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in—visible
city
Bucharest2021
Candidate — European Capital of Culture 2021
2nd Application
This application has been prepared by ARCUB — The Cultural Centre
of Bucharest on behalf of the City of Bucharest.
EDITORIAL TEAM:
Simina Bădică, Roxana Bedrule, Svetlana Cârstean, Raluca Ciută, Raluca Costache (BDR Associates
Communication Group), Simona Deaconescu, Celia Ghyka, Irina Paraschivoiu, Ioana Păun, Oana Radu,
Anamaria Ravar, Alexandra Ștef
TRANSLATION, PROOFREADING & EDITS:
Claudiu Constantinescu, Alexandru Eduard Costache, Simona Fodor, Tim Judy, Lucian Zagan
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN & DTP:
Alexandru Oriean, Radu Manelici (Faber Studio), Andrei Turenici & Ioana-Alice Voinea (Daniel & Andrew)
PHOTO CREDITS:
ARCUB Archive, Andrei Bârsan, Irina Broboană, Adi Bulboacă, Călin Dan, Maria Drăghici,
Andrei Gândac, Alexandru George, Guillaume Lassare, Ionuţ Macri, Gerhard Maurer, Iulia Popa,
Ioana Păun, Claudiu Popescu, George Popescu, Rokolective Association Archive, Mircea Topoleanu,
Thomas Unterberger, Cristian Vasile, Dan Vezenţan, Atelier Ad Hoc, Balkanik! Festival Press, Image Archive
of the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, MEDS Meeting of Design Students Archive, National
Museum of Contemporary Art Archive, National Dance Centre — Bucharest, Kaare Viemose Bureau Detours
Archive, Dong Wong, One World Romania, Polycular, Alina Ușurelu, ZonaD
MAPS:
“Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest
PRODUCTION:
Master Print Super Offset
Bucharest, August 8, 2016
© ARCUB
Contents
Setting the Stage
2
Contribution to the Long‑term Strategy
11
European Dimension
20
Cultural & Artistic Content
23
Capacity to deliver
54
Outreach
62
Management
68
Setting
the Stage
Bucharest’s paradoxical nature is the source of both its strengths
and its weaknesses. It is what cyclically and abruptly interrupts its
development and what makes for the city’s fantastic potential.
A City Betrayed / ‘Rock This Country’
Explain briefly the overall
cultural profile of your city.
A
s of March 14, the death toll from the tragic night of October 30, 2015, when a fire broke out at the
Colectiv club, reached 64. Many others, having miraculously survived the hell, are making a slow
and painful recovery, under medical supervision, in Romania and abroad. In many ways, the Colectiv
fire has become a crucial moment for Bucharest, revealing the depth and complexity of the moral cri‑
Why does your city wish to take part
in the competition for the title of
European Capital of Culture? (see p. 8)
ses confronting the city.
Following the tragedy, over 25,000 people took to the streets across Romania, their message clear:
‘We don’t change a name, we change a system’. The messages on placards saying, among others, ‘Your
corruption killed our children’ referred to everyday occurrences in the country where official permits to
run places can be bought with little concern for safety measures, often regarded as unnecessary trifles.
The establishment has reacted by clamping down on many venues, thus penalizing the cultural
environment of the city and flourishing small businesses, without adopting a long term solution. The sit‑
uation has been compounded with closures of earthquake prone and dangerous buildings, which also
reignited the citizens’ invisible yet alert anxieties over the city’s capacity to cope in the event of natu‑
ral hazards or accidents.
During the days people took to the streets, partly in grief, partly in anger, the lyrics of the song The
Day We Die by Goodbye to Gravity, the band playing at the club at the night of the fire, accompanied the
Colectiv protesters in what sounded like a fulfilled premonition of a grief‑stricken city.
The tragedy at Colectiv was shocking and seismic in scale. The protests against the immorality and
corruption inherent in the public sector caused a government to fall. A temporary government formed
by members from the civil society was appointed for one year, having the support of active groups all
over Romania.
Bucharest is in a
permanent state of
creative chaos due
to its unresolved
contradictions.
The scarce cultural offer in the neighbourhood areas and the lack of cultural space are still unsolved.
This is, in many ways, last call for a generation that has already felt betrayed. With many of the city’s
traumas in the recent past left unsolved or unaddressed, we never anticipated an event that would
leave yet another scar on this city and underline the complexity of the In—visible City. Our bid has met a
severe reality check; now more than ever urgent questions are being raised regarding Bucharest’s abil‑
ity to cope with grief, absorb shocks, and build healthy partnerships to lay the foundations for a cul‑
ture of responsibility.
A City in Transition
C
aught between its Western logos and Balkan ethos, its rural and urban identity, its fascination with
the centre while overlooking the vitality of its peripheries, its over‑regulated socialist past and the
neoliberal laissez faire present, Bucharest is in a permanent state of creative chaos due to its unresolved
contradictions. With a population in pendular migration within EU geographical and cultural space, the
city is enriched with these personal experiences, which are neither communicated nor shared enough.
Bucharest is today a city that still balances the pre‑1989 socialist reality and the post‑1989 neolib‑
eral one. Two fundamentally opposed directions intersect and generate patterns and forces that form a
state of extremes and a strongly polarised society. The invisible socio‑economic challenges the city faces
are fast‑paced gated communities, suburbanisation, a strong seasonal migration and extensive privati‑
sation programmes. Urban policies revolve around re‑centring the city and are mostly image over sub‑
stance, discourse over action. Hence there is a total distrust of discourse and rhetoric.
4
Setting the Stage
Between East and West
B
ucharest’s hybrid culture has been shaped by its openness towards influences of other cultures —
Byzantine, Ottoman, Russian, German and French. It was this feature of the city that left it totally
exposed and unprotected in the face of Ottoman and Tatar attacks, which gave its inhabitants the unset‑
tling feeling of volatility.
Located only 70 km north of the river Danube, Bucharest developed from a village located on the
Dâmboviţa river to Wallachia’s seat of power and, later, to the capital of United Principalities of Wallachia
and Moldavia.
The city’s modernisation came late, in the 1830s, under the occupation of the Russian empire’s
army. However, it was only in the 1930s that Bucharest caught up with the rest of Europe and became
the Little Paris, a city with modernist architectural landmarks and a specific joie de vivre infused by its
Balkan lifestyle.
The communist rule abruptly cut Bucharest’s links with Western Europe down to the level of a
total isolation in the 1980s, when the city became literally invisible. The opportunity for reconnection
with its European identity came equally abruptly in 1989, and over the past 25 years Bucharest is still a
city in transition, struggling to find its way back into Europe.
Fragmented City: Bucharest Archipelago
F
ragmentation is present in all aspects of the city: the physical space, the transport system, the dis‑
connected institutional and independent sectors, the gap between authorities and the citizens, and
also in the individual’s way of life. One could say it has become a state of mind, as well as a way of work‑
ing and communicating.
The city’s current administrative and territorial structure is part and parcel of this fragmentation.
The city is divided in six districts, each ruled by an independent mayor elected every four years.
The city’s human scale urban planning and architecture was fractured for the first time at the end
of the 19th century by the construction of monumental buildings under plans for modernising the capi‑
tal. In the 1980s, more than one third of the historic centre was demolished to make room for the gigan‑
tic House of the People (now hosting the Parliament). This traumatic fragmentation of the city’s urban
tissue has irreversibly shaped the city, disconnecting the city centre from the neighbouring quarters and
fragmenting the central area into isolated neighbourhoods.
The trend of demolition continued after 1989, this time for commercial and speculative reasons.
Preserving the heritage of the city has become one of the most important factors behind civic initia‑
tives such as ProDoMo and ProPatrimonio, which have nominated Bucharest for the 2016 WMF World
Monuments to Watch.1
The Mahalale:
Neighbourhoods and Cultural Diversity
A
n important sign of a changing perspective is Bucharest’s Urban Master Plan (under revision) which
puts citizens and communities first in a visionary plan asserting a bottom‑up approach in urban
planning, with 70 neighbourhoods (cartiere) as functional units. To make it work, the neighbourhoods,
to which Bucharest residents are more emotionally attached than to the city's centre, will require both
an administrative and a symbolic consolidation and empowering.
In 2005, between 70–80% of citizens found the city dirty, poor, chaotic, uncivilised, yet 75% of
them were totally satisfied with their neighbourhood. On the other hand, in the recent EU Barometer on
Quality of Life in European Cities (2015), Bucharest scores lowest on the level of trust in the city, espe‑
cially in neighbourhood areas. These inconsistencies suggest that although people feel more attached
to their neighbourhoods and ascribe a more identity‑affirming value to them than to the city, there is lit‑
tle interaction and sense of communality, resulting in a high degree of distrust.
This paradox is one of the city’s most specific traits. In the 18th century Bucharest became a thriv‑
ing town at the intersection of commercial routes from the East and the West, a city that welcomed trad‑
ers and manufacturers coming from the Balkans and other parts of Europe: Greeks, Bulgarian, Serbs,
Armenians, Jews, Albanians and Austrians.
The mahalale (Turkish word for neighbourhood and periphery) became the nucleus of the city’s
ethnic‑centred quarters that are still relevant today, such as Dudești-Cioplea for the Bulgarian commu‑
nity or the Armenian quarter.
Ethnic diversity can today be found embedded in the family histories of individuals that can trace
back among their relatives at least two generations of Bucharest citizens. Today, the impact of newly
attracted ethnic communities such as the Turkish and Arabic ones is visible throughout the city, in a
5
1
WMF Nomination Form,
February 26, 2015.
widely spread network of kebab shops and restaurants that go deep in the districts’ neighbourhoods.
Bucharest also has a Chinese community and a small number of refugees of different nationalities, such
as Syrian, Pakistani, Afghan, Myanmar, Ukrainian and African that live primarily in dormitory‑style neigh‑
bourhoods such as Pantelimon.
The results of the Intercultural City Index in 20152 shows that Bucharest ranks 74th among the 74
European cities in the programme, with an aggregate intercultural city index of 23%. Although the city
became a partner in the DELI programme, it has not yet made a public statement as an intercultural
city, nor has it adopted a strategy and action plan regarding integration and cultural diversity. To tackle
this issue, we will propose the Municipality to set up a task force and an action plan which would, as
a minimum, provide a framework to address the policies and programmes of the future Museum of
Multiculturality of the city which the Bucharest City Council voted in 2016 to establish.
According to expert estimates, the Roma population in Romania in 2010 was between 6% and 12%
of the total population, compared to the approximately 3% in official figures based on self‑declared eth‑
nicity during the 2011 Census. Bucking the ageing trend of Romania’s overall population, more than one
third (over 37%) of the Romanian Roma population is under 15 years of age.3 The estimated number of
Roma in Bucharest and Ilfov County is between 150,000 and 200,000, making the Bucharest Roma com‑
munity the largest in Europe.
The Roma population are located in both inner city, peripheral areas and rural Ilfov County, with
large concentrations in neighbourhoods such as Ferentari (District 5) and Giulești (District 6). To some
extent, and as a result of generations of marginalisation, these have been parallel societies with few for‑
mal links to the city; however, for the first time a common initiative has been instigated by various Roma
associations to set up a Roma forum in Bucharest — initiated by Romano Butiq, which is a key partner
of Bucharest2021.
The Cultural Scene
T
he fundamental contradictions and opposing trends in the city are constantly generating a state of
creative chaos. A new type of cultural edginess and specific energy has been born out of the clash
of opposing realities, an underground tension that is constantly fuelling above ground processes and
resulting in a certain type of authenticity.
Bucharest’s cultural life is a rich mix of traditional (elitist) culture, represented by a strong per‑
forming arts sector (theatre, opera, dance, and music), as well as a large and diverse network of muse‑
ums, and a mass (leisure) culture, represented by an increasing number of open air festivals, concerts
and events, and a rapidly developing contemporary arts scene. Moreover, there are a growing number
of cultural operators from the entrepreneurial sector. These include, besides the traditional areas of cul‑
tural industries such as multimedia, cinema, audio‑visual, music, publishing, cinema, the more edgy
domains of video games, interactive media, design, craftsmanship, architecture, etc. Based on recent
evaluations of the creative economy sector in Romania, Bucharest is the national leader in cultural entre‑
preneurship. This potential can be one of the key assets for the ECoC project.
The arts and culture sector has different types of cultural structures, each with its own organisa‑
tional, economic, and artistic characteristics: municipal and national cultural institutions, independent
organisations, and private ones. Although they are all equally important as part of the cultural ecosys‑
tem of the city, they are in fact separate phenomena. This segmentation of the cultural life is furthered
by the prior absence of an overall cultural strategy and by the lack of common cultural agendas.
The independent scene itself is fragmented, with a growing number of organisations, operators,
and individual artist groups currently active across the cultural spectrum. Their rapidly shifting nature
makes it difficult to estimate a number (more than 300 have applied for funding from the City’s main
project fund at ARCUB). It is especially the case of a wide range of non‑institutionalised creative initia‑
tives that have developed a community‑building component into their projects, which has had a great
impact on local environments.
The independent sector’s rapid growth over the past 15 years is also the result of the annual incor‑
poration of a high number of young arts graduates coming from all over the country, making it the most
active and innovative part of the local cultural scene.
The annual financing pattern of both national and municipal cultural institutions, as well as the inde‑
pendent sectors, has undermined their capacity to develop multi‑annual projects and has reduced dras‑
2
Council of Europe/ERICarts,
Compendium of Cultural Policies and
Trends in Europe, 16th edition, 2015.
3
World Bank Group, Diagnostics and
Policy Advice for Supporting Roma
Inclusion in Romania, prepared by the
Human Development and Sustainable
Development Teams Europe and
Central Asia, February 28, 2014.
6
Setting the Stage
tically their chances to participate in European‑funded programmes, as well as to co‑produce European
events and festivals, due to financial unpredictability.
Overall Bucharest scores low regarding European and international cultural co‑productions that
have been held over the past three years, as well as the number of European artists in residence.
Among the cultural institutions that have a European profile are: the National Peasant Museum — a mem‑
ber of the International Council of Monuments and Sites ICOMOS and the 1996 European Museum of
the Year; Bulandra Theatre — a member of the European Theatre Union since 1992; Bucharest National
Theatre — a founding member of New European Theatre Action NETA network; Romanian Youth Cultural
Centre — a member of the European Federation of National Youth Orchestras.
Bucharest has the highest number of arts universities in the country (seven), with more than
7,000 arts students. In recent years, there have been a few successful attempts at improving the col‑
laborative aspects of these otherwise traditional institutions with research and experiment platforms.
Some notable examples are the Centre for Electroacustic Music and Multimedia at the National Music
University, which works with cutting‑edge technologies in aural and visual arts, and the CINETIc inter‑
national research centre in creative technologies at the University of Theatre and Film. Both centres are
key partners in our programme.
Bucharest’s Cultural Life
B
ucharest’s performing arts sector is historically strong with the National Theatre at its core. Its
diverse networks of museums and public libraries produce more than half of the city’s cultural
output, comprising theatre, dance, and music performances, as well as exhibitions, conferences, and
arts‑driven education events.
Trans‑disciplinary events are mostly produced by the independent contemporary arts scene, which
is less developed both in terms of events and audiences than the institutional scene. Bucharest owes the
development of its contemporary arts scene in large part to the constant efforts of the independents.
At the forefront of this trend has been, since the early 1990s, the local contemporary dance and visual
arts scene, and in particular the Bucharest National Dance Centre (CNDB) and the National Museum of
Contemporary Art (MNAC).
To compensate for the city’s lack of a cultural strategy at that moment, Bucharest has hosted a
large number of festivals over the past 20 years. These have attracted large audiences, with more than
54% of citizens attending them. Industry professionals promoted an increasing number of film festivals
in response to the dramatic decrease in film audiences in the 1990s and the lack of a European film dis‑
tribution network. Independent events and festivals such as Bucharest Design Week (20,000 visitors)
and visual arts fair Art Safari (19,000 visitors in 2015) have educated and drawn new audiences, while
network‑type events such as the White Nights format have proven to be the most popular.
Cultural Infrastructure:
A Spatial Unbalance and a Space Paradox
T
he cultural infrastructure is unevenly distributed across the city. For instance, recent estimates show
that 68% of museums, libraries and public theatres are distributed in the city centre in an area of
approximately 25 sq. km, 24% add to these inside the inner ring, in an area of approximately 68 sq. km,
and only 8% outside the inner ring, in an extended area of 155 sq. km.4
This over‑centralisation and hyperactive centre hides the reality that almost two thirds of the city
has no cultural facilities and little activity. Many previous neighbourhood cultural centres and cinemas
closed post 1989 due to privatisation of public housing estates. In many neighbourhoods, shopping malls
are now the only alternative for spending free time.
The issue of space in Bucharest is key to understanding the city’s cultural identity and agenda: space
as place, space as room to move, space as territory, space as infrastructure and space as creative space.
Access to formal cultural spaces is strictly limited to state and city institutions. No permanent facil‑
ities exist for the new generation of artists; and many of those few who were associated with the inde‑
pendent scene largely disappeared in 2010, following the financial crisis. The most obvious example is
the Bucharest National Dance Centre (CNDB), which was evicted from the Bucharest National Theatre in
2011 and has found temporary residence in a small garage complex and functions with a minimal budget.
A sign of improvement in CNDB’s space crisis materialised in July 2016 when a government decision (cur‑
rently under debate) proposed transferring a space currently under the administration of the National
Opera House to the administration of the CNDB.
Cultural Participation
A
ccording to the city’s first full scale analysis in 20155 instigated for the Cultural Strategy and ECoC,
the mass versus elitist culture dichotomy cannot be applied as a simple formula in Bucharest’s
case, but there are some clear trends and clear strategic issues.
4
SUMP, Preliminary Report 1.
More than 80% of the population spend their free time in parks and green areas. Surprisingly, shopping in
5
The Cultural Barometer,
commissioned by ARCUB to the
National Institute for Research and
Cultural Development and developed
by the local polling institute CURS.
malls and attending church came in second and third place, respectively. The frequency of social events
and attendance at sport events are also high. However, participation in arts and culture is not as positive.
7
23% of citizens are classified as ‘non‑users’ or ‘very seldom users’, and 38% as ‘rather seldom users’.
Therefore a total of 51% of the population with a high proportion in the 50+ age bracket. Looking more
closely, there are various groups, with many older citizens (28%), where location, health, limited mobil‑
ity, low income etc. are characteristics, but also a large number of families with low income/ low edu‑
cation levels/ limited mobility.
12% are young non‑seldom users and have low income as a common characteristics, but are also
more engaged in social media. In the motivation of our bid and when proposing engagement for citi‑
zens, these groups will be key to leveraging another level of engagement in not only the arts but in civil
society as such.
The level of average users is 27% and these citizens are usually engaged in specific types of activity,
e.g. pop music and concerts, classical music, etc. The groups of frequent users and very frequent users
who account for only 11% of the population are both highly mobile and also multiple users of many arts
and cultural events.
The transition from a state controlled to a market driven cultural sector has lacked a strategic over‑
view. With no monitoring, but benefiting from the increasingly wide access to the internet, the explo‑
sion of the commercial cultural product in the city has also radically engaged the patterns of cultural
activity. There remains a huge untapped audience potential for the cultural sector. Addressing them will
have to be done from a new perspective, not only marketing‑wise, but also in terms of content and form.
We are currently in the process of conducting a more precise neighbourhood analysis based on 32
neighbourhoods in the city, with 1,200 respondents whom we intend to follow over five years.
Bucharest Citizens and Europe
A
t present, Romania is confronting a severe demographic decline compared to other European
states, and this is expected to continue over the next decade. Romania’s rapidly changing demo‑
graphics is due to both natural decline and external migration. However, compared to recent years, find‑
ings based on Eurostat migration statistics indicate there is a high level of mobile EU citizens returning
home, especially in Central and Eastern member states.6
Confirming that Bucharest citizens have strong links to European cities, our research shows that 44%
of citizens have a close relative or a member of the family living in another EU country (around 800,000
people), while 30% have friends from other countries, 16% read a foreign newspaper in the original lan‑
guage (around 300,000 people), and 32% watch European TV stations.
How do Bucharest Citizens
Perceive Their Own City?
I
n the latest EU Barometer on Quality of Life in European Cities (2015), Bucharest ranks 71st (of 83 other
cities) on overall satisfaction on the city, and 26th of the 28 EU capital cities. In general, Bucharest
scores in the bottom ten in most categories regarding satisfaction.
High levels of dissatisfaction are registered on questions about quality of air and noise traffic, but
also in the lack of trust in the city, especially in the neighbourhood areas, where Bucharest scores lowest
(83/83). The only areas where Bucharest ranks average are in the quality of shopping facilities, the availa‑
bility of cheap housing, and the possibilities for employment. Further research on how citizens perceive
their city shows that only 34% of Bucharest residents agree that it is a European city, the same percent‑
age think Bucharest deserves to be a European Capital of Culture, and 66% think that Bucharest is a cre‑
ative and dynamic city. 70% are unhappy with the high number of cars in the city (around 1.12 million
cars were registered in Bucharest in 2013) while 82% agree Bucharest is a crowded city.
