Reaching for the same long-term results with new plans and new ideas
As soon as we started out on our journey to our ECoC-year 2018 we knew: being European Capital of Culture isn’t just about 2018, as a year full of events. Being an ECoC gave us the chance to work on the city and on the region we wanted to be, with culture as a terrific driver for change. Therefore 2018 was only a (substantial) step on our way to our ultimate goal: a better Leeuwarden and Fryslân to pass on to the next generation in 2028. In the years up to 2018 we worked – through culture – on our economy, on our artistic climate, on our ecology, on multilingualism and on being a Mienksip: an inclusive society. We needed change and culture helped us substantially in doing just that.
Consistently working on legacy
This means that working on the legacy of Leeuwarden-Fryslân 2018 (LF2018) isn’t something that started a few years ago. Working on legacy was all along our way up to the year 2018. After our very successful year 2018, we took some time to organize ourselves in a different way. Now we are ready to continue our work on Leeuwarden and Fryslân, through culture. In 2022 our first Triennale “Arcadia” will be there, organized by the team of LF2028 in close cooperation with the City of Leeuwarden and the Province of Fryslân. Arcadia still will be addressing culture, economy, social issues, language and ecology. And working on our artistic climate we try to strengthen our cultural sector, both the bigger cultural institutions and the creative entrepreneurs in the SME-sector. Special attention has been given to young creatives with plans for start-ups. We work on strengthening the sector partly by hiring local creative and other businesses in the production of events, but also by looking for options to connect them and ourselves to (inter)national partners to learn from. We honour the principles of the cultural Fair Practice Code, stating the importance of fair pay and good governance. We’re preparing for a program in Arcadia consisting of blockbusters, artist driven events and mienskip/community-driven events.
Covid-19: the discontinuity with opportunities
Until now this is a story of consistence and continuity. Last March the Netherlands (and the world) was hit by a big “discontinuity”: Covid-19. For LF2028 that meant both threats and opportunities. By now we know that the latter prevail. We still are preparing for Arcadia in 2022, but focusing more on culture and programming not creating huge crowds. There are still events addressing and attracting a lot of people, but not all at the same time and on the same spot: we are using the full 100 days of Arcadia and the abundant space available in our landscape and our city. By preparing for those events a lot of people in the cultural sector and amongst the creative entrepreneurs, who are heavily struck by different types of lockdowns, can keep on doing what they do best.
The first Covid-19 wave in the Netherlands gave LF2028 the opportunity to show what they’re good at. They delivered a load of culture that used to be in theatres, in museums and even in bars in an online setting. And the meeting of Friesian Mayors, responsible for safety and order during the pandemic, asked the team to find a way to bond the inhabitants of the city and the province and to create some hope and perspective. The result was a daily broadcast of Fryslân fan boppen (“Friesland from the air”), beautiful “slow television” filmed with drones and looking for messages of hope that citizens and villagers wrote to each other with chalk and paint on the streets, in the gardens and on the roofs of their houses and businesses.
The promise of ECoC-SME project
In the existing eco-system for new and existing businesses in Leeuwarden we have a lot of tools to help SME-entrepreneurs, with Business Development Fryslân as a great partner. We have learned through our work on the ECoC-SME project that the existing opportunities in the ecosystem only partly meet the needs of the cultural and creative industry (CCI). What we try to do, co-operating with Matera, Timisoara, Kaunas and Rijeka to adjust the existing tools in our ecosystem to the needs of cultural and creative entrepreneurs. We’re happy to share with you that the first real life example of that adjustment (a Launch Game for CCI-start-ups), is ready for testing, at home in Leeuwarden and with our partners. As soon as live-events are possible, we’ll do a first trial-run, thanks to the local people working on it (thank you, Jornt!) and thanks to ECoC-SME!
