National Heroes
National competitions for the title of the European capital of culture have been getting increasingly intense and hard for some years now. More and more money and time are being invested in order to win the coveted title.
This is a positive aspect that also demands a new type of responsibility from the bodies who fund and conceive the applications. What happens when such a body fails to win the title despite its commitment and intelligent concepts? Is it simply a case of much ado about nothing? A waste of taxpayers’ money?
At the end of the 2008 competition in Britain the losing towns refused to regard themselves as losers, but decided instead to set up a network amongst themselves, a network that still exists.
In Germany and Hungary this idea has been taken a step further. On the initiative of RUHR.2010 a concept entitled "National Heroes" has been developed. Former competing towns have now joined together as an association to participate in the RUHR.2010 Capital of Culture programme. Each town will fund and realise one project included in its application and this will be staged locally. In 2010 this national network of projects will be a part of the RUHR.2010 programme. The capital of culture is therefore present in an unusual way at a national level.
Furthermore a symbolic joint project is intended to seal this association. Initiated by Karlsruhe, a historic letter of privileges dating back to 1715 will be passed on from town to town during the Capital of Culture year 2010, and each town will add to it in writing, thereby turning it into a European Town Letter. The themes which can be addressed by the National Heroes include the implementation of the right to freedom, mutual religious toleration, the design of public spaces, the reuse of industrial sites/military barracks and other buildings, the strengthening of economic power, the creation of social justice, the creation of a democratic civil society based on citizens’ commitment, and the development of a European identity.
The individual towns should include existing problems and contradictions in the issues they address. Questions should be asked regarding the importance of art and culture as growth factors in the towns, and what importance they will have with regard to future development. Since towns have older roots and traditions than nations, the importance of the past for their future should also be examined. The end result should be a list of provocative questions and theses challenging the towns to take responsibility for transforming people's image of Europe as an institution into a feeling of a true community.
The European Town Letter will travel from town to town throughout the year at regular intervals determined by the number of towns involved. During this period the focus of National Heroes will be on each particular town in turn, its project and its contribution to the European Town Letter – as is similarly the case with Local Heroes in the Ruhr metropolitan area. At the final event at the end of the Capital of Culture year, the results and experiences will be summarised and perspectives for the future will be developed.
In Hungary a similar network is also being set up, whose work will be coordinated by the German department of European Cultural Foundations.
The National Heroes model is already being discussed in the network of European Capitals of Culture (ECOC). The aim is to convince the EU commission to include the idea in its compulsory programme for future Capitals of Culture. For a losing application does not necessarily constitute a defeat. It is rather able to make a considerable contribution to changing the cultural ideas of a town or region.