6
European Commission, EU
Employment and Social Situation,
Quarterly Review, Supplement: Recent
Trends in the Geographical Mobility of
Workers in the EU, June 2014, p. 17.
8
Setting the Stage
Regional Context/
Metropolitan Area
POPULATION
DISTRIBUTION
PERSONS/ HECTARE
A3
4.1 — 15.0
15.1 — 25.0
BUFTEA
A3
25.1 — 50.0
A1
50.1 — 75.0
BUCUREȘTI
A2
75.0 — 100.0
150 — Bucharest
CIOLPANI
NUCI
GRUIU
BUTIMANU
PERIȘ
NICULEȘTI
DN 1A
CIOCĂNEȘTI
BUDEȘTI
CIOLPANI
GRĂDIȘTEA
BALOTEȘTI
CREVEDIA
OLTENIȚA
MOARA VLĂSIEI
BĂNEASA
DN 1
DASCĂLU
PETRACHIOAIA
CORBEANCA
TĂRTĂȘEȘTI
A1
COSOBA
FLOREȘTI-STOENEȘTI
VÂNĂTORII MICI
VOLUNTARI
CHITILA
DRAGOMIREȘTI
VALE
BOLINTIN-DEAL
BOLINTIN-VALE
CIOROGÂRLA
BUCUREȘTI
SLOBOZIA
ILEANA
GĂNEASA
DOBROEȘTI
CHIAJNA
CREVEDIA MARE
BELCIUGATELE
DN 3
PANTELIMON
TĂMĂDĂU MARE
BUTURUGENI
CERNICA
A2
FUNDENI
CERNICA
GURBANEȘTI
POPEȘTI LEORDENI
MĂGURELE
CORNETU
PLĂTĂREȘTI
A3
SOHATU
CIOLPANI
NANA
DĂRĂȘTI-ILFOV
BERCENI
1 DECEMBRIE
MIHĂILEȘTI
FUMUȘANI
Employment growth
rate of about 98%
FRĂSINET
VASILAȚI
DN 4
COPĂCENI VIDRA
LETCA NOUĂ
ECONOMIC
PROFILE AND
WORKFORCE
VALEA ARGOVEI
JILAVA
DN 6
CLEJANI
GLINA
NICOLAE BĂLCESCU
SĂRULEȘTI
CERNICA
CLINCENI BRAGADIRU
GRĂDINARI
FUNDULEA
BRĂNEȘTI
DOMNEȘTI
OGREZENI
BUCȘANI
DN 2
MOGOȘOAIA
JOIȚA
ULMI
ȘTEFĂNEȘTII
AFUMAȚI
DE JOS
SĂBĂRENI
GĂISENI
SINEȘTI
TUNARI
OTOPENI
BUFTEA
DN 7
BUFTEA
CURCANI
LUICA
BULBUCATA
A1
IEPUREȘTI
VĂRĂȘTI
ADUNAȚII-COPĂCENI
SINGURENI
DN 5A
BUDEȘTI
COLIBAȘI
VALEA DRAGULUI
COMANA
GOSTINARI
CĂLUGĂRENI
SCHITU
ISVOARELE
MITRENI
RADOVANU
ULMENI
GREACA
DN 41
BĂNEASA
A2
CHISELET
CURCANI
SPANTOV
CĂSCIOARELE
MIHAI BRAVU
DN 5B
BUCUREȘTI
MÂNĂSTIREA
HOTARELE
STOENEȘTI
DN 5
CURCANI
CLINCENI
CRIVĂȚ
GHIMPAȚI
SOLDANU
HERĂȘTI
OLTENIȚA
Local administrative
units with economic
growth
units with tourism
facilities
units with agricultural
profile
COMANA
CHIRNOGI
PRUNDU
IZVOARELE
DAIA
GOSTINU
FRĂTEȘTI
STĂNEȘTI
GIURGIU
OINACU
GIURGIU
SLOBOZIA
PROTECTED NATURAL
SITES AREA PER LOCAL
ADMINISTRATIVE UNIT
(%)
A3
< 10%
CORBEANCA
10.1% — 20%
A1
20.1% — 50%
BUCUREȘTI
Local administrative units
Argeș-Sabar green corridor
Built area of Bucharest
Natural connectivity spaces
Large unbuilt areas inside Bucharest
ringroad
National roads
Urbanization axis A1–A2 highways
Ploiești-București-Giurgiu axis
Bucharest periurban area
Danube river
9
A2
PLĂTĂREȘTI
‘NATURA 2000’ sites
Cultural points of interest
COMANA
Existing ports/ airports
Măgurele Research Institute
> 75.1%
No data available
Highways (A1–A2–A3)
Proposed ports/ airports
50.1% — 75.0%
PRUNDU
IZVOARELE
Bucharest‑Ilfov
Region
Does your city plan to involve
its surrounding area? Explain this choice.
Bucharest and Ilfov County
will be one region by
2021, so it makes sense
to start collaborating.
Building a Case for
Bucharest
Why does your city wish to take
part in the competition for the title
of European Capital of Culture?
Bucharest is today at a point where it needs to take
stock and act on the invisible aspects that have been
blocking it for the past 27 years. The following points
of departure are the motivation for our bid:
1.Laying the Ground for a
Future Culture of Responsibility
I
n the first bid, we explained how the dynamics on local, national, or international
levels are forcing Bucharest to change and how this will only be exacerbated by the
introduction of formal regions in the country by 2021. In terms of urban structure,
Explain the concept of the programme
which would be launched if the
city is designated as European
Capital of Culture. (see p. 24)
I
n our previous bid, we focused on the historical, political and social conditions that have hindered
any real progress in the transition to a democratic system of active citizenship. Our first argument
for Bucharest was the need to rebuild citizens’ trust by positioning culture as a key resource in rekin‑
regional population movement and mobility patterns, recreation and cultural infra‑
dling an emotional link with the city. We continue to believe that ECoC plays a crucial role in address‑
structure, tourism and economic potential, the influence and pull of the city is increas‑
ing the underlying systemic drawbacks that have been mirrored for so long in people’s disinterest in
ing and people are now commuting 60 km daily to reach Bucharest with around 3 mil‑
the fate of their city.
The tragic events of the Colectiv club fire in October 2015 and their aftermath have deepened the
lion inhabitants using the city regularly.
belief that this city is living on the edge, shifting between creative and self‑destructive chaos.
Bucharest and Ilfov County have established a strategic partnership with the
Bucharest-Ilfov Regional Development Agency (BIRDA), the regional strategic author‑
The present bid upholds the argument that a new model for participatory democracy by position‑
ity that administers strategic funds on both a national and European level. BIRDA is
ing the citizen at its centre needs to be imagined and enacted. At the same time, events in the wake of the
responsible for the regional strategic investment for the period 2014–2020. The Agency
Colectiv tragedy showed that a new civil contract is only possible through a commitment to changing the
has agreed to support B2021 by investing in specific programmes that are in line with
status quo while also highlighting the need to transform grief into empowering and constructive action.
EU regional priorities. This is another key reason to structure the project on a regional
Now is the time for a change of perspective where a sense of renewal and revival replaces the cur‑
level. A regional perspective can significantly strengthen cultural tourism, which is one
rent vacuum. Building a collective vision of future responsibilities and roles for urban actors is para‑
of nine strategic priorities for the Regional Fund in 2014–2020. B2021 can play a lead‑
ing role in this strategy.
Ilfov County offers a number of important cultural components to the project,
including the cultural centres of Mogoșoaia and Snagov for residencies and sites of
cultural production, green areas and blue corridors which will link to green initia‑
tives in Greentopia. In Ilfov, there are also pockets of deprivation which include a
number of dense Roma communities. Buftea, Măgurele, and Chitila rank high on the
A new model
for participatory
democracy
positioning the
citizen at its centre
mount and this needs to be nurtured by an artistic and cultural movement.
The fall of the government and the resignation of an otherwise popular district mayor in November
2015 showed that, for the first time since 1989, the over‑dominant Romanian party system has withered.
Since then, the intuition we have been following in our bid — that a new collective energy is making itself
felt just below the surface, with little or no encouragement from the establishment or traditional poli‑
tics — has become stronger.
Some of this is traceable to the bouts of civic activism focusing on neighbourhoods, showing in a
refreshing and stubborn way that proximity has real political value in Bucharest.
national scale of marginalised population (13.5%). These are addressed in the Transient
On a different note, this was also visible at the twelfth edition of Bucharest Pride in June 2016, which
Precarity project.
saw a record number of 2,500 people, more than double the attendance seen in recent years.
The "Văcărești Delta" officially becoming the Văcărești Natural Park at the end of a long and tedi‑
ous bureaucratic endeavour reflects, in a similar way, an instance of a real collective determination to
go against the odds.
We have also sensed a readiness for change in the response of many independent, young people in
the process of thematic calls, open workshops, co‑curating processes and micro‑grant schemes, which
Building a collective
vision of future
responsibilities
and roles for urban
actors is paramount
have given clear indications of the relevant motivating power of the In—visible City ethos and concept,
as well as a commitment to support originality.
In our bid, we acknowledge and invest in the strong generational propensity for building collec‑
tive stamina. In fact, the programmes and projects play on the realisation that Bucharest is a young city,
where alternative networks of thinkers and doers, connected through informal structures, mobile and
linked to European themes and movements, are on the rise.
Reinventing democracy from the eternal standpoint of party politics will in future years become as
outlandish as the voting urn. What is now read in our bid book as only an intuition will have grown into
a tangible reality by 2021. Our process‑based approach, empowering slow‑paced bottom‑up initiatives,
testing out micro‑tactics of engagement, might sound counter‑intuitive for a city as large as Bucharest,
but in fact follows the invisible, yet powerful promise of a new urban solidarity on the rise.
2.Recovering Bucharest’s Identity as a European City
D
8
Setting the Stage
uring our process we returned many times to the question of Bucharest’s identity, which came up
when addressing the issues that define a city of such complexity: the geographical position, the
cultural profile and unique traits, the political aspects, the current transition from socialist over‑centrali‑
sation to laissez faire neo‑liberalism, the city’s European identity and its contribution to European values.
The title is the chance to rebuild Bucharest’s lost and unseen connections to the cities with which it
shares a common history and values, such as Vienna and Budapest on the Danube connection, Belgrade
and Sofia on the Balkan connection, Paris and Berlin on the Western Europe connection, as well as cit‑
ies in the Black Sea region. We see ECoC as a wider framework for rethinking Bucharest from the under‑
Proximity becomes
a real political
value in Bucharest
explored perspectives of a both regional and peripheral geopolitical player in a Europe that itself con‑
fronts a redefinition of the roles ascribed to cities perceived as peripheral from a Western viewpoint.
The candidacy is not only about geographical links, it is also about cultural and artistic ones. We
see ECoC as a strategic tool to reconnect Bucharest’s cultural institutions to European and international
artists, especially in the field of contemporary arts and civic initiatives.
3.A New Perspective on Europe:
Interconnectivity to Change the Status Quo
F
ifteen years of major crises and global pressures in Europe have led to a point where we see clear
signs of splintering and imploding of what most people thought could be a common framework for
diversity. Against a backdrop of countries and cities becoming more polarized and reverting to height‑
ened localisation and provincialism, we believe that Bucharest has a role to play in providing a compen‑
dium of experiences and issues that are at the core of all European cities of its size and scale, from spa‑
tial fragmentation to growing inequality in sharing resources and funding.
The heightened focus on urban growth is in fact already showing its downsides, as this dominant
policy has proven unsubstantial for local needs. The increasingly competitive urge of cities to see them‑
selves in a branding paradigm — as tourist destinations, as knowledge cities, as historic ‘monuments’ —
may in fact be counterproductive to actually generating many of the visions the EU promotes for a bal‑
anced urban development.1
In her analysis of the role of cities as drivers of change and development in an increasingly glo‑
balized and interlinked economic and cultural systems, Saskia Sassen, one of the leading expert on glo‑
balisation and cities, highlights the issue of stratification of cities (local — regional — national — super‑
national — continental — global) as not only a question of size but of interconnectivity.2 The insight is
further related to the assumption that in any networked system, the question of nodality is key to influ‑
encing and leading change.
As we have already stated, historically, Bucharest is a well‑connected city, linked to the rest of the
country as its capital and main economic and cultural driver. It is also linked to other cities in the Balkan
region as a major hub for global businesses, digital technology, high level of knowledge and skill flow
on many levels. A third level of connectivity for Bucharest is through its own citizens, who are increas‑
ingly part of a growing diaspora, contributing to the global mental ecology a fluid sense of place, cou‑
pled with issues of displacement and belonging.
We believe that Bucharest, which faces all the major forms of urban maladies that have beset
European cities over the past century, has, at the same time, the potential, resources, skills, and inno‑
vative capacity to deal with these issues. Based on our research, we infer Bucharest is one of five major
cities in the Balkan region that has strong enough connectivity to be able to both benefit from European
and global movements and to influence these. Our case builds on the insight that Bucharest is not only
in a position to involve and indeed engage on a national level, but also has the potential to influence on
a regional and European level due to its connectivity.
Empowering
slow‑paced,
bottom‑up
initiatives, testing
out micro‑tactics
of engagement
By allowing Bucharest to play this role on a larger stage, the ECoC initiative will include these urgent
issues on its agenda and re‑elevate the competition to being again a real stake for major cities. This would
reinforce their roles as citizen‑driven and cultural platforms, as loci of European solidarity, and not only
as the traditionally assigned place for administrative and political representation.
If major European capitals and cities do not lead in the movement to engage with a networked
world and if they do not allow greater devolution of political power to neighbourhoods and communi‑
ties to promote diversity, authenticity, and social innovation, it is questionable whether Europe will in
fact be able to manage to balance these two main forces, which are at the core of the European dream.
It is our wish that Bucharest should play a part in this quest. We believe there is clear evidence the
1
European Commission/ Directorate
General for Regional Policy, Cities
of Tomorrow: Challenges, Visions,
Ways Forward, 2011. The document
advocates for green innovation,
ecological and environmental
regeneration, new forms of
democratic participation, securing
and developing cultural dialogue and
diversity, securing social progress
and cohesion, limited urban sprawl.
2
Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New
York, London, Tokyo, Princeton
University Press, 1991.
city is on the verge of changing past patterns. This is partly due to the backlog of urban, social, moral,
and cultural issues it has had to face, and partly due to emerging self‑awareness and active engagement
which has created a sense of expectancy as to what happens after the one year ‘break’ from normal
party politics.
The new perspective and tone of the Bucharest Urban Master Plan anticipates this change by advo‑
cating a people first policy. Similarly, the growing number of small, innovative actions, projects, start‑ups
and initiatives, which have also been fuelled by the ECoC process, have made visible the largest mass of
9
Invisible yet
powerful urban
solidarity on
the rise
potential creativity and innovation in the Balkans. We believe these factors have created the most potently
dynamic conditions for a transformative process.
4.Balancing Cultural
Inequalities
M
ore than two‑thirds of Bucharest’s population lives outside the central area, where some 80%
of the institutions and cultural activity is concentrated. Cultural consumption in the neighbour‑
hoods is largely reduced to commercial movies and shopping malls. It is not only the socialist city that
had turned its citizens invisible; the capitalist city has continued to do so by marginalising many of its
culturally peripheral citizens.
Compared with other European capitals, the level of participation of citizens in the arts and cul‑
tural life of the city (public events and activities) is extremely low. The results from the very comprehen‑
sive Bucharest Cultural Barometer 2015 on citizens’ cultural life clearly underline this. With 53% of the
population only rarely engaging in the arts and cultural offers in the city, there is a documented need to
rethink the cultural agenda, redistribute activities and open further institutons.
We see this rebalancing as critical for the cultural life of the city, and we think ECoC can provide
Re‑thinking
Bucharest in
a Europe that
itself needs to be
re‑imagined
equal access to culture for all citizens. As we envision to open up new territories of culture, we see
ECoC as an opportunity to increase access to culture in the city’s peripheral quarters and to place more
emphasis on the need to create rather than simply consume. Bucharest has the richest and most active
independent arts scene in Romania. However, this immense creative potential is fragmented and used
to a minimum because of lack of funding, spaces, and of coherent strategies for contemporary artists.
5.Tapping into Bucharest’s Cultural
and Creative Potential
T
he national and municipal cultural institutions operate as closed units that rarely perform outside
their centre‑located buildings. Their radiating power is limited to the captive audiences they have
been addressing. Very few of these institutions have opened their doors to collaborations: local, national,
or European. We see ECoC as instrumental in opening up cultural institutions and making this immense
potential visible in the city’s neighbourhoods and periphery, as well as at the regional, national, and
European level. We see ECoC as a decisive factor in opening up the numerous vacant spaces and build‑
ings, including larger industrial sites, in the city to both local and European artists.
Bucharest has no tourism strategy, and cultural tourism has (historically) never been a priority. On
the other hand, increasing alternative tourism initiatives, combined with growing interest from inter‑
national media over the past decade, indicate a clear potential. Among the unused cultural assets are
the city’s socialist and modernist architecture, and the Văcărești Natural Park. An increased interest in
these two areas has emerged recently.
Perhaps the greatest resource the city has is the potential of the younger generation (the 260,000
school pupils and 110,000 university students). This is the first generation to be born post-1990; but there’s
also the chance that it will become a lost generation.
Indeed, there is the risk that the city’s innovative potential will not be capitalised on. Some 24%
of all graduates aged between 24–30 are unemployed and 30% leave for Europe. This leaves 46% who
find employment in the city, but many change their professional careers (particularly those who have
received an education in the arts) and take on other work. This situation has been a major focus in our
bid. It explains why we have prioritised major partnerships with the seven art universities in the city, and
also with the Bucharest Education Department, all committed to invest in our common programmes.
Bucharest’s creative brain drain to Europe has accelerated following the economic recession. We
see ECoC as a crucial opportunity to unlock the city’s future possibilities, a platform to create hope, to
encourage new thinking and to engage the creative, socially innovative, and media savvy youth of the city.
10 Setting the Stage
Contribution to
the Long‑term Strategy
A parallel and coordinated process between the
Cultural Strategy and ECoC has included common
research and analysis topics, linking of goals and
objectives, and a dialogue with the cultural sector.
O
n August 1, 2016 the City Council adopted the Cultural Strategy for the City of Bucharest for the next
decade (2016–2026), the first long term strategy that the city has articulated to guide its actions and
investments in the cultural field, and the result of a two‑year participative and evidence‑based process.
The lack of a shared vision and a formal cultural strategy prior to this process limited the response
to the challenges, opportunities and the development of the sector, and has marginalised the cultural
sector in relation to other fields.
The pioneering nature of this first policy‑making process has also appeared in the strategy’s approach
of viewing the city as an ecosystem, whereby the cultural system intersects with the economic system,
the urban dimension, the need to provide a sustainable, clean, friendly, and attractive environment for
Bucharest residents. Culture is seen as a generator of quality of life and as a powerful connector within
the city, which can foster in its inhabitants both a sense of community, and the wish to champion the city.
Thus, the Cultural Strategy puts forward six long‑term goals. The matrix on page 15 details the stra‑
tegic objectives that underwrite each goal, and provides examples of proposed instruments and mech‑
anisms for their implementation.
Ob.1.
Embed culture as an engine for sustainable urban development
Ob.2.
Provide access and encourage a generalised and balanced participation of all inhabitants in
the cultural system
Ob.3.
Establish Bucharest as an attractive cultural capital of the European space
Ob.4.
Bring cultural entrepreneurship to the centre from the margins
Ob.5.
Reveal and communicate Bucharest as a connective city
Ob.6.
Increase the capacity and sustainability of the cultural sector
The Cultural Strategy is the result of a comprehensive long‑term process carried out under the coordi‑
nation of ARCUB, the Cultural Centre of the Bucharest Municipality, in correlation with the application
process for ECoC2021, in order to secure the best possible synergy in their development, implementa‑
tion and sustainability beyond 2021.
This complex two‑year process of research and consultations has also been designed to respond
to the pioneering nature of this endeavour and the complexity of the city's cultural sector, as well as to
provide a solid foundation, based on an informed understanding of the sector and its participation in
decision‑making, for a sustainable long‑term process that integrates culture as a key resource for local
development.
Considering this has been the first endeavour of its kind and given the chronic lack of information
concerning both the cultural sector and the cultural practices of the city's residents, extensive research
was conducted in the first part of this process ( June 2014–December 2015), in partnership with 10 research,
education and policy organisations in the city, public and private alike, and 36 individual experts:
•
A first exploratory research on the dynamics of the cultural and creative sectors in Bucharest involv‑
ing approximately 550 cultural stakeholders through interviews, focus groups and questionnaires;
•
24 additional reports (diagnosis and policy proposals) on fields and topics relevant for the city's
cultural ecosystem, commissioned to individual experts;
•
A survey of the cultural practices, participation, preferences and perceptions of Bucharest res‑
idents, based on a sample of over 1,000 citizens, the first of its kind carried out at the city level;
•
A qualitative analysis of the cultural, religious and leisure practices of Bucharest residents;
•
A qualitative mapping, based on citizen participation, of needs and ideas for cultural development
of and within city neighbourhoods, targeting 12 cartiere (neighbourhoods);
•
A mapping of the public and private financial resources for arts and culture in Bucharest over the
past eight years (2007–2015);
11
1.
