Black/North SEAS

Making the waves of inspiration and trust

While strong memories of invasions, wars, siege and exile remain vivid in the region, the European Union stretches since recently to the shores of the Black Sea but peace cannot be taken for granted at its every spot since there are still places of tension and some contested borders, and the rifts created by exclusivist demands, hostility and mistrust. North Sea knows less political tensions but ecology and de-industrialization hamper the development of its old port cities, commercial interest clash and fishing quotas hurt, migratory flows alter the population and provoke new divisions


By DRAGAN KLAIC
Intercult.se


Look at the map: between the Black Sea at the East and the Northern Sea at the West lies a good chunk of our old continent. These two seas seem quite apart, separated by a huge land mass of Europe, divergent histories, climates and cultural currents, two busy seafaring realms, quick to pull statistics of shipping, trade, containers disgorged in the harbors, tons of goods in transport but less vocal to describe their cultural connections and routes. And this is precisely the ambitious goal of this 3 years long project: to intertwine those two maritime zones and to connect those who live and work along their shores, building on the experiences and the artistic and social capital accumulated in the previous Seas project (2003-2005), focused on the Baltic and the Adriatic seas.

Once again, we enter the port cities along the sea shores as points of exchange and trade, as privileged places of intercultural communication, as testing zones of conflicting habits, life styles, languages and memories. In our project, each selected city becomes a stage, to produce new artistic works and present art made elsewhere, to debate and reconsider own cultural constelation in relation to the wider geographic zone and its cultural streams, winds and undercurrents. In 2008, the exploration of the Black Seas starts from Odessa and ends in Istanbul, passing along the Romanian and Bulgarian coast through Mangalia, Balchik, Kavarna and Varna. In 2009 several Nordic, British and Irish cities of the Northern Seas wait for another crisscross route to be mapped. In 2010, those two coastal zones should be visibly interconnected with joint artistic projects.

The Black Sea shores reveal archeological traces of cultures vanished long time ago and a postindustrial debris of recent downturns and failures. Commercial harbors, seeking to keep their cranes busy, compete with new important trade centers and shipping routes. Tourism is on the go and yet the danger of overbuilding and making sandy beeches shrink under concrete and neon looms everywhere. Mighty tributaries bring a constant poluting water mass and make fishing boats rot idle in the harbors for once ample fisheries are severely depleted nowadays. While strong memories of invasions, wars, siege and exile remain vivid in the region, the European Union stretches since recently to the shores of the Black Sea but peace cannot be taken for granted at its every spot since there are still places of tension and some contested borders, and the rifts created by exclusivist demands, hostility and mistrust. North Sea knows less political tensions but ecology and de-industrialization hamper the development of its old port cities, commercial interest clash and fishing quotas hurt, migratory flows alter the population and provoke new divisions.

A movable feast of performances, concerts, exhibits, debates and seminars will reexamine the cities on its route and probe their heritage and their future prospects, test their openness and strength of will to engage with the others, to invest, build and absorb. Contentious memories will be shaken and reshaped, talents connected and federated around artistic ideas and urban regeneration projects, specific locations explored for their potential to nourish art. Local vibrancy will be attuned to winds of creativity descending from the open sea to the harbors. There will be events attracting a public of locals and visitors, and there will be processes of matching, coupling, joint experimentation, deliberation and polemic, mixing insiders and outsiders, experts and concerned citizens, artists and politicians, NGO activists and academics, civil servants and arts funders, producers and presenters. By making and presenting art and probing the developmental potentials of harbor cities, Black Sea/North Sea seeks to generate waves of inspiration, creativity, trust and good neighborhood, along those two coastal area and across Europe.


(Published: 09.03.2008.)

Send your comments