Culture as catalyst for territorial development

By: Hatto Fischer, Athens

Cultural facilities. Catalysts for territorial development Vitry-sur-Seine, Musée d'Art Contemporain, 16-17 November 2005

The conference will focus on four main themes: Territorial Development and Cultural projects, Factor for social cohesion and territorial, Economic promotion and cultural partnerships: Can a museum be an instrument to the service of urban and regional promotion? Regional cultural projects for a polycentric territory

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The H-MUSEUM

H-Net Network for Museums and Museum Studies, E-Mail: h-museum@h-net.msu.edu, WWW: http://www.h-museum.net, provides always interesting information about ongoing events, workshops, conferences, research projects, job announcements etc. all pertaining to the museum sector. People who work in this sector and who are interested in being informed are advised to link up as the discourse practiced internationally indicates trends and future prospects for ongoing and new work.

To give but one example of relevance to the HERMES symposium approach, via the H-Museum network the INTA International Secretariat (Address: Toussaintkade 71, NL-2513 CL, The Hague,

The Netherlands Tel. int. + 31-70-324 45 26 Fax: int. + 31-70-328 07 27, E-mail: intainfo@inta-net.org ) announced that it will hold a 3 day international conference on following topic:

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The program shall cover following sub-topics:

"Cultural facilities for territorial development" - Growth, quality of life and sustainable development are core elements of urban development strategies; they support the vision of territorial excellence. These visions express strong collective identities that translate themselves into major urban projects in the cultural sphere.

"Cultural equipment in territorial dynamics" - How to make major public cultural equipment, being a key urban component, an instrument for development that is a leverage for both social coherence and economic promotion?

"Culture as an engine for territorila cohesion" - A major cultural facility serving a population of various identities is perceived from many standpoints and could become a factor of social cohesion. The facility creates by itself an economic momentum giving rise to a process of economic regeneration based on the reactivation of retail and commerce and the opening of new urban tourism opportunities.

"Cultural facilities and new centrality" - How could the cultural facilities help in creating new centrality in the context of metropolisation and competition between territories?

"Economic promotion through culture" - In the context of a contemporary urban economy - where the creation of wealth leans more and more on knowledge, know-how, education and information - how could the cultural initiatives contribute to the shaping of an environment supportive of innovation and development?

Note: Registration Form: http://www.inta-aivn.org/CityCulture2005/RegformE.pdf .

Each participant must complete a separate Form. Please return this registration form with proof of registration payment of 200 euros for INTA members (250 for non-members). Travel and accommodation costs are not covered.

There is a special occasion for this 3-day conference as explained by the organisers:

“The County council of Val-de-Marne (Conseil general du Departement) will open its new museum of Modern Art on the 15th of Novmber 2005. The existing collection of the museum covers contemporary art in France, from the 50's to present; and contains over 1,000 pieces (Soto, Monory, Messager, Arman, Jouve). It's the fruit of a public acquisition from the department and it's quality brought it the label 'Musée deFrance'. The museum has a built surface of 13.000 m²; with over 1350 m² for temporary exhibitions and 2600 m² for the display of its permanent collection. These exhibition rooms allow for exchanges of collections and will foster partnership projects among different cultural institutions. This will be the first museum of its kind to open in the suburbs of Paris in dozens of years. On this occasion, the council has engaged a reflection on how a museum can be more than a public institution in the service of society, how such a major public cultural facility can contribute to local and regional development?” In the light of recent events in the suburbs of Paris with cultural minorities, fringe populations living at poverty level, immigrants without any legal status secure enough for them to undertake a meaningful job, there exists the question but how will this museum communicate with those people who feel themselves being neglected in the French society. As one resident of those suburb district said no one talks to the people. He feels it is not good if only attention is given to these suburbs once problems like riots, vandalism, the death of two boys who felt pursued by police and jumped in despair upon tracks only to be electrocuted bring about media attention. In the aftermaths of France’s rejection of the European Constitutional Treaty it is clear that more and more socially disenfranchised people feel empowered to protest, and if the response of the authorities is a hard one as promised by the current minister of the Interior, then the ways to resolve conflicts and pressing issues is blocked.

Already in the aftermath to the London bombing on July 7th it was said that museums must use the ‘soft power’ of culture and give more recognition to those forces which contribute to a community building process inside of these cultural ghettos. Borders of them are marked by cultural impositions of values and norms e.g. code of dressing, way to go about religious fervor and attitude towards the rest of the world as the impression prevails but is also created of being victimized by the indifference and onslaught of a society driven towards consumption, PR exercises and other trivial ways to distract people. It is cheap entertainment which does not give these people the cultural tools to come to terms with a complex situation. Extremism is fed by a radical movement towards a rigorous imposition of moral standards thought to be progressive when in fact the very implementation thereof makes it into a highly contentious and reactionary force. Once key needs are no longer satisfied, movements and forces combine in an attempt to break into the present. This is when the immediate seems to count above anything else but which provokes the violence, hence the many broken glasses, burned out cars and especially demolished public utilities e.g. metro stations. The anger is only overtly directed against society’s greater indifference; it is also anger about not being able to resolve the problem of being mere passive victims in a development process shaped by other forces, forces that foresee a gain out of radicalization and an extreme articulation of positions. Like the US government building its coalition around this dictum ‘who is not for us is against us’, so these forces do not wish to uphold any deliberation process which can take cultural differences into consideration but rather they need an oversimplified situation in order to hide all other failures.