Describe the cultural strategy that is in place
in your city at the time of the application,
as well as the city’s plans to strengthen the
capacity of the cultural and creative sectors,
including through the development of long
term links between these sectors and the
economic and social sectors in your city.
What are the plans for sustaining
the cultural activities beyond
the year of the title?
•
A mapping of the city's deserted or under‑used spaces, which identified over 400 buildings and
public spaces with potential for cultural activation.
All these reports have been made widely available via a dedicated website — a reference tool for the pro‑
cess: www.StrategiaCulturalaBucuresti.ro.
This intensive research phase emphasised the critical needs and laid the foundation for a consistent
long‑term process of research and analysis as a basis for policy development, implementation and eval‑
uation, to be carried out under the Bucharest Cultural Observatory, a platform of education, research
and policy organisations to be set up in 2017.
In order to make cultural planning relevant as a transversal engine for development, the strategy
development process included a correlation with other sectorial policies at national, regional, and local
levels, including urban development, mobility, tourism, digital agenda, etc. The Cultural Strategy and
Bucharest2021 have launched, for instance, a platform of coordination with two crucial undertakings
for the city: the Bucharest Urban Master Plan (PUG), the key urban development regulation for the city
for the next decades, and the Integrated Urban Development Plan (PIDU) for the city centre. As a result,
the Strategy and Bucharest2021 build on these processes and nourish them in return, e.g. by support‑
ing the activation and strengthening of the neighbourhoods, which are slated to become the implemen‑
tation pillars of the new vision of the Bucharest Master Plan.
Last but not least, the Cultural Strategy has been formulated as a result of a wide participative pro‑
cess of consultation, with more than 240 key resource individuals (managers of public cultural institu‑
tions, cultural entrepreneurs, public administration representatives at city and district level, represent‑
atives of NGOs, and citizens interested in this process) taking part in 12 public debates, working groups
and workshops organised from April 2015–May 2016, and the final public consultation in June-July 2016.
This process has also revealed, and at times even accentuated, various fault lines or misconcep‑
tions in the cultural sector, such as those between the public and the NGO sector, between the public and
the for‑profit entrepreneurs, the cultural sector and the administration, the city and the district authori‑
ties, etc. But it has laid the ground for counteracting the segmentation of the cultural sector by bringing
the different actors together in reflecting on the common goals for the city and the cultural sector. The
result is a shared agreement on the critical issues facing the city and on the Strategy goals. Building sus‑
tainable platforms of dialogue and cooperation within the cultural sector and with other sectors is how‑
ever a long‑term process and represents a key element in the Strategy implementation.
The operationalisation and implementation of the Cultural Strategy will be carried out under the
coordination of the Bucharest Mayoralty — the Culture, Sport and Tourism Directorate. It will kick‑off
with the set up in autumn 2016 of a Steering Group of representatives of the public administration, pub‑
lic and private cultural organisations, in charge of the operationalisation of the Strategy, which will
develop an action plan setting short, medium and long‑term priorities, based on a wide array of instru‑
ments and mechanisms proposed, along with actions, budgets and responsibilities. This phase will
also include the development of a set of indicators for evaluation and procedures for monitoring the
Strategy's implementation.
It is important to mention that specific mechanisms and programmes tackling the Strategy’s objec‑
tives have already been launched or planned in the strategy‑development phase by various City institu‑
tions, many of them in synergy between the Cultural Strategy and ECoC, such as culture and education
programmes, integrating some of the objectives into the ARCUB financing line, or capacity building ini‑
tiatives. Capacity building is a crucial element in implementing the Strategy, and has thus been listed as
one of the strategic goals, and initiatives in this field will kick off immediately.
Capacity Development
Platforms
T
he aim of stimulating and triggering long‑term systemic change requires an acute understanding
of the system’s intricate and evolving nature, and a precise set of tools to be used in specific situ‑
ations. In the case of Bucharest, the challenge is formidable due to the imbalance of the cultural sys‑
tem, the backlog of required investment, and the sheer scale of the city. The ECoC project will provide
an added impetus and need for upgrading the capacity on all levels. Our approach is therefore to initi‑
ate a capacity development programme in a partnership between the Cultural Strategy and ECoC, and
open the actions to participants in the Bucharest2021 programme but also other institutions and cul‑
tural operators and artists. Additionally, capacity development is an important component of many of
the Bucharest2021 programmes.
We have developed several platforms which respond to the needs assessed via the Cultural Strategy
process and also through direct involvement of institutions, artists and community groups in the ECoC
process:
Bucharest Arts Platform
I
n a city with both cutting edge artistic visions implemented by independent cultural organisations, as
well as by some public institutions, and highbrow culture events, it is paradoxical that the staff, infra‑
structure, and equipment are in a perpetual state of shortages.
This core programme, detailed in the table below, is aiming at capacity building, for both independ‑
ent organisations and public institutions, in the Professionals & Logistics line, as well as in supporting
Mobility and International exchanges. It also aims to enhance the capacity of the sector to tap into the
new technologies in view of better knowing and connecting with various audiences.
Through high‑quality artistic and cultural management training methodology, the project links
Romanian and international cultural producers and managers, professionals from the academia, activ‑
ists and professionals from cross‑disciplinary fields, technology innovators and key decision‑makers in
Lead: ARCUB
Strategic Partner: University of Bucharest
International Networks & Partners:
EUNIC, On the Move, IETM, Culture Action
Europe, Erasmus Plus, EURIOCITIES: European
Cultural Foundation, Sofia Development
Association, Marcel Hichter Foundation,
CEC Artslink, Res Artis, Dutch Culture/
TransArtists, UNESCO Chair in Belgrade (Serbia)
National NGOs: Film ETC. Association,
MetruCub Association, A.T.U. Association,
MATKA Association, Gabriela Tudor
Foundation, Civitas Foundation
European Cultural Institutions in
Bucharest: Goethe-Institute, British
Council, Institut Français, Czech Centre,
Austrian Forum, Polish Cultural Centre, etc.
Business Partners (potential):
UniCredit, Microsoft, HP, Google, Lenovo
a collective effort to invest in an already extremely active cultural sector, and to ensure the necessary
human and tech logistics for the ten‑year cultural strategy implementation. We propose a series of pro‑
jects with both innovative (new working patterns, projects encouraging partnering for innovation and
culture, new Cultural Technology Fund, an Artists and Professionals Mobility Fund, etc.) and more in‑line
methodologies (grants lines, lobby and support for professional post‑graduate studies, etc.).
The cultural operators supported will become change makers to bring forward an already innova‑
tive cultural urban sector and serve as builders of a sustainable future in culture.
Program
Activity
Participants
A programme of ongoing sustainable support for cultural institutions and NGOs. A pool of around
20 European specialists will be available for dedicated support on specific programmes and
issues which can transform/ build key players in the cultural sector. All aspects of organizational
development will be covered for max. three‑month intensive mentoring, annual exchange
programme & public talks/ meeting integrated in the programme.
10 institutions & max. 100
persons annually will work
with 20 European/ RO
specialists
KNOW-HOW
Peer to Peer Program
Cultural Diploma Project for curators
Cultural Diploma Project for Teens
An ambitious one/two year part‑time diploma programme for all professionals, working cross
sectorial. In collaboration with UNESCO chairs — University of Bucharest/ Arts University
of Bucharest, and several European cultural management platforms/ courses, the CDP will
raise the bar for ambitious cultural organisers/ curators, who want to work internationally and
interdisciplinary.
A parallel programme aims to launch a two‑year CD for teenagers from high schools in the city and
Ilfov County, including low‑income neighbourhood schools.
25 curators & organisers
annually
25 young cultural activists
annually
EUROPEAN
International Curators Visitors Programme
Much of Romanian culture & arts remains a secret for international programmers, producers and
curators. A consistent programme of coordinated theme/ sector based visits will map the potential
of the Romanian (contemporary) arts scene for key European partners.
25 international curators &
organisers annually
Mobility Grants
To increase and develop intercultural and international collaboration in all aspects of professional
work and to increase levels of interaction, research, coproduction, partnerships and exchanges,
touring, networking in Europe with focus on B2021 projects in this phase. Open for artists and
cultural professionals. The programme will also support European artists/ organisers visiting
Bucharest.
50 artists & organisers
annually
Small independent cultural hubs are just starting to emerge in the city, but with no support
mechanisms to kick start. Many fail and fold up. This grant scheme will help to secure emerging
independent initiatives addressing relevant themes — e.g. green makerspaces, intercultural
spaces — with a grant of €4–10,000 annually.
5 cultural hubs annually
CULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Cultural Hubs
EQUIPMENT
Technical equipment
APPdating technology
There is no specific funding for technical support for the cultural sector in the country, while the
need to update technical support/ resources and digital equipment is increasing. A grant scheme to
co‑finance equipment for production & events, especially outdoor, e.g. lighting, sound, etc. A shared
mobile resource.
5 sets of equipment annually
There is a growing need to invest in digital technology within the arts and the needs for lighting/
sound/ 3 D printing, hi‑fi printing etc. is huge. An app dating scheme will award grants of max.
€5,000.
5 sets of equipment annually
Holograms, new robotics, laser technology etc. are little known in the Romanian cultural sector and
access to such research facilities can be given to specific experimental projects, which link the arts
to the digital sector.
5 projects annually
APPdating
An online platform for the cultural sector with a set of apps which can be used by all institutions/
NGOs.
Open platform
Hackathon Series
A series of Hackathon on various aspects of the city, which will also design new apps, including
health city, design city, cultural heritage, etc.
4 hackathons/ 100 persons
annually
City Hit Spots
Cultural information to download throughout the city with wi‑fi spots also on buses and tramways,
companies web/ intranet, high schools intranet etc. to give access to the arts/ cultural sector.
4–5 open platforms
International Media Platform
A programme to invite leading arts/ cultural bloggers to visit key cultural events/ projects in the
city.
10 int. journalists & bloggers
annually
Platform for Kids and Students
An innovative programme aimed at kids and youngsters (under 15) which will collaborate with
established cultural institutions and festivals, including ‘Opera for Babies’, ‘Classic Kids’, etc.
10–15 events annually
Arts and Innovation
NEW AUDIENCES
13
This being said, the paradox is that Bucharest has an extremely vivid 365-day‑a‑year cultural life that is
very diverse (but centralised within the city centre, as the ECoC bid is trying to address), yet hampered
by planning fatigue and systemic dysfunctionality. The situation led to a semi‑arrested capacity build‑
ing mode, where cultural micro‑tactics flourished in the sense of individual orientation, small‑scale solu‑
tions and recycled strategies. Artists are viewed as catalysts of adjustment using physical and imaginary
space in order to create, learn, enhance, and widen the social and ethics of urban life. Even according
to recent European research, Romania’s cultural infrastructure and lack of staff are in a crisis mode.
This programme is aiming to respond to this emergency and articulate in different ways our vision
on the In—visible City into non‑linear projects dealing with cultural operators’ training and cooperation,
with common tactics for staff professional development and tech & logistics, and creative strategies for
capacity building.
Thus we are planning to build up in six years’ time a more integrated and consistent investment in
our capacity to strategise our collective approach to culture as an urban identity shaper and social ecol‑
ogy tool of a 21st century city. It is a progressively built up programme, with activities mostly planned
in the preparatory phase of ECoC 2021.
These schemes will be complemented by other capacity development initiatives and mechanisms
put in place in the framework of the Cultural Strategy.
Bucharest Citizens Platform
Lead: B2021, Bucharest Community
Foundation and CeRe
A
support scheme designed as a capacity development programme comprising three main sections:
Vocational Training Platform, Cultural Facilitators, Artist as Community Facilitator, which pro‑
vide know‑how and trainings in community organising, cultural facilitation and hospitality related skills
for citizens and local independent initiatives, shaping their role as interface of larger communities (60
pers. annually).
Bucharest Creative Education Platform
Lead: B2021 and Bucharest Education
Department/ Inspectoratul Școlar
al Municipiului Bucureşti (ISMB)
(Bucharest Education Department)
Partners: Ministry of Education, Ilfov
Education Department/ Inspectoratul
Şcolar al Judeţului Ilfov (ISJI), PROEDUS,
CIVITAS, Casa Corpului Didactic (The Teacher
Training Centre), Bucharest University
(Sociology, Psychology, Pedagogy Faculties)
Private partners: MetruCub — Resurse
pentru Cultură Association, Da’DeCe
Foundation, Dalcroze Foundation,
De‑a arhitectura Foundation, Replika
Educational Theatre Centre.
A
s a key pre‑requisite of engaging the public school sector (primary and secondary schools), two
projects have been developed in partnership with the Municipality Educational Department as part
of Bucharest2021: ‘Thinking the city’ and ‘Building the city’. This complementary scheme will involve
a series of training schemes in creative learning for teachers, and will be carried out by artists with the
aim to develop artistic and cultural based education formats. It will also include international partners
with expertise: Scottish, Finnish, and Norwegian Ministries of Education, as they all have integrated
strong aspects of creative learning in their educational system. The training will specifically relate to the
themes of Bucharest2021 — Memory | Exploring | Imagining the city.
The platform will secure an active involvement of artists and will be linked to the implementation
of an existing programme generated by the Ministry of Education. An online resource platform will be
developed to link the training with the two projects.
The annual training scheme over two months will accommodate 100 teachers annually, i.e. 500
teachers in total. The kick off processes have tentatively been integrated in the plans for the school year
2017–2018.
Bucharest Cultural Tourism Platform
B
uilding on the opportunity of developing the first cultural tourism initiative in the city, in partner‑
ship with the Bucharest Tourism Association, the Municipality Tourism Department, and the Ilfov
County Tourism Authority, we are proposing a series of cluster‑based capacity development initiatives
centred around Bucharest2021 projects and themes. This platform will offer development programmes
on different levels and for key sectors and partners, including:
•
A core programme of workshops/ courses to involve both cultural operators/ agencies and tour‑
ism/ media sector to develop a common ground for collaboration, methods and instruments to
allow concrete initiatives and partnerships (100 persons annually);
•
A series of residencies with international writers/ bloggers in Bucharest 2017–2020 (25 persons
annually);
•
Info kits and courses for front line staff of cultural institutions, museums, libraries, theatre concert
halls, festivals, etc. (100 pers. annually);
•
Info packs and kits for tourist office staff, hotel and café personnel, taxi drivers, bus/ metro staff
and other gatekeepers (200 pers. annually);
•
A series of workshops for community/ neighbourhood/ green initiatives, tourist officers, hotel and
café personnel taxi drivers, police and staff (50 pers. annually).
T
he matrix below highlights the correlation between the Cultural Strategy and Bucharest2021, both
in terms of objectives, and of their translation into action by means of the specific instruments each
has available — a selection of strategy instruments and mechanisms, and Bucharest2021 programmes and
2.
How is the European Capital
of Culture included
in this strategy?
projects. The latter are either part of the Capacity Development Platforms which have been jointly devel‑
oped by the Cultural Strategy and Bucharest2021, or specific programmes and projects in the year itself.
Cultural Strategy
Goals & Objectives
Cultural Strategy
Implementation Instruments & Mechanisms (selected)
Bucharest2021
Programs & Projects (selected)
Bucharest2021
Objectives
Embed culture as an engine for sustainable urban development
1
Activate
neighbourhoods and
support culture in
proximity
2
Revitalize and
enhance the built
and the intangible
heritage
• Support cultural and community initiatives in the
neighbourhoods as funding priority.
• Support the development of neighbourhood cultural
centres, and explore innovative and flexible partnership
mechanisms to run and animate cultural infrastructure in
the neighbourhoods.
• Integrate and promote the areas with urban/ architectural
value which define the city's identity and memory.
• Creatively revitalise the intangible heritage.
• Support the archiving and creative promotion of the
mobile and built heritage, including through digitisation.
3
Enhance the cultural
significance of the
public space and the
built environment
• Support the exploration and participative activation of the
city and re‑appropriate the public space.
• Create a bureau at the City Hall for projects in public
space.
• The Peripheries theme deals with opening
the city, with programmes and projects
such as: DormStories • 3 Encounters of a
Close Kind
• Bucharest Citizens Platform
• Address urban, social, and
environmental issues of the city
with cross sector relevance
• Develop a strong neighbourhood &
participatory programme
• Improve alternative cultural
infrastructure in the city
• The Lost & Found theme is essentially a
project on heritage: In—visible museums
• Future Scars of Bucharest • Noah’s Ark.
Museums on a Human Scale • Golden age
toys • Bucharest Citizens’ Family Album •
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner • NoMap.
Nomad Poetry • Routes and Roots
• Strengthen the awareness of
cultural heritage in/ of the city
• Microtopia focuses on the use of urban
and green public space: Wetlands of the
Future • Smart River • Green the ’Hood! •
elastiCITY • Reclaiming the City
• Develop use of public space
throughout the city for arts/
cultural activity
Provide access and encourage a generalised and balanced participation of all inhabitants in the cultural system
4
Diversify and
increase the
attractiveness and
accessibility of
the cultural offer,
and encourage
the participation
of citizens not
addressed by the
current offer
• Encourage artistic practices and expression stemming
from various city neighbourhoods.
• Consolidate and extend the branches of the Bucharest
Metropolitan Library and support its transformation into a
local hub for life‑long learning.
• Adapt cultural infrastructure to the needs of citizens with
various disabilities, and support the development of a
cultural offer for culturally‑disadvantaged citizens.
• Encourage and integrate marginal or minority cultural
discourses and practices.
• Creation of the Museum of Multiculturalism.
5
Encourage the
development and
augmentation of a
culturally competent
public
• Support the development of participative cultural
education programmes at school level.
• Launch a pilot programme of creative practitioners in
Bucharest schools.
• Noah’s Ark. Museums on a Human Scale •
Radio B2021 • Bucharest Citizens’ Family
Album • Design Clinic • Temporary City •
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
• Micro‑grant schemes for communities
and associations with 75 grants for 2017–
2022 • Collaboration with 24 community
NGOs
• Commitment of 70% of the programme to
be free and in the public realm
• Develop a strong neighbourhood &
• Highlight the Roma culture and
other ethnic cultures as key
aspects of a European culture
• EURoma programme with five projects
incl. the Itinerant Roma Museum,
Creation Migration • The House —
LGBT Community Centre • Museum of
Multiculturalism
• Playgrounds of Reality •
Audience‑development initiatives
• Several major creative education schemes:
Creating the City, Thinking the City,
Open Schools (Education Taskforce),
Bucharest Creative Education Platform
• Engage broader audiences in the
arts and engage more people
actively
• Engage children and young people
as key community groups in
Bucharest2021
Establish Bucharest as an attractive cultural capital within the European space
6
Encourage cultural
exchanges and
partnerships
between Bucharest
and the European
space
• Develop mobility schemes for artists and cultural
operators from Bucharest.
• Launch and support artistic residencies in Bucharest.
• Offer strategic support and multiply the cultural and
creative projects with international visibility.
• Support the participation of cultural organisations from
Bucharest to European projects by an automatic support
scheme.
7
Develop a network
of attractive cultural
infrastructure
for a competitive
European city
8
Develop a concerted
and strategic
promotion for
culture and tourism
• Create new, attractive and flexible cultural infrastructure
to respond to existing needs, prioritising the activation of
existing un/under‑used infrastructure.
• Encourage and support the integration/ linking of cultural
infrastructure and development of clusters.
• Bucharest Arts Platform • European City
Residencies 2017–2020 • Emerging
Europa Debate programme (2017–2021)
• Bucharest Contemporary Choreography
Biennale • International amberArt
and Technology Festival • Catalyst —
Creative Technology Challenging
Reality • elastiCITY • Future Scenarios •
Shrinking Cities in Europe • Temporary
City • Re‑designing the Balkans • Invisible
Bucharest Campaign • Creative Clusters
Campaign • Bucharest Citizens’ Family
Album
• Programmes with strong European
participation & quality
• Engage European collaborators/
networks
• Promote key European themes, e.g
migration, urban issues
• Promote key Balkan cultural
collaboration & projects
• Improve alternative cultural
• Bucharest Arts Platform — Cultural Hubs
• In—visible Museums
• Develop instruments for integrated cultural promotion at
city level.
• Bucharest Communication Hub
• Correlate the Tourism Strategy for Bucharest — in
development — with the Cultural Strategy.
• Bucharest Cultural Tourism Platform
• Create a strong local and
international communications
platform in the city
• Build up cultural tourism and the
city's recognition as an alternative
destination
Place cultural entrepreneurship in from the margins
9
Encourage an
entrepreneurial
approach
• Support the development of entrepreneurial competences
in cultural management by developing mobility and
training programmes.
10
Support economic
development via
cultural and creative
sectors
• Support the development of existing creative hubs and
the development of new entrepreneurial hubs in the city.
15
• Commission a distinct action plan for economic
development through creative industries.
• Bucharest Arts Platform including Cultural
Hubs initiative
• Arts & Business Bucharest platform for
businesses and the arts
• Catalyst — Creative Technology
Challenging Reality • Re‑designing the
Balkans • Bucharest Living Lab • Design
Clinic • Temporary City
• Develop innovative and cross
sectorial programmes/ processes/
projects
projects
• Develop alternative funding/ arts
sponsorship of the cultural sector
Reveal and communicate Bucharest as a connective city
11
Bucharest as an
engine for Ilfov
County and other
regions
12
Expand the
digitization of
the city's cultural
resources,
encourage the use of
new technologies
• Develop a platform of information and cooperation with
Ilfov County in view of developing long‑term, integrated
programmes at the regional level.
