Yesterday I was in Valletta for the opening of the imagine18 Conference & Workshops organised by the Malta Council for Culture and Arts in order to prepare for Valletta’s bid to be the European Capital of Culture in seven years’ time. The event was held in the sumptuous surroundings of the Manoel Theatre and was by open invitation. Anybody interested in contributing ideas to the bid could register and attend. Unfortunately I could not make it to the workshops this morning which makes me quite a passive attendee. On the other hand, J’accuse being J’accuse, we could not resist a little brainstorming exercise that resulted from yesterday’s sessions. The points are in no particular order and use twitter-ish convention… but here goes…
- @organisers – great move to kick off in the insiprational setting, set the tone of seriousness balanced with casual exchange of ideas in TED style
- the biggest question running persistently through my mind as the first presentations went by was : Who is this for? I got the feeling you get when you are having a bath and let your head go underwater … and start to hear the muffled noises get further and further away. Was Malta’s “cultured” crowd about to embark on another fancy trip of navel-gazing? Is there an audience for culture with a capital “C”‘ Should we be looking for it?
- @toniattard invited people to start networking from now. In Malta? Do they really need to? Don’t they know enough of/about each other already? Will we be repackaging the current “culture crowd” and standards for the sake of the bid or will the (what I deem necessary) reinvention of cultural approaches be the happy result of this bid.
- @adrianmamo culture is about recognising what we are and where we come from. Definitely. How to fit this into the @creativity works concept will be interesting.
- the festa and village breeding crowd of malta’s equivalent of “popular culture” must be nurtured not invaded. The bandisti and the village space that is celebrated mostly at festa time must be recognised as a building block. When @toni put up a photo to represent Malta’s 71 theaters it was a photo of Gozo’s two main theaters – Astra and Aurora. No surprise there. Gozo has long built it’s cultural milieu around the civic conscience of its citizens. It may be time to ditch any snobbish attitudes towards this manner of expanding culture – centred around the kazin tal-banda, the pjazza and yes, the enemy of the liberals (?) the catholic church in its social vestige. “Modern” culture must be prepared to relate and not invade into this cultural breeding ground that works. Take the fireworks and package them well. You might even get a colourful success out of them.
- I have a socialist twitch whenever I see culture being thought of in terms of revenue. €4m here and €4 there IS important but is that the only way we can sell this idea? I can guess that roping in politicians requires a bit of this too but surely there is a value in culture that goes beyond euros and cents?
I’m running short of time right now. Got more bullets to write later…. click back this evening for more.
2 replies on “imagine 18 impressions”
Re. your point on popular culture: festa is in full swing outside my door right now – the festa organisers are holding a BBQ and playing Bingo! The fervour of those now a mere 20 metres away somewhat puts the concept of ‘vision’ of an ECoC far from perspective. But it’s a timely reminder that for Valletta 2018 to be a success it needs to have wider appeal; not by making every aspect into the popular culture of today but by audience building for new, innovative cultural forms that have the temerity in Malta to push boundaries. My festa friends have the same routine each year – just louder. It’s time for them too to think through, as you say, how traditional cultural forms can break the mould. Now, there’s a challenge!
Hi Liz, these people were missing from yesterday’s workshops…we do need to dedicate time with them to build an inclusive vision with all layers of society – festa enthusiasts, carnival fanatics, bandisti, and a lot many more representatives of the wide cross section of community and popular culture unfortunately did not turn up yesterday, so we do need to address them in building Malta’s vision for our bid…and as you said, that is a challenge!