French Projects to be tasted as early as this autumn

At the turn of June and July, the project team headed by František Knapík, the Mayor of Košice, Marek Vargovčák and Jozef Filipko, the Deputy Mayors, took a tour of the French candidate cities for the title of European Capital of Culture 2013. The visits to Marseille, Bordeaux, Lyon and Toulouse brought about lots of interesting inspirations and dozens of projects. One of the first agreed projects is to be carried out as early as this autumn.

Marseille

Negotiations of the Košice ECOC 2013 project team and Lieux Public, the association of artists from Marseille specializing in public art, ended in a joined project with the Košice theatre known as Divadlo na peróne. This year the Slovak performers will join other international participants to the Lieux Public project to present art in public areas. “The association has offered us to participate in some residence visits, and next year the theatre Divadlo Actores and its leader Tatiana Masníková, who is also a member of this French association, are supposed to organize a festival of street theatre in Rožňava,“ said Roman Sorger, the dramatic adviser to the Košice ECOC team.

Under the Interface 2008 project, Košice is to host artists of the ARTONIK association to present their art as early as this autumn. The association is engaged in experimental performancias given in public places.

Lyon

Košice has been cooperating with Lyon for a long time. That´s why the last visit to the city was aimed at establishing links with the institutions which seemed attractive in the view of the ECOC project, however, the city has not been involved with yet. “We met with the representatives of the Institute Lumière, and agreed that two of our film makers might take part in the film school to be held in September provided there are still vacancies available. As part of their film festival, the school is going to be run by Quentin Tarantino this year. In the 2008/2009 season, the institute is going to make a presentation of Slovak documentary films. To this end, we have approached Slovak Television to prepare a selection of the documentaries to show.”
The representatives of Lá Hors De who have already appeared in Košice when presenting their project Something is Red and the Košice project team are working together to prepare a joint project intended for the largest Roma housing estate in Slovakia known as Luník IX which is situated in Košice.
“Apparently, the intention to cooperate has not remained a wishful thinking of the top representatives of this city, but emerged out of determination of both cultural communities to make use of the two cities´ potential and give rise to some joint innovation projects,“ said Jozef Filipko, the Deputy Mayor of Košice.

Bordeaux

We agreed with the architecture studio Arc en rêve centre d´architecture from Bordeaux to organise a large-scale encounter of architects in October to discuss European architecture. Bordeaux is to join the project run by the Košice Self-governign Region, which is known as Terra Incognita – Vine Route. This line of the project is to ponder wine as a drink as well as a communication channel and artistic inspiration.
Marek Vargovčák, the Deputy Mayor, was truly interested in the subject of financing culture in France, esp. in the role and position of the municipalities in the establishing and operating of cultural institutions. “While Bordeaux yearly spends EUR 270 per capita, in Košice the same spending only amounts to EUR 4. We would like to increase the allocation from the city´s budget committed to culture from the current level of 0.5 % to 2-3%,” added Vargovčák.

Toulouse

The presentation of Košice´s application project for nomination as ECOC 2013, which was given at the international conference entitled Europe, Culture and Development held by the Toulouse 2013 project team, was very well received. “Over thousand participants to the conference, representatives of the European cities including Jacques Lang, the co-author of the ECOC idea, appreciated our presentation with applause. Most viewers seemed to be impressed with the heat exchanger project,” disclosed the Deputy Mayor Vargovčák. Marek Kolárčik, the Košice candidacy project team leader presented the joined projects of Košice and Toulouse which also include the Garonne 2013 project. “Next autumn, Košice will be given a river boat to its disposal to cruise the river Garonne and make stops in the port towns. Košice will have thus a unique chance to present its culture on some floating stage to several French towns during this week-long journey,” Kolarčík gave some details on one of the joined projects of the two cities.

Zuzana Lehotská