• Enlarge cultural resources by means of digitisation and
encourage the creative appropriation and use of the digital
content of the city.
• Encourage the transformation of Bucharest into a smart
city; organise a series of hackathons.
• Throughout its programme, ECoC’s scope
is that of Bucharest within the wider
region, including Ilfov County and beyond
• ECoC also promotes Bucharest as a
regional creative engine in the Balkans
• Bucharest Arts Platform
• Integrate digital technology in
programmes
• In—visible Museums • The Living Archives
Programme • Invisible Tours • Energy
Rush • Catalyst — Creative Technology
Challenging Reality • Citizenship and
Democracy 3.0
Increase the capacity and sustainability of the cultural sector within the European space
13
Encourage
collaboration and
the coordination of
the cultural offer
14
Increase the
capacity of cultural
organisations and
administration
15
Promote changes in
cultural legislation
16
Encourage the
production and use
of statistics, studies,
and research in
the development,
implementation, and
evaluation of cultural
activities
• Four Capacity Development Platforms
• Support a framework for collaboration between the public
& private cultural operators.
• Support the development of skills and competences.
• Improve and increase the flexibility of the existing public
grant‑making schemes and launch new ones.
• Support the sustainability of private cultural organisations
by providing infrastructural support.
• Arts and Business Bucharest
• Decentralising the programmes of
Bucharest2021 with min. 200 key
operators in the city/ region.
• Bucharest Futurespotters Lab
• The Open Lab, which generates minimum
100 interdisciplinary projects 2017–2020
• Engage a wider constituency of
cultural operators and NGOs
• Improve management and
governance of resources in the
cultural sector
projects
• The Catalyst Media Lab
• Setup and development of Bucharest Cultural
Observatory and initiate, coordinate, and support a
consistent long‑term programme of analysis and research
on the cultural sector and its impact at the city and
regional level.
• Citizens Sounding Board
• Initiate self‑monitoring and evaluation
• Base line studies and surveys
• See also Evaluation and Monitoring
Cultural
Impact
3.
If your city is awarded the title of European
Capital of Culture, what do you think
would be the long‑term cultural, social,
and economic impact on the city (including
in terms of urban development)?
T
he main benefits of achieving ECoC status include a wider and more balanced access to culture as well
as a stronger civic involvement in the arts & culture scene, leading to larger audiences and a more
pro‑active involvement in the initiation, development and production of cultural events. A more diverse,
innovative, inclusive, and process‑based cultural production will also mean greater citizen participation.
ECoC will create a more robust, resilient, and sustainable cultural sector, to include: the rebalanc‑
ing of cultural infrastructure, activities and participation throughout its territory; the establishment of
an ARCUB-managed European Centre of Culture, which will perform as a crucial element in securing
the European legacy of ECoC, and other key platforms in the city — Bucharest Information Hub, Cultural
Observatory, etc.; the strengthening of cultural hubs, laying the foundation for local cultural centres and
for more flexible institutional and infrastructural alternatives; the opening up and revitalising of a num‑
ber of major institutions in the city and the development of long‑term collaborations between the pub‑
lic and private sectors.
ECoC will strongly impact the number and quality of artistic collaborations between Bucharest
and Europe, will contribute to reconnecting Bucharest’s cultural organisations to European and inter‑
national artists, especially in the field of contemporary arts and civic initiatives, and will increase the
role of Bucharest as a regional engine and connector in the Balkans. For Bucharest, as well as European
artists and citizens, the programme will foster an increased awareness of and participation to European
public debates and movements and encourage a re‑thinking of Bucharest in a Europe that itself needs
to be re‑imagined.
Last but not least, the Bucharest2021 programme and its approach will engender stronger and
more innovative means to connect and collaborate, both within Bucharest and at European level. It
will develop links, networks, critical nodes and clusters for creating new ways of working together and
counteracting the chronic fragmentation of the city, on the one hand, and the emerging tensions on a
European scale, on the other.
Social
Impact
T
he participative, process‑based approach and the programme's focus will foster increased interac‑
tion, engagement and sense of communality among Bucharest citizens, helping to advance a col‑
lective vision of responsibilities and roles that citizens need to take upon themselves, to achieve urban
solidarity and to bolster a sense of pride for their community and city.
Bucharest2021 will lead to improved access and participation for marginalised, culturally‑chal‑
lenged groups, will increase the visibility and legitimacy of these groups and, in the long term, lead to
more openness and tolerance for ethnic, religious and gender based (sub)cultural groups. The future
Museum of Multiculturalism, which the city voted in 2016 to establish, will build on this.
The level of cultural awareness and proficiency among children and young students will increase
due to the integrated creative classroom programmes and long‑term cultural programmes in schools.
Urban
Impact
B
2021 will produce increased awareness and use of the public space as a cultural space in the city,
as well as a key instrument for social inclusion and civic activism. This will translate in a greater
number of projects and actions taking place within the public domain, increase the public space use in
neighbourhoods, contributing to the long term improvement in the urban environment, quality of life,
and citizenship.
ECoC will also support an increased awareness and valorisation of the city’s heritage, from mon‑
uments to industrial heritage sites or communist architecture, to the history of the city and its various
neighbourhoods, with a clear commitment to sustainable heritage models. ECoC will also instil a new
approach for urban ideas: an open process and call for ideas to generate innovative uses for the many
unused or under‑used spaces.
Green projects will support a more diverse appreciation of the periphery of the city and will open
up new areas for arts and culture.
Economic
Impact
T
he number and solidity of hubs and platforms for the development and support of creative indus‑
tries is expected to increase, while a restructuring of a more entrepreneurial model for the cul‑
tural sector is expected.
A quantitative and qualitative increase of cultural tourism and of the recognition of Bucharest as a
distinctly strong cultural offer at the European level is envisioned.
The international and improved image of the city will be a factor in attracting new investment,
young people, and companies.
Evaluation
and Monitoring
A
s the city’s first Cultural Strategy and ECoC2021 are being launched at the same time, we will directly
relate the ECoC process of assessment and monitoring to the Cultural Strategy, considering the
common basis and the set of data used by both. This is done based on extensive common baseline stud‑
ies of the city’s cultural sector, with ECoC seen as a main driver for achieving many of the overall goals
under the Cultural Strategy.
One of the means of doing this is the joint setup in 2017 of the Bucharest Cultural Observatory as
a platform of research, education, and policy organisations as well as the creation within it of a special
unit — the ECoC Evaluation & Monitoring Task Force. The latter will include representatives from, among
others, the leading universities in Bucharest (urban studies, economic studies, sociology, anthropol‑
ogy, etc.), the National Institute for Cultural Research and Training, the City of Bucharest, the Cultural
Strategy Implementation Steering Group, Ilfov County, Funky Citizens, the Centre for Public Innovation,
plus one international consultant with experience in ECoC evaluations. Data collection and management
would be externalised, apart from the data from projects managed by Bucharest2021. This joint under‑
taking will secure a strong independent monitoring exercise and the sustainability of the endeavour,
using the ECoC expertise for enlarging and stabilising the evaluation process for the Cultural Strategy.
The baseline for both sets of assessments is 2015, when all the main analyses of cultural operators,
citizens’ cultural engagement, financial and economic resources in the sector, and stakeholder analy‑
ses have been carried out.
The overall timeline of the Cultural Strategy is ten years, i.e. 2016–2026, and we also see this as a
suitable timeframe for ECoC, with a mid‑way report in 2021–2022 that would fit with ECoC’s main evalu‑
ation. As the ECoC2021 project will be developed from 2017, the first of three updates of key data would
be in 2019 and 2021–2022. We expect data to be complete three months after the year of the title.
17
4.
Describe your plans for monitoring and
evaluating the impact of the title on your
city and for disseminating the results
of the evaluation. In particular, the
following questions could be considered:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Who will carry out the evaluation?
Will concrete objectives and
milestones between the designation
and the year of the title be included
in your evaluation plan?
What baseline studies or surveys —
if any — will you intend to use?
What sort of information will
you track and monitor?
How will you define ‘success’?
Over what time frame and
how regularly will the
evaluation be carried out?
For 2021 data, the reporting will be done in three phases (1.4, 1.7, and 1.12) as this will be more extensive.
Subsequent reports would be generated in 2022–2023, the key year following the project, and in 2026,
to give a mid‑term (five years) impact evaluation.
We will base the evaluation on the standard methodology for ECoC cities and will structure a cyclic
process of monitoring as an active management tool to support pro‑active project development. As this
will be the first exercise of its kind in Romania, we see this as a key opportunity to develop a practice
of self‑monitoring and evaluation of and by individual project managers/ organisations for all ECoC pro‑
jects, on the basis of common guidelines (to be adapted for the Cultural Strategy monitoring as well). This
will be done on an annual basis, aligned with the main data collection. Monitoring is on the one hand a
control instrument, but on the other hand it can and should be regarded as a catalyst for increasing the
strategic capacity of the cultural sector.
As data collection available is scarce, key data collection tools will be put in place by ECoC (some
jointly with the Cultural Strategy):
•
City Cultural Surveys to assess citizen participation, practices, preferences and perceptions (Survey)
(biannually 2015–2024). We are currently in the process of conducting a more precise neighbour‑
hood analysis focusing on 32 neighbourhoods in the city, with 1,200 respondents, a representa‑
tive selection of whom we intend to follow up with yearly, over five years, as part of a Citizens
Sounding Board (see below).
•
We will also use specific European Commission & Council of Europe methodologies for surveys
every two years.
•
Surveys of sample audience participation at ECoC events (Event survey) in 2019 and 2020 in pilot
projects, and throughout 2021, to assess participation, expectations, and evaluation.
•
With very scarce and patchy data concerning cultural tourism, we plan to work with the Bucharest
Tourism Association to carry out, starting from 2017, a visitor survey (including in partnership with
Tarom and other partners) and improve data collection.
The quantitative assessment will be accompanied by a qualitative assessment of processes and outcomes,
using the following tools:
•
The Citizens Sounding Board (CSB) will be engaged, over a five‑year period, on various questions
to give in‑depth feedback to strategic issues, questions, and to reflect on possible actions or poli‑
cies in a more participative and informed format.
•
Engaged Observers (Observers). We plan to invite a diverse group of 50 citizens (artists and arts pro‑
fessionals, philosophers, sociologists, journalists, business strategists, etc.) to observe, interact with
people over a five‑year period and regularly reflect in blogs, articles, interviews, debates, and other
formats on happenings in the city and if and how ECoC is influencing communities and the city.
•
Open Diaries (Diaries) will involve selected participants and/ or target groups in ECoC projects (art‑
ists, communities, etc.) to reflect on whether and how these processes are influencing their daily
life, based on creative methodologies developed in partnership with project leaders.
•
Bucharest Connectivity Maps aim to creatively translate and reveal through maps hidden pro‑
cesses and connections within the city, including the connections, networks and nodes that are
being formed via ECoC programmes. Self‑evaluation, qualitative assessment, data gathered as well
as other open data available, will be made available for creative use and interpretation.
•
Additionally, via the Cultural Observatory, we will encourage and integrate PhD and research pro‑
jects connected to specific themes or programmes of Bucharest2021.
The above tools will guide our evaluation not only at the level of each project and of the overall ECoC pro‑
gramme, but also at the level of targeted neighbourhoods, of a cluster of projects, or of specific themes.
We will monitor our progress and evaluate our impact (as per Q3), by looking at a set of key indicators
(both quantitative and qualitative) which we present in the table on next page, in correlation with the
overall ECoC and Bucharest2021 goals and objectives. On the basis of this methodology, and in alliance
with the Cultural Strategy, specific targets for each indicator will be defined, upon detailed analysis of
2016 follow‑up surveys.
B2021 Goals
B2021 Objectives
Engage European
collaborators/ networks
Programmes with strong
European participation &
quality
B2021 Indicators and key
areas for monitoring
CULTURAL IMPACT
ECoC
Goals &
Objectives
Highlight the Roma culture
and other ethnic cultures as
key aspects of a European
culture
To build meaningful and
strong cultural links with
Europe based on acceptance
of multiple and complex
identities
Promote key European
themes, e.g. migration, urban
issues
Promote key Balkan cultural
collaboration & projects
To support a new vision
of the city as a European
metropolis, based on
redefining the narratives
of the city — past, present,
and future — where both
heritages and utopia is
activated and re‑activated
To enhance the range and
quality of European
dimension of the cultural
offering
Build up cultural tourism and
the city's recognition as an
alternative destination
Create a strong local
and international
communications platform in
the city
To support an inclusive
citizens and community
social life of the city
To raise the international
profile of cities through
culture
To widen access and
participation in culture
Strengthen the awareness of
cultural heritage in/ of the city
To support new cultural
activity and infrastructure
in the city which supports
decentralisation, accessibility
and urban revitalisation, with
increased opportunities for
the independent and the
young
SOCIAL IMPACT
To safeguard and promote
the diversity of cultures
in Europe, highlight the
common features they share,
and to increase a sense of
belonging
Develop a strong
neighbourhood &
Engage broader audiences
in the arts and engage more
people actively
Engage children and young
people as key community
groups in Bucharest2021
To develop a sustainable
strategic cultural platform
in the city based on an
holistic approach to culture
and based on values of
authenticity, transparency
and innovation
To foster the contribution
of culture with other
sectors to the long term
development of cities
Integrate digital technology
in programmes
Improve alternative cultural
Engage a wider constituency
of cultural operators and
NGOs
To experiment with new
cultural formats and hybridity
based on interdisciplinary,
intermedial and intersectoral
synergy which can also
offer alternatives for cultural
institutions
Improve management and
governance of resources in
the cultural sector
Develop alternative funding/
arts sponsorship of the
cultural sector
Develop innovative and
cross sectorial programmes/
processes/ projects
Address urban, social and
environmental issues of
the city with cross sector
relevance
19
ECONOMIC IMPACT
To strengthen the capacity
of the cultural sector and its
links with other sectors
URBAN IMPACT
Develop use of public space
throughout the city for arts/
cultural activity
Source of Data
Attendance levels of Bucharest citizens to arts & culture events
Survey
Self‑evaluation
Engagement and participation of citizens in the creation,
production, organisation of cultural events
Survey
Self‑evaluation
Diaries
Artistic quality and innovation, including new art forms and
formats, e.g. interdisciplinary
Event survey
Diaries
Observers
Media monitoring
Number, diversity, and distribution of cultural infrastructure and
offering at the level of the city
Self‑evaluation
Survey
Quality of the collaboration with other organisations and sectors,
assessed by operators. Number of collaborations continued after
2021
ECoC monitoring
Self‑evaluation
Assessment of skills and capacity
Self‑evaluation
Number and quality of international artistic collaborations,
including collaborations beyond 2021
ECoC monitoring
Self‑evaluation
Media monitoring
European themes in cultural programmes and public debate,
including awareness and engagement of citizens in European
debate
Self‑evaluation
Observers
Media monitoring
Diaries
Level of participation in community, neighbourhood and civil
society
Self‑evaluation
Survey
Diaries
Observers
Perception regarding neighbourhoods and city
Survey
CSB
Observers
Diaries
Level of tolerance and interaction with minority groups
Survey
CSB
Observers
Intercultural Cities
Study (CoE-based)
Levels of participation of culturally‑challenged groups
Survey
Event surveys
Observers
Presence of subcultures and alternative cultures in the public
realm
Media monitoring
Observers
Level of cultural creative programmes in schools, including
programmes beyond 2021
ECoC monitoring
Self‑evaluation
Bucharest
Education Dept.
Level of cultural activity in the public space, including green areas
ECoC monitoring
Self‑evaluation
Observers
Frequency and qualitative use of the public space, including green
areas
Survey
CSB
Level and quality of activity in cultural heritage sites
Self‑assessment
Survey
Event survey
Perception of inhabitants and tourists on heritage in the city
Survey
Observers
Tourist surveys
Level of activity of creative industries, start‑ups, hubs and
development & support platforms
ECoC monitoring
Self‑evaluation
Level of employment in cultural and creative sectors
INS
Level of private investment and engagement in the cultural and
creative sectors
ECoC monitoring
Self‑evaluation
Level of national and foreign tourists/ visitors
Tourist survey
Event survey
Perception on the attractiveness of the city by international
media/ opinion and tourists/ visitors
Tourist survey
Media monitoring
Measurement of quality of city life
Quality of Life
Survey (EU
survey‑based)
CSB
European
Dimension
Bucharest has to find its voice in a Europe which
needs capital cities to lead in a time of increasing
segregation, marginalisation and provincialism.
1.
Elaborate on the scope and
quality of the activities:
•
Promoting the cultural diversity
of Europe, intercultural dialogue
and greater mutual understanding
between European citizens;
•
Highlighting the common
aspects of European cultures,
heritage and history, as well
as European integration and
current European themes;
•
Featuring European artists,
cooperation with operators and
cities in different countries, and
transnational partnerships. Name
some European and international
artists, operators and cities with
which cooperation is envisaged and
specify the type of exchanges in
question. Name the transnational
partnerships your city has already
established or plans to establish.
Strategy 1 Working with Europe
F
irstly, we will develop a number of concrete collaborations on the level of capacity building and on
generating stronger links between the cultural sector in the city and European partners. Examples
are the mobility and international exchange schemes, residency programmes and network building
initiatives. Running from 2017–2019, these support schemes will mobilise between 250–300 individuals
between Europe and Bucharest.
These would increase and develop intercultural and international collaboration and will contrib‑
ute to an enriched professional environment by supporting co‑productions, partnerships, touring and
networking in Europe with focus on B2021 projects.
Involvement of European curators in the Curatorium has significantly contributed to enriching
international collaborations and co‑productions in the programme. We have decided to take a major
step to formally secure this European approach in the proposal to maintain a collaborative Curatorium
with 12 European and 12 Romanian members.
2.
Can you explain your strategy
to attract the interest of a broad
European and international public?
3.
To what extent do you plan to develop links
between your cultural programme and the
cultural programme of other cities holding
the European Capital of Culture title?
Strategy 2 The Europe of Bucharest
W
e believe the regional Balkan context of Bucharest cannot be ignored and is highly relevant when
positioning Bucharest in a regional tourism and geo‑cultural context. To B2021 this is ”the near
Europe” defined geographically, culturally, and historically.
Some of our projects have been designed in response to the expectation that Bucharest can play a
leading role in this highly complex regional re‑definition. See especially the Balkan Expresses programme
cluster (p. 30–41), comprising large scale projects working with artists and professionals in design, archi‑
tecture, dance, and alternative music from peripheries, testing collaborative formats. All the projects
have a strong component of network building and research and a touring & presentation phase.
Examples of international partners are: the Balkan Design Network, the Balkan Museums Network,
One Design Week (BG); Mikser House (SR); Croatian Design Superstore (CR); Derida Dance Center
(BG); Brainstore Project & Antistatic Festival (BG); Quasi Stellar Company (GR); Station — Service for
Contemporary Dance (BG); amber Platform (TR); CAPa — DeVIR, Danse House Lemessos; Dance Days
Chania Festival (GR); Exodus (SL).
Strategy 3 Engaging in European themes
T
hrough key projects in each theme and through dedicated cross‑thematic public platforms and res‑
idency schemes based at ARCUB, B2021 will focus on a number of key themes which are central to
the European agenda.
The Invisible Europe Debate Platform
Year: 2017–2021
Lead: ARCUB
Budget: 500.000 €
Curators B2021: Philipp Dietachmair,
Roxana Bedrule
The Invisible Europe Debate Platform
B
ased on succesful trial experiences during the bidding phase, ARCUB has commited to develop its
venue towards an open space for debate, aiming to gradually morph into a hub for critical reflection
and discussion. The initiative capitalises on Bucharest’s position as an interface city, the capital of an EU
state hosting all relevant political institutions, national media and public voices, by making an exploratory
inquiry, through a string of debates, conversations and conferences, into the Romanian contribution to
ongoing debates in the European arena. This will also prompt the ECoC to take a more active role in the
European debate.This will also support and mirror the 2017–2020 kinetic process, culminating in 2021.
20 European Dimension
The programme will test a series of discursive formats, and will employ both thematic strands with guest
moderators and hosts, and play with ad‑hoc topics, using a variety of online media platforms and tools.
All debates and conversations in the programme will be live‑streamed starting in 2017.
Conversations on topics that emerge or
are tackled by ECoC themes, programmes
and projects (weekly, starting in 2017);
examples: social exclusion/inclusion in
Bucharest, coming to terms with the recent
past (1989 and after), revisiting Bucharest
city profile from an intercultural lens, the
emerging digital arts scene in Europe, the
untapped potential of green spaces in the
city etc.
Debates and conversations on topics
which are relevant for the regional and
geopolitical context (monthly, starting
in 2017, with international guests), e.g.
civil, political, cultural, socio‑economic
developments of the neighbouring
countries (from the ex-Yougoslavia area,
the Black Sea Region, Romania’s Danube
neighbours, Moldova and Ukraine) in
relation to developments in Romania
Debates on topics of overall European
relevance will explore the position and
contribution of Bucharest based politics
from the perceived ‘outskirts’ of the
EU in a larger geo and euro political
context (migration and work, the Roma
integration, domestic terror — causes
and counterstrategies, the post-Brexit
condition, citizen initiatives and social
transformation, etc.)
