migration. The decision of the migrant on where to migrate is defining the power of the national state. She also explained that connecting to a certain space does not just mean living there. In an event like the Capital of Culture one should look for possibilities for locals and migrants. There should be itineraries which update the cartography archives. Reactions to this presentation talked about migrants being excluded in this project. Other people reacted to this by saying this is a different problem, not relevant to the topic.
So this workshop ended were it started – a division between locals and speakers. Speakers actively defending their standpoints. Locals not understanding the relevance of the issues the speakers talked about with respect to the Capital of Culture. Afterwards they reacted by saying: “They are hijacking the agenda for their own topics.”
Text: Ivo Poulissen
About the tension between ‘locals’ and a city’s program when European Capital of Culture for one year, it can bear fruit once local participation is guaranteed without excluding international / European contributions. If ECOC are to be a place of meeting as Melina Mercouri envisioned, then culture is not a mere platform to perform oneself. However, many ECOC cities struggle to fulfil this European dimension. Of interest is here that while everyone considers Patras as a failure, it would be important to ask what is a failure? By the same token, the definition of success should not exhaust itself merely in attracting so many visitors. Hence the debate about ECOC has to clarify first of all what are the tasks to be fulfilled. If local people can shape the European agenda of culture, then it would certainly mean also to pick up examples like Cafe 9 which facilitated communication between eight of the nine cities in 2000. Cafe 9 was an artistic way of exchanging ideas and experiences about 80 projects such as fear in the city or my favorite route. It was a simultaneous discussion forum and showed how people can get to know each other cities at horizontal level. Since ECOC is an ongoing experience with many set-backs for bottom-up initiatives, see the removal of the NGO which made Istanbul 2010 possible, it is advisable that a continuity and support is given to local initiatives with a European dimension.
Comments by Therese Kaufmann:
Unfortunately some passages in my contribution have been misunderstood and/or misinterpreted, which is why i would like to clarify the following points:
The downsides of the capital of culture project have been seen in numerous cases, often in the form of a “cultural hangover” as a result in the year following the event. Istanbul (forthcoming ECOC in 2010) and Patras (was ECOC in 2006), however, were given as examples for other problems.
Istanbul: In the current preparatory phase, the ECOC-event seems to be turned into a programme for promoting real estate and tourism, while the cultural infrastructure remains scarce and underfunded.
Patras: According to reports in the press, in the course of preparatory measures local authorities repeatedly and systematically tried to expel the Roma population from the city by distroying their living spaces.
The sentence “A cultural hegemony turned into a potential counter-hegemony.” is not only misleading, but does not really make sense. What i meant to say is that in contemporary cultural theory large-scale art events such as the ECOC have been described as “hegemony machines”. Following the reflections of Antonio Gramsci hegemony can be described as a precarious balance between dominant and subaltern forces, as an ongoing struggle. I followed the argument of the philosopher Oliver Marchart, who said that such an event, if understood as part of a struggle, could also become subject of a hegemonic shift and be useful for a counter-hegemonic project. Although i am highly critical of the ECOC-event and its relevance with regard to its original intention and underlying idea, i.e. a first step towards a common European cultural policy and joint cultural projects at a transnational level, my conclusion was that there may be a progressive and emancipatory potentiality of transnational cultural projects and transnational cultural cooperation we should focus on.
Also the following sentences are a misunderstanding: “Another critical argument is that the ECOC does not contribute to cultural policy, because culture is being politicized. By politicizing it, it will also be privatized.” On the contrary: through an increasing privatisation of culture and cultural policy, a depoliticization is taking place, which i stronly argued against. Cultural policy needs to be politicized both on the level of political responsibility and in terms of contents and subject matters.
Finally, the poscolonial condition is certainly not the only European cultural heritage, but part of it and should therefore be taken into account – especially in view of contemporary globalisation.
Also see: http://eipcp.net/policies/kaufmann1/de
Thanks for clarifications and outlining where you stand with your argumentation.
Here a brief reply to extent the discussion to another dimension:
- yes, there were reports about removal of Romas in Patras 2006; something similar is now happen in Istanbul with shanty-towns being bulldozed away to make way for new buildings and all of this under the scheme of ‘urban renewal’, a most dubious term of justification but which did enter the ECOC discussion after Glasgow 1990
- hegemony after Gramsci and what a mega event like the ECOC can effectively achieve, if it wishes to go beyond cultural tourism? Here I am not sure if the term ‘hegemony’ applies. We do see problems or tensions between various local actors and those who organise and shape the program for the one year, whereby I would distinguish between local writers and poets who want their own platform and free cultural scene as they relate very differently to the institutional forms of cultural expressions. To borrow a famous saying by Michael D. Higgins more important to perceive culture as being wider than the economy and therefore to ensure a cultural diversity in the forms of expressions made possible during that year. Naturally a hegemony is attempted, for example, in Ruhr 2010 by overcoming the competition between the 53 cities in order to unite the entire region (cultural stamp as the case in Baveria)
- cultural hangover: I would discuss this term in relation to the demand by the Commission with regards to sustainability and which Bob Palmer attests in his first report (2004) as the main problem of ECOC cities. You can distinguish between Eric Atonis who speaks still for the city even after the year was over and those who were hired specially for that one year to manage the program but then leave once over.
- investment in cultural infrastructures / cultural content: there needs to be a balance between the two but certainly long term investment demands a build up of cultural resources, venues and infrastructures, but as Jochen Gerz would say a successful cultural program does bring together tangible and intangible aspects. How people convey messages and discuss issues – at what cultural level of literarcy – is also an indication of something important.
- I do agree with your last point about ECOC should take on board considerations of culture as adding a critical reflection to the EU foreign policy and how Europe relates to Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America. Some ECOC are more international e.g. Linz – Ars Electronica, while the need to observe the European dimension quite often limits or confuses what would be necessary for culture to support intercultural dialogue and open minds.