Proposed strategic partners for the overall debate programme: De Balie (NL), Red House Sofia (BG),
IWM Institute for Human Sciences (AT), Debating Europe, European Cultural Foundation, Culture Action
Europe, Institute for Contemporary Arts (UK), De Correspondent (NL), Hostwriter (DE), N-Ost (DE), euro‑
topics, Krytyka Polityczna, Kulturpunkt (HR). Additional partners are envisaged on a case‑by‑case sce‑
nario for each typology of topics.
The EuroCity Platform & Residency Programme
I
n an annual series of ten‑day‑long event driven Platforms, each reflecting a particular aspect of ‘the
European city’, we will engage with key cities, feeding content and narratives into B2021. Each plat‑
form will include debates, workshops, film/media, live events and installations.
Planned topics and links to kickstart the platform: Athens — Art and Activism as a New European
Currency; Copenhagen — Can Green Design Save the World; Graz — Post‑digital Realities; London — Global
Communities; Berlin — The Unfinished City; Amsterdam — The Open City, Marseilles — Streets of Imagination;
Warsaw — The Necessity of Reprocessing Memory; Istanbul — Balancing Cultures.
The Romanian Cultural Institute has been invited to collaborate on these city to city exchanges.
The projects will be co‑curated by the European & Romanian Curatorium and will also be linked to
media in these cities.
Urban Futures and Shrinking Cities
T
he efforts to resuscitate, reconnect and re‑integrate precarious housing estates or banlieux is an
issue which links Bucharest to other large European cities, in particular cities that saw huge inflow
of people in the in the post WWII era.
Another major focus will include the phenomena of shrinking cities and which will look at possi‑
ble solutions for many cities in Europe and the issue of urban sustainability. From a future oriented per‑
spective, Greentopia works with urban acupuncture strategies to bring to the fore the issue of sustaina‑
bility and look at how cities relate to and act upon the natural surroundings.
Bucharest intends to connect with cities in Central and Eastern Europe with similar modern his‑
tories such as Belgrade, Warsaw, Budapest, Prague and Sofia, but also with Marseilles, Paris, Istanbul,
Liverpool, Malmö, Amsterdam, to look at methods and processes to regenerate neighbourhoods. We
identified potential partners such as: Network of European Metropolitan Regions, Eurocities, European
Cultural Foundation, Nordic City Network, URBACT Network, Amsterdam Centre for Architecture (ARCAM),
In‑Situ European Network for Art in Public Space. We are already in contact with some of them.
Roma
T
he EUroma programme (see p. 36) casts a new light on Roma people and culture. We are working
both at a European and a community level around this theme. This involves, among others, the set‑
ting up of the European Roma Institute Archives with European partners such as: the Alliance for the
Roma European Institute, Open Society Foundation, Romedia Foundation, Documentation and Cultural
Centre of German Sinti and Roma. This collaboration is based on a long term co‑funding and co‑organ‑
ising collaboration. A major European exhibition will be launched in Bucharest in 2021, which will tour
Europe the following years.
Turning Challenges into Opportunities
B
eing a pressing issue in a Europe that has seen an increasing number of people living in marginal
and precarious conditions resulting in disempowerment and exclusion, and we consider this a
most opportune moment to look at how notions of solidarity, openness, citizenship, sustainability and
21
resilience are being challenged. Programmes such as Peri-Political make visible and look to give a voice
to those living without a home, and consider the progressive disappearance of jobs and work in the
process of shrinkage of cities through subversive strategies and artistic installations.
European cities are faced with the issue of how to stimulate, structure and integrate forward‑look‑
ing participatory processes. The issue of corruption, which is thriving in Europe, is another highly rel‑
evant topic for Bucharest, where levels of trust and civic engagement are extremely low. Through partic‑
ipatory and interventionist art projects Politopia proposes a series of experiments to awaken the citizens
curiosity and encourage critical thinking, and possibly spark new collective actions.
The Blocked Memory
T
he theme is looked at from various perspectives, including artistic, media and political, and linked
to relevant archival, narrative and visual practices in Europe and beyond. This is addressed in all
the Lost & Found theme programmes.
Among envisaged partners: Kodcentrum (SE), Mattecentrum (SE), Marseille Provence 2013 —
Chercheurs de Midi, Hidden Pilsen (CZ), Novi Sad 2021, Camaro Stiftung, Katja Mejerowsky Stiftung,
Berlinische Galerie, Forum des Images (FR/ DE); Beth Soll Company (NY), Galeria Ruth Benzacar (AR),
Museum of Innocence (TR), Museum of Broken Relationships (SL), Museum of Things (DE).
In our globalised world, any city can be connected to any city. Patterns that are emerging are that
of multi‑layered, non‑permanent, community and individual‑driven networks, where opportunities are
grasped and situations created spontaneously. We imagine that experimental projects such as Bucharest
Futurespotters Lab can be platforms for continuous sharing and knowledge exchange, both online and
offline, encouraging solution prototypes to European themes and issues outlined above.
Strategy 4 European and International Public
T
here are three aspects we are working on: to attract international visitors to Bucharest, to generate
international media debate and online activity and, thirdly, to co‑produce projects with European
partners that can also take place in other European cities (see for instance the EUroma programme, p. 36).
EcoC Cities as Source of Inspiration & as Collaborators
W
e have involved Marseilles 2013, Plzen 2015, and the bidding city Novi Sad 2021 in a common pro‑
ject building on community arts practices, engaging with new technologies, volunteers, neigh‑
bourhood engagement (see Bucharest Citizens’ Family Album, p.30).
We invited selected artists, curators, and cultural institutions to be partners in key projects. We have
agreed to bring part of the In‑Situ network programme with Lieux Publics to the forefront to develop
our strategy on performing arts in public space.
A Bucharest-Istanbul collaboration has been established through the International amber Art and
Technology Festival to encourage the vibrant visual arts and digital arts scene in the two countries.
Together with Novi Sad 2021 we are working on the Mobile Roma Embassy, a multidisciplinary art installa‑
tion travelling to several European capitals and shown in key public space areas, hosted by local partners.
ECoC Greek Cities as Partners
W
e have met with representatives from all three cities — Rhodos, Kalamata and Eleusina — in spring
2015. To build meaningful relationships, we propose a series of residences in each city (individu‑
ally in 2017, followed by a series of one week workshops on selected themes in 2018) on topics such as the
refugee crises and the aftermath of the financial crisis in Greece, both with large European implications.
We are linking to key artistic networks in Greece such as The Athens Biennale and The Athens
Festival, but also with individual curators (Xenia Kalpaktsoglou) whom we invited to co(curate) some
of our projects.
The priority of the Balkan perspective in our programme is partly influenced by the opportunity
to include Serbia and Greece in common programmes e.g. Re‑designing the Balkans, Balkanik!, Balkan
Connections and Bodies, Outernational. We intend to invite Kalamata Dance Festival as a key partner in
Bucharest International Dance Film Festival. An extremely promising relationship has been established
with Eleusina, where collaboration is already being implemented. The digital installation Feed Me (by
the Romanian visual artists Marilena Oprescu Singer — Saint Machine, and Noper), will be in residence
for three months this fall at Aisxylia festival in Eleusina, where a photo -video exhibition focusing on the
contemporary Romanian scene will be on display.
22 European Dimension
Cultural & Artistic
Content
Artistic Vision
Bucharest2021 —
A Collective,
Artistic Manifesto
W
e have continued to experiment with the collective as our
working model to prepare this programme. In fact, it has also
become part of our artistic vision — a vision which is not instrumen‑
tal, but integrated. In a city that evokes both dystopian and utopian
1.
What is the artistic vision and strategy
for the cultural programme of the year?
Bucharest2021 –
Programming Principles
and Programme Structure
Investing in Artistic Ecosystems
T
he approach of embedding the project in cultural ecosystems
is based on the desire to build ‘sustainable projects’ and on the
experience of many ECoC cities.
We will initiate a smaller, pilot project, which will then develop
visions, we wish to continue testing how dynamics can be influenced
by an arts‑led project to reach a contemporary catharsis.
Our belief in avoiding pre‑established narratives and formats
has only deepened in the wake of the Colectiv tragedy.
By choosing the In—visible City as our concept, our vision of an
alternative social construct is evident, especially given the absence
into larger ones. This is also the reasoning behind the proposal for a
Bucharest Platform from 2017–2019, which would function as a capac‑
ity development programme by creating physical and spatial plat‑
forms, learning hubs, and facilitating European links and commu‑
nity forums.
We have thus allocated 50% of the programme budget to the
of any specific aesthetic language or any specific cultural codex. Our
choice is based on sensitive interpretations and on the inclusion of a
pre‑programme phase and to the post‑event transition.
manifold of perspectives. We believe in a vision that is borne by indi‑
viduals but which is connected to both local and global realities. This
can only be formed in a communal context.
Looking at the eclectic programme for evidence of artistic
inspiration, we must admit there are many sources: the European
Collective Processes
e wish to stimulate and support artistically‑driven, collabo‑
W
rative and collective projects rather than individual projects.
Collaboration and partnerships are at the heart of the project. More
Dadaists’ sense of fun, provocation, anti‑authoritarianism; European
specifically, collaborations which link the institutional and the inde‑
Situationists of the ’50s and the ’60s (urbanist, random, reflective,
pendent, the local and the European, the cultural with other, active,
performative, anti‑capitalist, anti‑rationalist, and certainly fun!) as
relevant sectors. The Open Lab is the main driver to facilitate this
clear references. The love‑hate relationships with surrealism, struc‑
collective co‑creation.
turalism, and brutalism are part of our aesthetic legacy.
The programme also reflects the postmodernist deconstruction‑
ist trends and conceptualism, particularly with visual arts, architec‑
ture and design as obvious points of reference.
Finally, the programme reaches out to the streets and the neigh‑
Artistic Quality
e believe that we must not compromise artistic quality.
W
Eclectic, of course, but never mainstream. We will demand
that artists both understand and commit to our project based on a will
bourhoods with a blend of pop and sub‑cultural movements. It opens
to engage, and that they are aware of the responsibility of their actions
outwards, welcomes, and embraces signs of indisputable individu‑
and of what freedom of speech requires. The artists of Bucharest2021
ality as well as movements of cultural resilience in communities and
will work with the contemporary and with the personal, and will all
sub‑cultures that must not remain marginalised. The language for the
work on the edge, while challenging the status quo.
In—visible City specifically builds on a sensorial intelligence but also
attempts to link this to structurally defined issues and conditions of
our contemporary urban society to find solutions and avoid any uto‑
pian or dystopian schemes.
This project is a call to action for us. Our city is the ultimate
Independence
he project must be shielded from any political interests, but also
T
supported by the political system as a token of trust and hope.
We must strive to create a state of interdependence, where culture and
result of several logical constructs to which governments, global
the arts are seen as both valid and necessary in the city, where citi‑
financial flows, and institutions have all contributed. This rational
zens and their individual hopes, desires, and concerns are at the core.
approach has left us on the edge, and we believe only a high‑risk
strategy can help regain our sense of balance.
ECoC must be venture capital. Our risk assessment may go off
the scale, but has anyone made a risk assessment of communism or
of neoliberalism?
23
Transectorial and Interdisciplinary
ur programming will include all art forms, but will not be
O
curated as art‑form programmes. As almost everything is
already programmed by art form, we feel this is neither relevant
nor effective, as it will limit both artistic experimentation, thematic
infrastructure of impermanence and adaptability. We plan a series
relevance, and social impact.
of open‑calls for the designs of the structures.
Through using the natural spaces, rooftops, yards, metro plat‑
Decentralisation and Spatial Decentralisation
T
forms, carriages and façades, the works will be integrated into the
he programme will decentralise culture in the city, geographi‑
city landscape, thus creating a new, immersive interface that chal‑
cally and structurally. It will commit to re‑balancing the culture
lenges the structured allocation of space in the city.
of the city by working in neighbourhoods, by working with outreach,
by inviting institutions to work in communities, and by generating
subcultural platforms. (See Spatial Strategy, on p. 54)
Mobile and Transient
n order to activate and use a maximum of spaces and sites in
I
Downscaling and the Human Scale
he sheer scale of Bucharest is dominating and overpowering.
T
It underlines authority and standardisation at the expense of
the personal and the subjective. The principle of downscaling will
be followed, and supplementary tactics will be applied such as
the city and to reach as many people as possible, we will be
recurring small events, clustered and linked within the programme.
using mobile structures, ephemeral and adaptive projects, pop
Downscaling is a natural link to other principles such as mobility,
‑up structures and instant spaces. This will provide a new cultural
experimental practice, and investing in grassroots initiatives.
Concept
in—visible city
I
Explain the concept of the
programme which would be
launched if the city is designated
as European Capital of Culture.
t continues to be our firm belief that this concept is valid now
recycling and re‑editing and a constant repositioning between the per‑
more than ever and serves as a vital perspective on Bucharest and
sonal and the collective. In Lost & Found we activate living archives,
European urban culture. Italo Calvino’s novel from 1972, the inspira‑
and produce oral histories. This is not a theme of the old and nos‑
tion for our concept, has stimulated generations of artists, writers,
talgic, but a way to deal with the city as a living body that still bears
architects, and philosophers to re‑engage with the city as a senso‑
its scars inflicted by past and present events. The four programmes
rial space. Drawing on its ethos, Bucharest2021 is a manifesto for the
under this theme are Writing The City, in which we seek common nar‑
belief that art makes the invisible visible.
ratives of the city; Living Archives, where fictive realities and docudra‑
Based on our analysis of the city, which points to many diverg‑
mas provide new perspectives; Co‑curating the Antimemorial, where
ing and often conflicting aspects of its cultural, social, and urban real‑
we challenge the construct of institutional memory, re‑connecting
ities, we have reached the conclusion that much of the city’s identity
with unformulated memory in EUroma.
and potential is at present submerged, suppressed, forgotten, unre‑
alised and unimagined.
Acknowledging the city’s fundamental fragmentation, sys‑
temic disconnection and lack of trust, In—visible City is about bring‑
ing out what might unite and engage. With culture as a transformative
force and with the city’s citizens at the centre of this transformation,
Peripheries
T
he theme tackles the double dynamic, where peripheral
addresses both the off‑centre as well as the alternative subcul‑
tures of a contemporary urbanity. These are reflected against a com‑
Bucharest2021 is encouraging a new openness that will build a new
plicated background where the relationships between the local and
sense of citizenship, both local and European.
the global, between Europe and itself are re‑negotiated.
The In—visible City has three main themes:
tal, cultural and political, as well as geographical and physical rela‑
Starting from the periphery defined by the symbolical, men‑
Lost & Found
L
tionship between the margin and the centre, periphery is looked at
essentially as a spatial construct.
The theme emerges conceptually from the classical space triad
ost & Found has memory at its core, probably the shortest and
(as defined both by Henri Lefebvre and by Edward Soja): from physi‑
most traditional route to take when attempting to understand
cal (the built), to the social (the lived), and finally to the political (the
and retrieve the identity of a city’s space. We promised in 2015 that
public, the civic, the problematic). To this, which we have translated
Bucharest2021 would develop projects to reveal the lost, forgotten,
into three programmes, we added a fourth, Re‑designing the Balkans
invisible history of the city and the collective memory of its inhab‑
as a super periphery of Europe, to form the four programme clus‑
itants, as well as the lost connections with the Balkans and the rest
ters for Periphery.
of Europe.
This theme highlights the concept of In—visible City through
The theme aims to emotionally re‑connect the city with its cit‑
several other topics that will help unveil what usually remains hid‑
izens and to reshape the connections with Europe in the context of
den: resilience (through heritage seen as an ethical resource for space
the 21st century, strengthening its identity and its specificities.
economy and tourism); ethical, cultural, and urban resistance; polit‑
The memory of a city is simultaneously the collective memory
ical and economic ways of coping with the rapid changes and urgent
of its citizens, the aggregate memory of its institutions, and the living
issues of the urban world today: garbage and markets; contemporary
memory of neighbourhoods and communities. In this perspective,
design and local crafts, politics and public architecture, the every‑
we understand memory as a complex and rich process of constant
day and the infra‑ordinary.
24 Cultural & Artistic Content
Microtopias
Micro < gr. ‘small’. Topos < gr. ‘place’
M
tension and antagonism are not erased, but sustained and constantly
brought into debate. It involves asking who are those excluded from
the public sphere or whose voices are not heard enough. It also
icrotopia is about learning to inhabit the city in a better way,
implies identifying the trade‑off and the careful balancing of com‑
not in a distant, utopian future but in the small, possible uni‑
peting demands. Microtopias constantly re‑visit the walls we choose
verses of today. Shaped at the intersection of human living, social con‑
to erect around us and our cities, making the invisible visible.
text and place, microtopia does not exclude, but rather embraces,
In this theme, we elaborate on the avatars of the In—visible City
contradiction. Organically a fragmented city, Bucharest could also
through the following programmes: in Greentopia, we create scenar‑
be perceived as a constellation of micro‑spaces, a network of open
ios about a future city in which the natural and the human ecosys‑
ended alternatives to what the city can be. They are also a gateway to
tems coexist; in Citytopia we focus on the experiences, the invisible
the day‑to‑day realities of small communities, detached from place,
communities, and forces which can make Bucharest a more liveable
but essentially connected through their similarities. Their ‘micro‑
city; Politopia looks at ways to foster the transformations of citizen‑
topias’ are global to the extent to which they are ubiquitous: their
ship, factors of production, gender balance, ability/ disability dual‑
moments of insight, collectively and resistance are shared across
ity, capacity for visioning of work‑life balance and city‑making; and
time and space.
Artopia deals with the transition from the digital into post‑digital,
Microtopias are generated in the constant negotiation between
inhabitants, their environment and European values. As a result,
harvesting notions of perfect hybridism, sensorial approaches and
kinaesthetic art, among others.
2.
Describe the structure of the cultural
programme, including the range
and diversity of the activities/ main
events that will mark the year.
For each one, please supply the
following information: date and
place/ project partners/ financing.
(Date and place/ project partners/
financing are optional at
pre‑selection stage) (+ see p. 28)
A Kinetic Process
2014–2021
W
e are aiming for a dynamic and interactive development, with
periods of research feeding bursts of intense public activity,
while engaging and communicating with the public in a series of
looped cyclic processes over a five‑year period.
This is how we have constructed our process until now and
how we will continue. For the city it is a new approach — open, cre‑
ative, collaborative, like the artistic process itself.
Phase 2. The Open Lab 2016
I
n the second phase, we focused on developing platforms that
allow original and edgy ideas to be converted into real projects,
which strengthens the themes under the In—visible City idea and also
reaches targeted communities in the city.
The driver of this phase has been the Open Lab — a series of
four precise engagement mechanisms and co‑creation platforms tar‑
Phase 1. Memory | Exploring | Imagining 2014–2015
I
geting institutions, the independent scene, local initiative groups,
and schools. The Open Lab is also a 1:1 working model of the In—vis‑
n the first phase, our main theme was Memory | Exploring |
ible City, showcased as a public ‘laboratory’ from June–October 2016.
Imagining the City, with a series of programmes and projects that
Under the banner of In—visible City, ARCUB launched its
delivered concrete connections for the process. These included a
annual funding scheme, testing the potential of the theme with the
six‑month long series of urban exploratory walks, attracting more
cultural sector. This resulted in 155 relevant projects engaging the
than 1,000 participants, as well as 75 debates and meetings, memory
programming principles in our bid. Some 55 were given grants to
collecting projects and citizen co‑curating exhibitions, direct radio
create public programmes in 2016. Many of these took part in the
debates and a major arts in education project involving some 100
first‑phase workshops and meetings. An independent jury adjudi‑
schools.
cated the process of selection. Due to the inconsistent positioning
Around 180,000 people visited the exhibitions and events, and
regarding the candidacy of the intermediary administration, which
around 270 artists, arts organisations, and NGOs participated by shar‑
showed their changing priorities and lack of commitment to the cul‑
ing and debating possible themes and concepts regarding the In—
tural agenda they initially had agreed to, the whole programme was
visible City.
delayed. However, approx. €1 million have been invested in the pro‑
At the community level, 12 selected neighbourhoods with
jects which involve around 140 arts & cultural organisations in the
local initiative groups comprising 400 key persons were the focus
city and an estimated number of 20,000 people will be taking part
to develop relationships, test our themes, and explore different for‑
in this part component of the Open Lab programme from 16 August
mats of community involvement, all of which helped to form our
to 31 October 2016. This will give citizens a sense of what to expect in
community strategy.
2021: themed city walks, urban gardening projects, neighbourhood
In the online realm of social media, the ‘You Are Bucharest’
fund scheme supported 80 projects and events, drawing some 80,000
participants.
film festivals, video mapping projects, pop‑up events, experimental
art installations, debates and conferences.
Under the banner of Accelerator, we invited 20 established
Some 25,000 people came to events at the newly opened ARCUB
and young emerging artists and cultural groups to a co‑creation pro‑
centre in this phase, which was launched as the hub of the ECoC bid.
cess. They were selected from an initial list of 140 proposals to be
25
the starting point in an experimental co‑creation lab process in June
2016, together with our curators.
The labs in 2017–2020 will generate ideas that can be immedi‑
ately tested by prototypes and then finally produced on a one to one
The results are 11 networked collaborative projects that have
scale in 2021. Working in this way induces experimentation, allows
been given development grants of €10,000 each to be piloted over
for mistakes, encourages working in the margins, and takes account
the summer. Seven of them have been included in the bid book (see
of emerging aesthetics and the future possibilities of digital realities
Accelerator projects under the Programme chapter).
Under the label of Generator, a new mechanism has been
designed and launched together with the Bucharest Community
we know little about today. These will all link to our existing 12 pro‑
gramme clusters. We predict that this natural accumulation process
will produce around 150–200 projects for 2021.
Foundation (FCB). This is a logical next step after last year’s consul‑
The Open Lab also included a series of meetings and work‑
tations with citizens and it aims to invest in nurturing proximity‑based
shops with key local and national cultural institutions. Though not
community initiatives, which are often informal groups working with
all their specific proposals could be nominated in the bid, more than
volunteers and active residents without any public support. After the
30 formal strategic partnerships were concluded with 12 perform‑
initial selection, 15 ideas engaging 20 neighbourhoods are now enter‑
ing art institutions, festivals and creative unions (The Bucharest
ing an incubation phase with mentorship workshops and peer‑to‑peer
National Theatre, National Theatre Festival, UNITER, National Dance
guided learning. Ten of them will be awarded a micro‑grant of €2,000.
Centre, Ţăndărică, Excelsior, Masca, Odeon, Ion Creangă, Comedy,
(See the project Reclaiming the City under Microtopia theme, for how
Metropolis theatres, Globus Circus), major museums (Bucharest
we envisage this, p. 46)
Municipal Museum, National Peasant Museum, National Museum of
We believe we have found the right mechanisms for engaging
Contemporary Art), research institutes (National Archives, National
local communities by committing and working on a personal and indi‑
Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, Institute for the
vidual level. As we outlined in the outreach strategy, it is not num‑
Investigation of the Communist Crimes), CREART Cultural Centre
bers that matter at this stage, but time and commitment.
and the National Railway Company. Historic ethnic minorities were
Our educational task force has worked solidly with clear
concepts and has achieved total commitment from the Bucharest
approached and proved highly supportive of multicultural initiatives,
among which a museum in the historical area.
Education Department, resulting in a number of four major projects,
one of which will be piloted starting this autumn.
Discussions with the Romanian Radio and National Television
cover at this stage specialist broadcasting channels at local, national
and international level as well as joint productions and commissions.
Phase 3. In—visible City
O
Partner Universities: the Bucharest National Music University,
National Drama and Film University “Ion Luca Caragiale”, National
ur proposed process for 2017–2020 follows the concept of clus‑
Visual Arts University, “Ion Mincu” Architecture and Urban Planning
tering projects around themes. This creates open design and
University, Construction Engineering University, Academy of
generates a dynamic interaction between process and public pro‑
Economic Studies, National Academy of Physical Education, Military
grammes to sustain momentum and focus, as well as to inspire. This
Technical Academy, “Carol I” National Defense Academy, “Mihai
also aims to offer a creative networked structure in the city that can
Viteazu” National Intelligence Academy, Ecological University, “Al.I.
absorb and constantly recycle creative processes in an organic way.
Cuza” Police Academy, the “Gheorghe Cristea” Romanian Arts and
In 2017 we will extend the mappings of the project to include
Sciences University, the “Spiru Haret” University.
Ilfov County, and this will include research on the cultural sector
to align with the Cultural Strategy and with the Cultural Barometer.
This process will then align the county to the ECoC project at all lev‑
els. Following this, the Open Labs will have priority to include a
stronger participation from the region in order to secure an inte‑
grated programme.
T
he second major trajectory in the process will be research and
development, with a programme of capacity development. This
will be open for ECoC and other cultural operators, in particular NGOs,
the independent sector, emerging artists and managers. We see this
The Open Lab as Driver
T
as the engagement of a young generation of key cultural operators
involved in urban issues and in ECoC. This is a joint initiative with
he experience with the Open Lab has been successful as a way to
the Cultural Strategy.
programme and curate in a complex, transcultural, organic, and
loosely connected cultural reality. The main advantage of our format
is that projects become public as prototypes before 2021. This is par‑
ticularly relevant when our aim has been to capture emerging ideas,
trends, and concepts in an otherwise rigid and controlling public
sector, as well as in the anarchic and individualistic counter‑culture.
Pre‑programme 2019–2020
D
uring this period a string of projects will be launched. These
will also be the main development platforms for the market‑
ing and communication strategies, with full scale communication
We believe that the Open Lab method can in fact act as an inter‑
programmes launching locally and internationally in 2019 and 2020.
face for potential collaboration for new typologies of cultural initi‑
Strong focus will be on developing sites and events outside the inner
atives. We will continue with this as our driver of positive thought.
city and in Ilfov County, and on stimulating higher levels of mobility
The Lab will be the annual open forum for sharing and devel‑
oping ideas, resources, and networks.
The collaborative dimension, which has enjoyed continuous
investment, starts from the realisation that we need to build resil‑
and polycentrism. Mainstreaming will take place in 2021.
The marketing and communications strategies are also struc‑
tured into this phasing of mapping, prototyping, and piloting phases
of the pre‑programme.
ience. Therefore, we are aiming not to simply select ‘interesting pro‑
The proposed process for 2017–2020 will allow for building and
jects’ for the 2021 programme, but rather build long‑term projects
developing strong European connections. (For an overview on this,
that can survive/ outlive the year.
see p. 20)
Bucharest2021
Kinetic process to Prepare B2021 2014–2020
Dec.
Nov.
Oct.
Sept.
Aug.
July
June
May
Apr.
Mar.
Feb.
Jan.
Dec.
Nov.
Oct.
Sept.
2020
Aug.
July
June
May
Apr.
Mar.
Feb.
Jan.
Dec.
Nov.
Oct.
Sept.
2019
Aug.
July
June
May
Apr.
Mar.
Feb.
Jan.
Dec.
Nov.
Oct.
Sept.
2018
Aug.
July
June
May
Apr.
Mar.
Feb.
Jan.
Dec.
Nov.
Oct.
Sept.
2017
Aug.
July
June
May
Apr.
Mar.
Feb.
Jan.
Dec.
Nov.
Oct.
Sept.
2016
Aug.
July
June
May
Apr.
Mar.
Feb.
Jan.
Dec.
Nov.
2015
Oct.
Sept.
Aug.
July
2014
Marketing & Communication
COMMUNICATION PHASE 2: Preprogramme & Prototyping
COMMUNICATION PHASE 1: Networking & Mapping
Bucharest2021 NOW
COMMUNICATING
Bucharest2021 NOW
Bucharest2021 NOW
TASK FORCES
Business, Communications, Tourism launch
TOURISM PARTNERSHIP EST.
LINKING TO EUROPE: contacts to potential partners,
selected ECoC cities, regional cities and European project
INTL. MEDIA LAUNCH
SPONSORS PARTNERSHIP EST.
FUTURE SPOTTERS LAB
On going public events
Bucharest2021 NOW
FULL PROGRAM LAUNCH
INFO CENTER OPEN
EUROPEAN CITY RESIDENCIES:
10 day focus on selected European cities
Athens
partners, individual contacts by project partners.
Istanbul
Vienna
CONNETING EUROPE
Bruxelles
EUROPEAN DEBATE PROGRAME:
weekely live and on-line debates, talks and conferences
Berlin
Paris
Stockholm
Belgrade
Budapest
Linz
London
Amsterdam
IN-VISIBLE BUCHAREST FESTIVALS:
themed festivals, including B FIT Street Theatre Festival, Spot Light/Noctambule
Programme creation
REACHING OUT TO BUCHAREST:
a series of workshops in the 6 districts; workshops with elderly and young
people, with schools and communities in partnership with community
NGOs; mobile caravan as a contact point with 1,000 interview plus events;
workshops at selected festivals, concerts and outdoor programmes.
REACHING OUT TO
BUCHAREST2021:
24 Neighborhoods workshops.
PILOT
PROJECTS
MEMORY | EXLORING | IMAGINING:
OPEN LAB 1:
partnerships and projects. Results are hundreds of photos, 150,000
an open lab for program and projects,
participants/visitors to events, exhibitions, workshops, debates.
Curatorium
PRE
PROGRMME
PRE PROGRAM: MICROTOPIA: Greentopia, Citytopia, Artopia, Politopia
PRE PROGRAM PHERIPHERIES: Fighthing Ruin, Peri Political, Infra-ordinary, Balkan Expresses
PILOT PROJECT & PROTOTYPING:
50 core projects are developed with prototyping.
Workshops in Schools,
a public explorative program of exhibition, developing both ideas,
PRE PROGRAM LOST AND FOUND: Writting the city, Co-curating the antimemorial, Live Archives, EUroma
REACHING OUT TO ILFOV COUNTY:
a series of workshops in the Ilfov County; workshops with elderly and
young people, with schools and communities.
Open call-Accelerator-Generator platforms
EUROPEAN CURATORIUM starts to work
with Bucharest Curatorium.
CURATORIUM: 30 persons co-curating forum, linked to 50–60 key networks in the city,
with monthly workshops and outreach. A series or workshops for the cultural sector.
OPEN LAB
OPEN LAB 2:
an open lab for program and projects, Open
call-Accelerator-Generator platforms
OPEN LAB 3:
an open lab for program and projects,
Open call-Accelerator-Generator platforms
MAPPING
Mapping Bucharest and Ilfov County connecting
programs, cultural organisations and resources
European and Romanian CURATORIUM: Phase 2 24 persons co-curating forum, linked to 50–60 key networks
in the city, with monthly workshops and outreach. A series or workshops for cultural sector.
OPEN LAB 4:
an open lab for program and projects, Open
call-Accelerator-Generator platforms
European and Romanian CURATORIUM:
Phase 3
24 persons, focusing on production and
delivery of projects
Management
7 TASK FORCES
education, universities, tourism, communications,
business, infrastructure, community
ECOC PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
11 TASK FORCES with 120 key persons from relevant
commissions more
sectors engaging with their own networks, monthly
detailed analysis
meetings. Subjects: Finance, Business, Communications,
and research
Organization, Tourism, Local Districts, Education, etc.
R&D
TRANSITION PHASE
ARCUB maintains management of
transfer to B2021 Association
RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS,
RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS. PHASE 2.
PHASE 1. Research and analysis for
Cultural Barometer of cultural activity
Citizens and EcOC survey of
CS/ECoC. Cultural operators analysis
of citizens; analysis of cultural funding;
neighbourhoods. Development of
to map all sectors. 35 focus groups
spatial potential, community analysis.
final Cultural strategy proposal to
150 operators. Report Jan. 2015.
Consultation with 250 operators.
City Council in August 2016.
27
Cultural Barometer of cultural activity of
citizens in Ilfov county, cultural heritage,
cultural industries and intercultural.
B2021 ASSOCIATION. Establishment
of association, board and key staff
members
BUCHAREST 2021 PLATFORM
capacity developement programmes for cultural sector and civil society
Monitoring activity run by taskforces
B2021 PLATFORM
București2021
Programme themes, clusters and projects
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Lost & Found
Participative Histories.
Theatre of Subjective Archives
LIVING
ARCHIVES
Radio B2021
Bucharest Citizen’s
Family Album
Building the
Social: Art and
Architecture
Future Scars of
Bucharest
July
Mag*k
The Central
Peripheries of
Bucharest
Artindustrial
Bucharest
6th Element
Sewing in
the street
Cantina
Shrinking
Markets
Invisible People
Video mapping
Casa Poporului
Collective Autorship
Dorm Stories
Reclaiming the City
CITYTOPIA
Bucharest In-Out Creative Fest
BALKAN
EXPRESSES
Deconstructing
MNAC Shows
Outernational
Catalyst Media Lab
Citizenship and
Democracy 3.0
GREENTOPIA
ARTOPIA
One World Romania
Bucharest Future
Spotters Lab
Amber Festival
iMapp
Smart River
POLITOPIA
Building the social:
Art and Architecture
Expanded space
Green the 'Hood!
Playgrounds of Reality
PulS
eartoBucharest
Closing
Performance by
Ivo Dimchev
Re-disigning
the Balkans
SALT Festival
Temporary City
Opening
Performance by
Xavier Le Roy
Wetlands of
the Future
Live from Giulești
Balkan
Connections
and Bodies
Balkanik!
New Kids on
the Stage
Opening Concert
Food Trucks
Dok Music Film
Design Clinic
Shriking
Cities in
Europe
Monument of the
Garbage Worker
INFRAORDINARY
Balta Albă
Music Festival
Zoom-in Bucharest
Garbage
Closing Event
Railway
BODYCITY
European
Documentation
Center
One World
PERIPOLITICAL
3 Encounters of
a Close Kind
Creation
Migration
The Grand Shorts
Up Picnic
Marconi
Playground
De-industrial
Periferia
Game-On
Interesting Times
Bureau-alternative
guided tours
The House
LGBT Community
Centre
EUROMA
New Wave
LovesBucharest
Transient
Precarity
Phantom
Belts
Sing-In
Intermedia
Biennale
Carol Park
project
Dec
From Roma
with love
White Night of
Romanian Film
Places of
Culture
Associated project
ITinerant Roma
Museum
Kinodiseea
Bucharest/a
“vernacular”
street-view
Bucharest In/Out
Stitching Europe
The Skatezoid
Microtopia
Exploring Routes
and Roots
Core project
Programme cluster
Nov
Urban Eye
Film Festival
Syllable Music
Bucharest Cooltural
Adventure
Luxus Decay
Opening Event
Centura
Sandwitch
Oct
NoMap.
Nomad Poetry
The sensorial Map
of Bucharest
New Wave Tour
Noah’s Ark
FIGHTING
RUIN
Sept
WRITING THE CITY
CO-CURATING
THE
ANTIMEMORIAL
Golden Age
Toys
Aug
Guess Who's Coming
to Dinner
In-visible Museums
The Centre of
Visual Memory
of The City
Time Dance
Coding-DecodingConnection
Recoding Bucharest
Peripheries
Round-trip
Bucharest
2021-1941
Bucharest
Disaster Detour
Bucharest 35 mm
June
Programme theme
The Grand Shorts
Up Picnic
Kinodiseea
Energy
Rush
Bucharest Living Lab
Gradients of Reality
Analize
Bucharest Disaster
Detour
Future
Scenarios
Choreography
Biennale
F Platform
(Shhh!)HE City
Internetics
ElastiCITY
Bucharest International
Dance Film Festival
Spotlight
International
Festival
Bucharest International
Experimental Film Festival
Shape Bucharest
Exploring
the In—visible City 2021
T
he structure and the timeline of the programme in 2021 has been
designed from several perspectives:
•
a conceptual one, based on thematic and dynamic clustering
•
one drawing on the communication aspect, looking at narra‑
tives and dramaturgy
•
a practical one, based on adapting to cultural and social cycles,
Synergy between
Programme and Communications
A
s each cluster maintains a clear profile, this will also support
a dynamic communications platform. This clustering is also
therefore clearly linked to the question of audience development.
distribution of resources etc.
As to the scale of the programme, we expect the following:
Fitting to the explorative theme of The In—visible City the structure
•
12 programmes
unfolds organically, becoming multifaceted, more specific and more
•
50 core projects
adventurous.
•
1–200 associated projects
A layered programme
which will generate between 5,000 and 7,500 single events/event days
F
rom the conceptual point of view, the programme is looking to
(e.g. one exhibition open for 50 days has 50 event days), spread over
the year, with between 10–50 events daily.
apply the concept of In—visible City to individual events. From
Even all‑year‑round projects such as Guess Who’s Coming to
the experiential perspective of audiences and citizens, these nurture
Dinner will shift location to neighbourhoods to re‑enforce the chang‑
an ‘accumulative experience’ and can be regarded as partial narra‑
ing programme themes.
tives that in themselves are conducive to reflection and debate. A dif‑
ferent layer is set in motion by merging programmes and communi‑
cations, where we aim to make these narratives and messages clear.
As the flow diagram indicates, the main structure of
Bucharest2021 year‑long programme is as follows: one overall con‑
cept, three main themes with four interconnected cluster pro‑
A city and region
wide distribution
A
s we have underlined, most events will be in the public space,
well distributed throughout the city and 70% will be free events.
grammes in each of them, with 10–20 projects (including those
We will also ensure a set of permanent programmes over the year
pre‑2021) in each cluster — and single events. At each of these levels
including a continually evolving The In—visible City exhibition which
one can find meta‑narratives, theatrical scenes, musical intermezzos
will be based on collected material, reprocessed and formatted since
and literary haiku poems which set in motion the dramaturgy of the
2014, and which will, at the end of 2021, provide a new permanent
year‑long programme — a city wide sensorial anthology where we
exhibition on the city, managed by the Curatorium.
invite the readers, listeners, city explorers, and the flaneur to co‑edit
and perhaps even co‑create their (in)visible city.
A city wide, experiential human communication system (think
This structured organic programme will provide renewed focus
for the communications strategy. This will allow us to structure clear
messages to the media and to target audiences & communities.
tramway system) where links, connections are dormant until the
The 12 flagship events will be the focal point of the changing
public decides and selects their route and hopefully becomes more
focus over the year. All these events will be unique, site‑specific pro‑
adventurous.
jects, designed for key locations (e.g. The House of the Parliament),
A dynamic
cluster programme
T
key boulevards, key natural spaces (e.g. Văcărești Park).
Each project will have participatory aspects as well as conceptu‑
ally strong and unique formats. The sites will also indicate an urban
typology of the city — 12 venues from the In—visible City and be used
he cluster concept is not based on a linear logic. It offers a map‑
ping of an urban and cultural landscape, where the visitors can
link the dots and create their own meta‑image. Clusters are also con‑
as communication content.
The flagship events will last from one to three days. They will
be designed on the basis of a longer process of residencies.
ceived with key events which also attract attention to more marginal
events. The 12 programme clusters are constructed with core pro‑
Examples from each theme:
jects, designed as drivers, with one main event signalling the the‑
Writing The CityThe transformation of 12 residential blocks
matic focus of each month.
Core projects are generated by the Curatorium. We have cur‑
by commissioning media artists to work with
poetry and texts written by communities.
rently identified 3–4 for each of the 12 programme clusters. Around
GreentopiaThe French company La Machine is invited to
the core projects, associated projects have been and will continue to
create a large scale green urban installation
be generated via the Open Lab collaborative platforms as described
linked to many urban micro‑gardens in the
on. There will also be projects developed by cultural institutions,
which already have committed to producing thematic projects (some
examples are included).
Additional projects will be developed and selected only to
strengthen and to secure a balanced profile for each cluster.
29
3.
How will the events and activities
that will constitute the cultural
programme for the year be chosen?
city.
PeripheriesWilliam Kentridge is invited to create a large
scale project linked to the peripheral railway
system (which is now partly used and partly
closed).
4.
How will the cultural programme combine
local cultural heritage and traditional
art forms with new, innovative and
experimental cultural expressions?
5.
How has the city involved, or how does it
plan to involve, local artists and cultural
organisations in the conception and
implementation of the cultural programme?
Please give some concrete examples
and name some local artists and
cultural organisations with which
cooperation is envisaged and specify
the type of exchanges in question.
For concrete examples see
Programme section, pp. 30–53
This programme aims to give voice to muted
archives, to explore and expand the notion
and limits of archiving, and to connect the
institutional with the private, underground,
independent archival momentums.
LOST & FOUND
Living
Archives
A
rchives are very much like music scores, they are mute without
someone to interpret them, explains István Rév, director of one
of the most innovative European archives, the Open Society Archives
in Budapest. These projects explore sound, dance, photography and
film from an archival perspective which entails not only research and
archiving but also performing and interpreting the resulting archives.
The living archives are either grass‑roots, citizen‑generated,
like the Bucharest Citizens’ Family Album and Radio B2021,
or artist‑generated, like in the Coding/ Decoding/ Recoding,
Participative Histories or Time Dance Connection. By this, we
Radio B2021
Years: 2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: ARCUB
Curator B2021: Vasile Leac
Audience: 1,000,000
Budget: €200,000
R
Participating artists and curators: Rek
Abu, Philip O Ceallaigh, Mitos Micleuşan,
Dumitru Bădiţa, Iulian Tanase, Ioan
Buduca, Mihnea Mihalache‑Fiastru,
Cristina Bogdan, Andra Chiţimuș, Maria
Balabaș (RO)
Partners: Radio Romania, Sâmbăta
Sonoră, Paradaiz, ODD, Modulab (RO),
Polycenter Association
adio B2021 is an online platform collecting urban stories and
myths, interviews with people from various districts of Bucharest
and sound postcards, ultimately becoming a living radio archive. It
are artistically challenging the monopoly held by the state on the pro‑
collaborates with artists and creatives active in the area of contem‑
duction and interpretation of archives and building trust, through cre‑
porary sound. Shows are broadcasted online, but also in public spaces
ative co‑production and interpretation of unconventional archives,
and through a phone app. Content is bilingual: English, Romanian.
between citizens and cultural institutions.
The cluster of projects feeding the online platform includes:
Connecting Citizens — a set of actions that collects stories of Bucharest
Bucharest Citizens’
Family Album
Years: 2015–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Image Archive of
the National Museum of the Romanian
Peasant
Curator B2021: Simina Bădică
Audience: 200,000
Budget: €260,000
T
neighbourhoods (Văcăreşti, Ferentari, Pantelimon, Drumul Taberei,
Partners: Marseille Provence 2013 –
Chercheurs de Midi (FR), Hidden Pilsen.
Pilsen2015 (CZ), Novi Sad 2021 (RS), The
National Archives of Romania ANR (RO)
Militari). The forbidden archive features selected materials, curated
by Ioan Buduca, from the personal archives of artists, musicians,
intellectuals or ordinary people who recorded banned topics.
Șușanele, curated by Mihnea Mihalache‑Fiastru, features personal
storytelling and urban folklore, through which undocumented and
unknown areas of Bucharest are explored. Parallel rates, curated by
Cristina Bogdan, features information and debates about Romanian
his is a crowdsourcing memory project that starts from the 1,500
contemporary art and design, locally and internationally. Soundscape,
photos that have been donated in 2015 by 350 individuals under
curated by Andra Chiţimuș, is a series of music podcasts, made up
the Bucharest Memory | Exploring | Imagining the City project, an
of sound art pieces, sound postcards and local music playlists.
open data city album. One of the aims will be to generate a mini‑
mum of 10,000 photos by 2021 and to curate a series of themed exhi‑
Magi*k bitions during the year.
Years: 2016–2021
Budget: €45,000
Lead organisation: Zeppelin
Partners: Kodcentrum (SE), Mattecentrum (SE), Hakidemia, Simplon (RO), Eematico(RO)
Leading the project, the Image Archive of the National Museum
of the Romanian Peasant has already broad recognition among the
public, who is invited to engage with archival images, to co‑curate
and creatively appropriate them.
The projects include workshops in schools and retirement
M
ARCUB OPEN CALL
agi*k is a techno‑archaeology project on the TV and radio aer‑
ials in Bucharest. It questions the relation between the aerials
and the buildings they are installed on and sees this relation as key
homes in order to reconnect generations over family albums. It also
for understanding some profound cultural changes. A group of art‑
includes workshops in communities with visual anthropologists and
ists will produce five installations that comment and interpret this
museum curators that will produce community‑curated family
lost culture, which they will render to the public as an interactive
albums/ exhibitions. The exhibitions are location‑based and will move
exhibition at the National Museum of Contemporary Art. Guided
between different neighbourhoods, thus connecting communities
tours and an international conference on STEAM education are also
around photo albums, just like families are gathered around family
part of the project.
albums. Outdoor billboards around the city will be taken over by
everyday life images, real people living real their lives in Bucharest
(as opposed to the commercial imaginary usually exhibited on these
billboards). The photographs can be uploaded on the dedicated web‑
site or collected during workshops and dedicated fieldwork.
Connected with similar projects developed by former and prospec‑
tive ECoCs (Marseille Provence 2013 — Chercheurs de Midi, Pilsen
2015, Novi Sad 2021), the project will culminate with the itinerant
exhibition European Family Photo Album, exhibiting everyday life
images from four European countries. What looks the same? What
makes us different? Can we all share a European Family Photo Album?
The Centre of Visual Memory ARCUB OPEN CALL
of the City
Years: 2016–2021
Budget: €45,000
Lead organisation: Bucureștiul Meu Drag (My Dear Bucharest) Association
T
Coding/ Decoding/
Recoding Bucharest
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: National Music
University Bucharest UNMB
Curator: Cătălin Creţu
Audience: 150,000
Budget: €200,000
T
Partners: Radio Romania, Constantin
Brăiloiu Institute of Ethnography and
Folklore (RO), Polytechnics University
Bucharest (RO), George Enescu National
Museum (RO)
Invited artists: Johannes S. Sistermanns
(DE)
he project explores the city’s invisible but complex spatial and
temporal soundscapes, mixes past with recent, vibrant sound
identities to generate new relationships with the surrounding envi‑
ronment, both built and natural. Romanian and international artists
and musicians such as Johannes S. Sistermanns reflect on and reshape
the city’s (future) sound identity. DECODING memory (2017–2018):
maps various city areas through existing music/sound archives, and
involves inhabitants to track current urban sounds as well as (sea‑
he Centre of Visual Memory of the City aims to create the largest
sonal) migratory bird/ fauna routes and generate open‑source
collection of images of Bucharest gathered in one place, offer‑
archives. Circa 1,000 hours of raw/ processed audio files. CODING the
ing unrestricted access to everyone interested in the history of the
message (2018–2019): reprocesses previously archived materials,
city and especially to young people whose connection with the evo‑
searching for connectivity patterns in‑between and new creative struc‑
lution of the city must be restored.
tures. Camps and workshops involving sound artists, scientists,
30 Lost & Found
researchers, digital strategists and programmers to generate around
include both official images created by the communist propaganda
20 new work frames/programmes. RECODING the future (2020–2021):
machine and ‘ephemeral’ productions — such as touristic, industrial,
curated events and site‑specific sound installations infuse various pri‑
educational — which, in spite of receiving little scholarly attention
vate and public, built and natural environments preceded by proto‑
or systematic preservation, contain valuable cultural and historical
typing and testing (2020) before full‑scale commissioning to pervade
information. The project will give the respective films a second life
everyday experiences in a crescendo that follows seasonal patterns
through their circulation in a digital environment and allow a wide
and moves from private into public and back into private spaces.
range of audiences to get a glimpse of ordinary life in many differ‑
eartoBucharest
ACCELERATOR
Years: 2021
Budget: €50,000
Lead organisation: Indie Box
T
ent ‘Bucharests’, while also providing them with a wide range of
contextual information which will be displayed dynamically as the
films play online.
During the research and digitisation process (2017–2018), the
he aim of the project is to reconnect the people living in
project will include a series of public workshops with established for‑
Bucharest with the city by using the aural environment; by col‑
eign directors (Alan Berliner, Peter Forgacs, Marc Cousins) who have
lecting specific sounds from several neighbourhoods, we create an
worked extensively with archive material. Together with filmmakers,
aural map that can trace the evolution of the aural environment of
artists and visual anthropologists, we will produce a series of short
the area over the long term.
documentaries based on the archive footage. Towards its end‑stage,
the project will include a series of site‑specific screenings in uncon‑
Time Dance
Connection
Years: 2017–2020–2021
Lead organisation: The National Dance
Centre Bucharest (CNDB)
Curator: Igor Mocanu
Audience: 150,000
Budget: €200,000
T
Partners: Camaro Stiftung (DE), Katja
Mejerowsky Stiftung (DE), Berlinische
Galerie (DE), Forum des Images (Paris,
Berlin) (FR); Beth Soll Company, New
York (US), Galeria Ruth Benzacar, Buenos
Aires (AR), The National Archives of
Romania ANR (RO), National Museum of
Contemporary Art MNAC (RO).
ventional locations throughout Bucharest, in ‘pop‑up’/ ‘secret cin‑
ema’ spirit. Conceived so as to celebrate the historical and the lived
heritage of each of the respective sites and to develop new, immersive
modes of exhibition for popular audiences, the screenings will draw
on the identification between the locations chosen and the content
of the films screened in each location — both of which will remain
undisclosed until the event dates, in true ‘secret cinema’ spirit. Thus,
he project aims to continue excavating and mapping the unwrit‑
the screenings will produce ‘incidental audiences’ which will engage
ten history of modern and contemporary dance in Romania,
with the past lives of the respective sites, as recorded on film.
starting in 1900 and ending in 2006 with the establishment of the
National Dance Centre Bucharest (CNDB). CNDB has been critically
and actively recuperating the history of Romanian dance ever since
its establishment, through researching, debating, making availa‑
ble and interpreting this history. The first stage will gather teams
of researchers, through partnerships with the Romanian National
Archives, National Film Archives and the Archives of the National
Television, to surface visual and film documents revealing the cho‑
reographic journey of very important figures in dance history (Floria
Capsali, Trixy Checais, Lizica Codreanu, Iris Barbura, Stere Popescu,
Miriam Răducanu, Vera Proca‑Ciortea, Contemp Group and so on).
The resulting archives, integrated into the documentary archive
Participative Histories:
Theatre of Subjective
Archives
Years: 2017–2020–2021
Lead Institution: Replika Educational
Theatre Centre
Audience: 10,000
Budget: €200,000
T
Partners: ADO Cultural Association/
Art for Human Rights (RO), National
Association of Librarians and Public
Libraries in Romania/ ANPBR (RO),
‘I.L. Caragiale’ National University of
Theatre and Film/ UNATC (RO), Bucharest
Education Department/ ISMB (RO)
his project is focused on performing and researching major
undocumented events in Bucharest’s recent history. Archiving
recent history from a performative perspective, the project aims at
of CNDB, will be made available to contemporary choreographers
developing participatory and interactive methods of understanding
who will create re‑enactments or tributes of the rediscovered per‑
the past, raising awareness of historical European events that con‑
formances. CNDB will dedicate special programmes each year in its
solidate a common background in terms of fundamental values such
dance season, up to and including 2021, to performances, exhibitions
as solidarity, civic engagement, individual and group responsibility,
and debates stemming from this project. Each rediscovered chore‑
engaging responsibly and emphatically with the past.
ographer will be the subject of a consistent monograph which will
Replika Educational Theatre Centre is an independent thea‑
include both the documentation process and the resulting perform‑
tre company, focused on socially engaged theatrical projects, par‑
ative actions. The entire archive of modern and contemporary dance
ticipatory art programmes, workshops, debates, conferences, meet‑
will be publicly available on the portal uptodance.ro.
ings with teachers and students. Although young, the Replika Centre
is already a well‑known space of pedagogical artistic involvement
Bucharest 35mm
Years: 2017–2020–2021
Lead organisation: One World Romania
Association
Curator: Adina Brădeanu
Audience: 300,000
Budget: €400,000
D
Partners: National Films Archives, The
Institute of Film (to be established),
Romanian National Archives (RO)
Invited filmmakers and artists: Alan
Berliner (US), Peter Forgacs (HU), Marc
Cousins (UK), Vlad Petri (RO), Alexandru
Solomon (RO), Andrei Dascalescu (RO),
Irina Botea (RO), Stefan Constantinescu
(RO)
and participatory art, a space for common interrogations and social
change.
Linked with the Future Scars of Bucharest programme,
the project will deal, in terms of research, with a particular theme
each year and produce a participative theatre performance, to be
gathered in 2021 in a marathon of performed subjective archives.
The project includes workshops ‘Performed History — Archived
rawing on the collections held by the National Film Archives,
History’, consisting in a series of participatory theatre workshops in
as well as on footage produced privately by amateur film‑mak‑
which students from Bucharest universities and artists of the Centre
ers, the project aims to identify and make available, as part of an
of Educational Theatre will document and debate recent historical
online platform, around 40 hours of short films that capture the
events. They will conceive together various forms of theatrical rep‑
transformations of Bucharest starting from the very first ‘actualities’
resentation of these moments and hold guided tours in Bucharest in
associated with the beginnings of cinema. The digitised material will
the most representative places where the events took place.
31
Co‑curating the
Antimemorial
This new programme explores the ways in which the city’s
memory has been sabotaged and its traumas hidden, uncovering
thus similar processes throughout (East‑Central) Europe.
T
he programme addresses the traditional carriers of urban collec‑
The project is inspired by works such as Tom Wilson’s ‘Mining
tive memory — museums (over 60 of them in Bucharest) and the
the Museum’ or more locally, the interventions made in the perma‑
(sometimes missing) monuments of the cityscape — and challenges
nent collection of the Romanian Peasant Museum (EMYA 1997) with
them to rethink their roles as catalysts of memorial work instead of
objects from the collection of the former Museum of Communist
mere containers of cultural and social memory.
Party History. The themes to be addressed start from a controversial
The invisibility of institutional memory carriers is twofold:
moment in Romanian history but are reframed to a European‑level
the overly rehearsed and loud official memory (national landmarks,
relevance: Minorities/ Discrimination/ Difference (Roma slavery in
national heroes) has become inaudible because of the ubiquitous
Romania/ Romanian Holocaust); Human rights abuses in the 20th
and obsolete forms of how they are presented to the public (classical
century (the body and the state/ interdiction of abortion/ pro‑natal‑
monuments, didactic museum exhibitions), while major traumatic
ist policies in Communist Romania/ penal incrimination of homosex‑
events that scarred Bucharest (the 1989 Revolution, state repression
uality); State repression: Revolution of 1989, state repression of civil‑
and political abuse, Roma slavery and Romanian Holocaust — to name
ians in June 1990 (Mineriada) and current civic protests in Bucharest.
just a few) are totally lacking any form of public memorialisation.
The subversion of the hierarchy of the museum as well as the
The ultimate purpose of the programme is to engage both cit‑
exhibition space that serves as the framework, will inevitably also
izens and memory institutions in creating new ways of co‑curating
pose questions concerning the role of the museums/institutes and
memorial work. Thus, the opening event of the programme will cover
the use of their authority in shaping (cultural) discourse. Thus, an
all major city monuments, inviting Bucharest inhabitants to project
overarching theme is a possible reconceptualisation of the Museum
on the covered monuments their visions of what is to be memorial‑
itself, as a knowledge‑production institution that is both highly con‑
ised in Bucharest.
servative and sometimes, in exceptional situations, highly innovative.
The invited curators and artists will consider the ways and conditions
in which museums can foster creativity and innovation.
In—visible Museums
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Curators: Simina Bădică,
Xenia Kalpaktsoglou
Audience: 100,000
Budget: €250,000
B
Partners: National Network of Romanian
Museums/ RNMR, National Museum
of the Romanian Peasant, Museum of
Roma Culture, Museum of the City of
Bucharest, Museum of the National
Theatre in Bucharest
Proposed artists: Olga Chernysheva,
Raphaël Grisey, Anri Sala, Lene Berg,
Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Irene Efstathiou,
Vangelis Vlahos, Rallou Panagiotou,
Christodoulos Panagiotou, Joachim
Kester, Daniel Gustav Cramer and Haris
Epaminonda, Sophie Nys, Narkevicious,
Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin,
Goshka Macuga, Marianna Castillo
Deball, Arseniy Zhilyaev, Rossella Biscotti,
Vincent Meessen, Petrit Halilaj, Mark
Leckey, Phil Collins, Maria Papadimitriou
ucharest museums are seen, with few exceptions, as dusty,
The project is co‑curated by a Romanian historian and museum
curator with experience in exhibiting troubling histories and a Greek
art curator, co‑director and founder of the Athens Biennale.
Noah’s Ark: Museums
on a Human Scale
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: National Museum of
the Romanian Peasant
Audience: 70,000
Budget: €250,000
N
Partners: National Network of Romanian
Museums/ RNMR, Museum of Bucharest,
National History Museum of Romania
Invited museums: Museum of Innocence,
Istanbul (TR), Museum of Broken
Relationships, Ljubljana (SI), Mmuseum,
New York (US), Museum of Things, Berlin
(DE)
oah’s Ark is a project in micromuseography exploring the pos‑
sibilities of the small, banal, average, ‘uninteresting’ (from a
museal/ collection‑minded perspective) artefact. Building on what
closed spaces. One of the reasons for this image is their reluc‑
historian Carlo Ginzburg has called the exceptional normal, the pro‑
tance to engage with troubled histories, to ask questions that are dif‑
gramme aims to explore the limits of what is collectable and exhibita‑
ficult to answer, to engage in conversations instead of authoritative
ble and thus imagine new ways of thinking about/ constructing muse‑
monologues. The project pairs Bucharest museums with local and
ums and exhibitions outside museum walls and by non‑professional
international artists and curators in an attempt to make visible the
curators.
hidden stories in museum collections.
The project has two main components: the creation of ten
Established and emerging artists are invited to live and work in
neighbourhood museums co‑curated by their communities (a dis‑
Bucharest for a period of two months (yearly, a new group of artists,
persed museum of Bucharest), and Time‑Capsule: A Secret Diary
starting in 2017) and act as archivists, archaeologists, historians, par‑
of Bucharest, a project in which a secret team of 20 artists/ curators/
asites/forgers or witnesses. Participants will delve into the archives
anthropologists/ writers/ journalists would gather for five years an
and collections but are also encouraged to excavate the small, the par‑
archive of art, artefacts, documents, sounds and stories that would
ticular, the insulted, the humiliated, the personal and also past artis‑
form a secret diary only to be ‘read’ at the end of 2021 (thus also doc‑
tic practices that have been ignored, buried, or hijacked by dominant
umenting Bucharest as capital of culture).
narratives. Finally, in 2021, a large exhibition spread in all participant
After the interested communities are identified, the first work‑
Bucharest museums will gather all art projects produced since 2017.
shops would be organised (curating, collection management, digital
32 Lost & Found
storytelling, project management, fundraising). By 2020, ten local
Bucharest Disaster Detour (BDD) collections would have been gathered and teams of museum cura‑
Years: 2017–2021
Budget: €50,000
Lead organisation: ORDU
tors and non‑professional curators would start organising them for
their openings in the spring of 2021.
Noah’s Ark was piloted in the early 2000s by the Museum of
the Romanian Peasant in Bucharest. As a project it involved several
dozen volunteers who collected artefacts and stories that were ‘excep‑
The project resulted in a book and a separate museum collec‑
tion. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant will lead this project,
which will run for five years across Bucharest.
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Curator B2021: Simina Bădică
Game developer: Polycular
Audience: 150,000
Budget: €250,000
F
DD is a collaboration between Geneva and Bucharest, based on
the project Geneva Disaster Tour (2014–2015). BDD explores and
assists the appearance of ‘the archaeology of the future Bucharest’,
organising a series of guided tours in Bucharest and Măgurele in Ilfov
tionally normal’.
Future Scars of
Bucharest
B
ACCELERATOR
Partners: Blast Theory, Invisible
Playground Berlin, Gold Extra (Causa
Creations), School of Performing Arts
Ernst Busch Berlin — Digital Media
Department, amber Platform, Institute for
the Investigation of Communist Crimes
and the Memory of Romanian Exile (part
of European Network Remembrance
and Solidarity), National Museum of the
Romanian Peasant, Spiritual Militia NGO,
National Archives of Romania, National
Council for the Study of Securitate
Archives.
uture Scars of Bucharest creates a dispersed museum, totally
outside museum walls, focusing on the unhealed wounds of
Bucharest’s history, replacing labels with new media and museum
guides with self‑guided interaction with the cityscape as well as wit‑
nesses to the narrated events.
The project is a collaborative applied research of historians,
architects, artists, computer game developers and writers on how
to involve tourists and inhabitants alike to experience history in new
innovative ways aside from traditional museum coverage, publica‑
tions or guided city tours.
The results will be emotional interactive experiences in form of
(where the Institute for Atomic Physics is based).
Building the Social: Art and Architecture ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Budget: €45,000
Lead organisation: Salonul de Proiecte Association
T
he project addresses any issues that circumscribe the urban
space development policies in relation to architectural and
artistic practice. Research workshops for art students to explore
Bucharest’s monuments will result in a collective exhibition. The com‑
mon denominator of these projects is an interdisciplinary approach,
highlighting the relationship between urban space, public space and
social phenomena that are determined to some extent by the config‑
uration of these spaces.
Golden‑age Toys
Years: 2017–2020–2021
Curator B2021: Vasile Leac
Audience: 150,000
Budget: €250,000
T
Partners: Ţăndărică Theatre, Street
Delivery, childhoodmuseum360.ro
(National Museum of the Romanian
Peasant), National History Museum of
Romania
Invited artists: Ciprian Mureșan,
Monotremu duo, Biserka group, SOTS
ART (RU), La Machina (FR)
he project is an artistic and curatorial exploration of the joyful
and yet terrifying world of toys. The Golden Age is an ironic ref‑
erence to both the Socialist ′70s and ′80s and to the ‘golden age’ of
childhood, a time of highly intense but sometimes traumatic growth
and transformations.
site‑specific exhibitions, mobile mixed reality games, apps and instal‑
The toys are both a happy and terrifying reminder of an age we
lations designed by a transdisciplinary team to transform the city
irretrievably lost — childhood and socialism. Collected toys will be
and its recent history into a playground of reality. The research top‑
exhibited in thematic exhibitions exploring the memories of those
ics vary from the building of the House of the People and the forced
who kept or collected them. Artists will be invited to curate and inter‑
demolitions of Bucharest neighbourhoods, to surveillance stories, the
pret them but also create new toys for the contemporary adult. The
1989 Revolution and the subsequent civic protests, or ‘mineriade’,
project has an important outdoor component, transforming a few
the lost Jewish community of Bucharest (the 1941 pogrom, state anti‑
Bucharest squares into creative playgrounds for both adults and chil‑
semitism, emigration, old and new public monuments/ old and new
dren and producing oversize toys (La Machina) to populate the city
street names and current heritage destruction.)
and turn Bucharest into a playful, engaging city.
On each of these themes, interactive tours will be created and
We actively avoid a nostalgic view of toys and childhood.
inaugurated, gradually, each year from 2018 on. Together with the
Childhood, like all past ages, and toys, the most likely collectible
game developers from Polycular we will develop mixed reality story‑
remnants of that past, incorporate both terror and tenderness, joy
telling experiences and games conveying historical research results
and sadness. Toys protect us from bad dreams but can also generate
and interviews in an exciting new way.
dreadful nightmares. The project, through its collecting campaign,
With this approach we try to address a younger generation of
community‑curated exhibitions, creative playgrounds and huge toy
digital natives and interest them in the recent history and traumatic
sculptures, engages the audience in a healing process that impercep‑
events of our city.
tibly becomes memorial work.
33
Writing
The City
Each place in the city
has its own story. Each
citizen has a story to tell.
T
he narration is omnipresent in the urban space. It depends on
us to bring it to the surface, to make it visible. There is not only
one, it is not centralised, it is vivid and multiple. The narration is
by default democratic and shared by all. And the city is the geomet‑
ric and real place where the stories intersect. They relate to History
in capital letters and to invisible histories, the personal ones. They
build the narrative urban web. Writing the City uses all types of artis‑
tic languages in order to identify the diverse narrations of the city so
that they can be restored into a vivid circuit and, at the same time,
New Wave Loves
Bucharest
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Curators: Ada Solomon
Audience: 400,000
Budget: €500,000
N
Proposals for invited artists: Cristi Puiu,
Corneliu Porumboiu, Radu Jude, Cristian
Mungiu, Nae Caranfil, Adrian Sitaru,
Maren Ade etc
ew Wave Loves Bucharest has as core‑subject the New Wave
phenomenon that dominated Romanian cinematography after
1989. Ten Romanian and European film directors, from different gen‑
have new narrations created. Writing the City is a metaphor for the
erations and styles, will create ten films about the city, spanning
way the city and its stories can be ‘written’ (and ‘read’). Often, the
diverse histories, neighbourhoods, and themes. Together they will
City is most vivid in its own stories, which are already the transla‑
co‑create an omnibus type of movie, a juxtaposition of short movies
tion of the urban soul.
about Bucharest, marking a free and participatory exercise on
European urbanity focusing on the capital of an ex‑communist coun‑
try placed at the periphery of Europe. This cinematic manifesto cel‑
NoMap: Nomad Poetry
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: FreeStyle Association
Curator B2021: Svetlana Cârstean
Audience: 200,000
Budget: €350,000
A
Potential international partners: Littfest
(Umea, Sweeden), Versopolis, Traduki,
Literaturwerkstat Berlin, Lyrikline.
org, Centre National de la Littérature
Luxembourg, Cultural Center Damdayiz
Istanbul, Maison de la Poesie Marseille.
ebrating the Romanian New Wave and its role in the contemporary
European cinematic oeuvre will be released in 2021, 20 years after
the release of ‘Stuff and Dough’ (2001) by the Romanian director Cristi
Puiu, the film that started the Romanian New Wave and the first one
selected at the Cannes Film Festival. Over the next four years,
participatory literary celebration of the European city but which
research on the Romanian New Wave will be conducted and New
also addresses the malaise of the city and questions the notion
Wave Loves Bucharest will also engage communities via workshops
of the European city anno 2021. With 40 poets from 20 countries,
with the invited film directors. Students from Romanian and European
this is also a manifestation of contemporary poetry in Europe. The
film schools will be involved in a system of residencies and in research
project will also mark the creation of a translation hub for European
conducted under the format of an extended film diary over the
contemporary poetry in Bucharest. It is a project at the intersection
four‑year period, which will also involve a contemporary filming of
of social activism and poetic performance.
the city. NWLB will also include a four‑year high school media pro‑
The concept builds on the participatory ‘Epic Bucharest ’21’,
part of the Bucharest2021 Memory I Exploring I Imagining project
in 2015, which involved 38 Romanian poets, the Macedonian poet
Lidija Dimkovska and the French translator Fanny Chartres. They
wrote 840 verses about their relationship with the city, with each
poet writing 21 verses, the first verse being the last one of the pre‑
vious poet. This proved an estimable portrayal of the city as well as
contemporary poetry.
NoMap: Nomad Poetry will start with intersecting three‑month
residencies for European poets to Bucharest and Romanian poets in
European cities. With four of them per year, NoMap.Nomad Poetry
will build individual poetic narratives on 20 selected European cit‑
ies in partnership with poetry festivals and other literary partners.
The resulting work will be a literary morphing of filtered texts, giving
a layered impression of the questions of the illusive European city.
The works will be translated into all 20 languages and presented
at the Nomad Poetry Festival with performance of the full poem,
but also with a major programme with European poets whose work
is inspired by cities. Debates and workshops will follow. The festival
will also feature performative work such as Les Souffleurs Commandos
Poétiques (France) as a collective whispering of poems in the ears of
pedestrians in the city, quietly, as a collection of poetic secrets of the
city.
Syllable’s Music ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2018–2019–2020–2021
Budget: €100,000
Audience: 100,000
Curator: Cătălin Creţu
Lead organisation: The Centre of Electro‑acoustic Music and Multimedia
P
roject of unconventional radio drama, where the word/sylla‑
ble/phoneme has the standard of sound/cell/musical phrase.
It is pure acoustic poetry which uses technologies such as record‑
ing, fragmentation, processing, recoding and contextualization of
the initial text.
34 Lost & Found
gramme, where pupils will discover Romanian cinematography as a
key to creating a collective memory.
The Grand ShortsUP Picnic ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: ShortsUP SRL
Budget: €45,000
A
festival of short films that aims to bring back to life the histor‑
ical ‘Dimitrie Brândză’ Botanical Garden in Bucharest through
quality cinematic content and related narratives using historic mate‑
rial related to the lost (and found) gardens of the city.
Kinodiseea ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Metropolis Cultural Association
Budget: €45,000
K
inodiseea is a major international film festival for children. From
2016 the festival will present special programmes related to
Bucharest2021 themes, including Lost& Found, and will culminate
in 2021.
UrbanEye Film Festival ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Arta în Dialog Association
Budget: €45,000
T
his festival brings together complementary activities address‑
ing issues about the city through film, particularly issues related
to the architectural and urban context of Bucharest.
White Night of Romanian Cinema ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Romanian Film Promotion and the Association for Film and Urban
Culture
Budget: €45,000
H
ighlights the cultural identity of the city and helps with its inte‑
gration in the European space. Top Romanian films are pro‑
jected in key outdoor sites of the capital; 80% of the films have English
subtitles, by public demand.
Guess Who’s Coming
to Dinner
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: FreeStyle Association
Partner: ARCUB
Curator B2021: Svetlana Cârstean
Audience: 200,000
Budget: €200,000
A
Invited artists: Corina Sabău, Ana Maria
Sandu, Claudiu Komartin, Florin Iaru,
Răzvan Ţupa, Elena Vlădăreanu (writers);
Luiza Vasiliu, Ioana Pelehatăi (journalists);
Suzana Dan, Lala Misosniky (visual
artists); Clubul Ilustratorilor (illustrators);
Adrian Bulboacă, Claudiu Popescu
(photographers)
political space — an essentially participative and immersive engage‑
ment. Walking is revived as part of artistic theory in a major way, but
also has a new relevance as we become obsessed with the notion of
the re‑appropriation of space as physical, as memory and as imagined
space. The project builds on Memory | Exploring | Imagining the City
with a series of successful ‘alternative’ walks in the city. The call for
explorative walks has resulted in 25 pilot projects.
cellular structure of small scale and intimate events spreads
The project will create a dense labyrinth of routes in the city,
like a virus through the city. There are some 7,000 cookie‑cut‑
which mirrors beautifully the essence of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.
ter style housing blocks from the communist period in a city where
Walks based on his 55 verses will be part of the programme. We
more than 1 million people live. Our aim is to have one dinner in each
expect more than the 200 individual walks to be created and this will
of these blocks as a symbolic gesture.
result in mind and digital maps, new tourist mappings linked with
Any family from Bucharest can sign up for this social game and
Bucharest2021 themes, neighbourhoods and narratives.
can invite a writer, a musician, a dancer, an illustrator etc. for dinner
in their own apartment. We will invite 100 artists in 2017 to be part
Selected projects
of this project as ‘dinner guests’ during the year. Artists will mainly
Locating the forgotten city. Bucharest 6th Element, outlines a cul‑
develop the project, making the ordinary extraordinary. The fami‑
tural itinerary created as a performative six‑stop programme for six
lies will choose their guest and agree on the format of the dinner and
unusual locations taking us to the edges of the city, translating local
evening as variations are countless and might include singing or play‑
community narratives. Tur Retur 2016–1914 is a performative tour
ing music together, decorating a wall with graphics or even making
focussing on the Hebrew community, based on reconstructing archi‑
a documentary movie of making the dinner. Documentary material
val and interview material from survivors of 1941 events and thereaf‑
that will form the content of an exhibition/publication in the build‑
ter following the migration of the Jewish community.
ings’ hallways or in other spaces in the neighbourhood will be made
for reconstructing the city’s memory with the living element.
Exploring neighbourhoods. Carol Park celebrates 110 years since
From 2017, small pilot projects with our lead artists will take
it was established on Filaret Hill, with the story of industrialisation
place and by 2018, 100 artists will be involved and the number will
focussing on the now derelict train station. Invisible People — a pro‑
grow. Each artist becomes resident of a specific neighbourhood in
ject at the Matache Nord Train Station maps stories by 15 playwrights
Bucharest. The involvement of citizens will be done through the cam‑
who will follow members of the community and translate their sto‑
paign Invite an Artist. The possible partner of the campaign is the
ries and the every‑day into a series of on‑location performances. The
chain of supermarkets Mega Image, which has until now around 400
Central peripheries of Bucharest targets two areas around Unirii
stores in Bucharest. One artist for each store would be ideal.
Square and investigate the issues of gentrification and marginalisa‑
There will be workshops for artists to develop their programmes
tion so close to the city centre. Marconi Playground is located at
of creative dinner evenings. Participating artists will also be asked to
yet another threatened heritage building. ‘Cinema Marconi — play‑
invite their international artist colleagues to join.
ground’ will be an imaginary art and media landscape for visitors.
The Sensorial Map of Bucharest ACCELERATOR
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: The Romanian Association for the Promotion of Performing Arts
Budget: €50,000
T
Artistic interventions. Bucharest in/ out will be a series of art
interventions in Bucharest subways. The works will be created by ten
artists using various media, street art, digital art and offering an urban
he aim of the project is to activate the memory of the city through
art tour. NewWaveTour involves the Romanian Film Institute and
artistic means and to render visible its invisible stories. The pro‑
A.R.C.E.N., at the limit between the fantasy and reality of Bucharest.
ject will consist of a series of site‑specific video and audio installations
An online digital film archive/ map of some 70 places in the city used
presented in private houses (if possible) and public spaces (mainly).
by Romanian New Wave movies.
Routes and Roots
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Audience: 200,000
Budget: €640,000
No. of projects: 100 walks/2,500 events
A
Partners: Interesting Times Bureau,
Link Centre Association, Art History
Association, Uniunea de Creaţie
Interpretativă a Muzicienilor din
România/ the Interpretative Creation
Union of Musicians in Romania, Voci
Strămoși Foundation, Format Foundation,
Cultural Creative Industries Association,
Asociaţia din Pod, Teatru 2.0 Association,
Sinaptica Association, Asociaţia Arta
în dialog/ Art in Dialogue Association,
A.R.C.E.N.
Live docudramas. Narratives of Bucharest with the festival’s Urban
Eye and Round Table, an original concept of cultural action based
on interpretations of the city by visual/ digital/ performance artists
located at artists’ spaces throughout the city.
Mappings. Bucharest. Cooltural Adventure with high school stu‑
dents distilling elements of history, culture and architecture resulting
in a photographic/filmed documentaries leading to explorative walks.
programme for rediscovering the city and the relationships
Locative media. Bucharest/a ‘vernacular’ street‑view re‑portrays
between citizens and the public space by identifying a cohabi‑
historic narratives, images, ‘vernacular’ photos etc. mixed with media
tation of space. In how many ways can the city be ‘related’, ‘written’
material using current technology: interactivity, A/Vand augmented
and ‘rewritten’? How many types of narration are contained in one
reality (AR), wireless dissemination — QR codes for smartphones,
city? How do these narratives collide and interweave?
inserted on Google Streetview etc. Zoom‑in Bucharest will high‑
The city’s invisible pathways, overlaid with human and digital
light aspects of cultural identity of Bucharest via a photography pro‑
traces, are re‑discovered. The project is inspired by Guy Debord and
ject for high school students to map their personal interpretation of
the Situationist movement in the 1950–70s and their insistence that
‘heritage’ on the ‘The Art of Living’ website. From these, they will
the aimless dérive in the city is an act of re‑engagement in urban and
organise several series of walks.
35
EUroma
The title references both the European Union and the
translation into Romanian as ‘me, Roma’.
A
ccording to the last census the number of Roma in Romania
Exhibitions, debates, media events will put the spotlight on both his‑
is 621,573 — 3.3% while the estimations of the Council of
toric and contemporary Roma culture.
Europe are up to 1,850,000. Bucharest shows a similar pattern with
The structure will be branded under the name of The Roma
30,000 according to official census data as opposed to 120–150,000
Space; entrance will be free but based on filling in a short question‑
in Bucharest–Ilfov County, based on expert surveys. The differences
naire about what visitors know about Roma. A mixture of traditional
underline the precarious nature of the Roma community: partly self
Romani design and high technology will be used for the interior.
‑denial and rejection of own (official) identity due to successive gen‑
The construction part will be a social entrepreneurship project
erations of marginalisation and stigmatisation, and partly the accu‑
with contemporary designers working with Roma crafts people. In
mulated existence of excluded parallel societies without registration
2021, the museum will be placed at several city locations in Bucharest,
and thus without social, health and educational public services.
with exhibitions also aiming at visitors and tourists, ensuring a Roma
Officially an almost invisible community, Roma dominate the
perspective to key themes of the year.
public realm — on trams and buses, on the corners as ambulant sell‑
ers, in the old center as musicians, on the streets etc. The Roma who
go everyday to work, the artisans, teachers or simply ordinary peo‑
ple remain invisible to the others, to the media even to their own
communities.
The stereotype the collective imaginary reflects and the self‑im‑
age of the Roma are still the key issues which need to be addressed,
locally and also in the European context.
Even though commitments have been taken by the authorities
to invest in the public expression of Roma identity there is still no
Roma museum or a section on Roma in the official Romanian history
in any other museum, and no cultural centre for Roma in Bucharest.
‘Nicolae Gheorghe’
European
Documentation
Centre for Roma
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisations: Romano ButiQ,
Împreună Agency and Amare Rromentza
Buget: €200,000
T
Potential Partners: The National
Centre for Roma, Metropolitan Library
of Bucharest, Holocaust Center in
Oslo, Documentation Centre for Sinti
and Roma Heidelberg Germany, Roma
Archive programme of the German
Federal Cultural Foundation
he project aims to reduce the gaps of knowledge about Roma
history and cultures. The basis of this documentation cen‑
tre is already established by the donation of the personal archive
All existing initiatives in Bucharest have been taken by Roma organisa‑
of Nicolae Gheorghe, Romanian Roma sociologist, the founder of
tions, with the support of other communities and social movements.
Romani civil rights movement. This consists of hundreds of docu‑
Discussions with the Roma associations and networks in
ments and artifacts.
The centre will collate from many sources, among which
Bucharest have led to a wish to debate and challenge the collective
imaginary of the people of Bucharest on this specific culture.
European archives, research institutes, but also from the Roma com‑
The proposed programme has four strands: retrieving of col‑
munities themselves. Additional research (in 2018–2019) will focus
lective memory and archives (Documentation Centre); building
on the Roma memory of Bucharest in terms of mapping of the his‑
spaces for the community (Itinerant Roma Museum); challenging
tories of neigbourhoods, famous Romani artists, and public figures.
the anti‑Roma attitudes in an European context by addressing the
A virtual map of the Roma community in Bucharest and a
issue of migration (Creation/ Migration and Roma Embassy); sup‑
mobile archival exhibition will be created on the basis of the col‑
porting a heightened sense of self‑representation through special
lated material.
workshops with visual artists in schools (From Roma with Love).
From Roma with Love Itinerant Roma
Museum
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisations: Romano ButiQ
Association
Curator B2021: Nicoleta Biţu
Audience: 200,000
Budget: €370,000
I
Partners: CINETIc — Bucharest,
The Democratic Federation of
Roma — Romania
Potential Partners: European
Roma Institute — Berlin and Venice,
RomArchive — European platform,
National Cultural Centre for Roma,
Romania; Museum of Roma — Brno (CZ),
Roma Museum — Tarnow (PL)
ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2018–2021
Lead organisations: Romano ButiQ, ARCUB
Partners: schools in Giulești, Rahova, Drumul Tabarei, Ferentari neighbourhoods
Potential international partners: Nordic Culture Fund
Budget: €100,000
T
he project involves Nordic photographers and media artists as
facilitators, and builds on the successful experience of visual
mappings in the neighborhoods of Giulești and Drumul Taberei where
we worked with school children in 2015. The use of international
artists working with local children as guides of local communities
nitiated by Romano ButiQ as a center for debate, the museum will
proved to be particularly productive. This will be developed as an
morph into a mobile structure with multimedia tools and interac‑
informal educational programme aimed for 9–15 year olds linked to
tive methods and will travel within the country in Cluj, Iasi, Timisoara
the B(e)Child programme. The aim is to work with 20 neighbour‑
and Constanta in 2020, prior to a year of activity in Bucharest in 2021.
hood schools in all.
36 Lost & Found
By working with children seen as communicators, the project
will look into deconstructing stereotype media images and support‑
formats for narratives in a delicate shared artistic space in between
the private and public realms.
ing a heightened sense of self representation of the Roma community.
Residencies with visual artists in schools will start in 2017.
Images will draw attention in a city where massive advertising
and media space is occupied by huge meshes and billboards. The
The project will have a pre‑phase in Bucharest, which is planned
for spring 2017 to develop suitable methods of interaction. This will
be followed by informal processes with Roma networks to locate
possible participants.
discrepancy between the imagery of commercial & global unreality
The work will be part of an anthology and will be translated
and the reality at street level is striking. From Roma with Love will
into a series of public interventions using the caravan as platform.
interfere in this conflictual space with images from the everyday. We
Hypermobile and hyper accessible, they will be the perfect micro‑
plan to have around 100 counter‑images that will resonate strongly
topia bubble, signaling intimacy, escape, transience, and humility.
in the public realm.
The project will have a strong digital presence.
A playful but critical city wide billboard exhibition and urban
Caravans will be designed and adapted as spaces for micro‑ex‑
projections will be highlighted as part of the opening programme for
hibitions, sound and media works, or to mark public performances.
B2021 along major boulevards & buildings, under the Lost & Found
theme.
Mobile Roma Embassy
Creation/ Migration
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: B2021
Budget: €350,000
M
Invited artists: Corina Ciocârlie,
Geneviève Loots, Adina Ionescu —
Muscel, Dan Alexe, Dominique Nasta,
Marta Bergman, Myriam Stoffen, Alina
Șerban, Dana Diminescu, Beatrice Minda,
Dragoș Lumpan, Larisa Sitar, Krzysztof
Wodiczko, Damien and Elaine Le Bas
Potential partner cities: Bruxelles,
London, Naples, Paris, Stockholm,
Oslo, Berlin, Institute, Rome, Malmö,
Copenhagen, Sofia
Potential partners: MNAC, The
Democratic Federation of Roma —
Romania, European Cultural Foundation,
Association of Roma Actors — Romania,
Kakka Collective (UK), Vois des Roms (FR)
Years: 2019–2020–2021
Budget: €250,000
T
Potential partners: Romano ButiQ
Association, B2021, Novi Sad 2021,
Jean Michel Bruyère and LFKs, Plastic
Fantastiq, International Romani Union,
CCFD Paris, Open Society Foundation,
Centre for Contemporary Art Bratislava.
his flagship project has been developed with Novi Sad 2021 and
is conceived as a mobile installation which symbolically houses
the itinerant Roma embassy, and which, as any embassy, functions
as a ‘state within a state’.
The choice of an embassy as a vehicle for a cultural platform is
naturally aimed at provoking local debates in selected European cit‑
ies where Roma communities are found, and also on European level.
A cultural manifest to move public perception of Roma from vic‑
igration has become a fingerprint of the image of Romanian
timization to citizenship and cultural recognition. The Roma embassy
citizens in relation with the west in the recent years. The
will visit European capitals as a visible project in public space hosted
Romanian diaspora in Europe does not feel treated as full EU citi‑
by local partners.
zens. This treatment transfers itself into internal disruptions based
We have invited the Berlin‑based architects Plastique Fantastique
on social class or ethnicity. A couple of years ago some members of
to design and build a unique pneumatic, inflatable, and partly trans‑
the Romanian migrant diaspora started a campaign of defining and
parent structure of approx. 250 sq.m, complete with solar panels and
separating themselves from the Roma population with the slogan:
100% self‑generating and sustainable.
Roma are not Romanians. At the same time, acts of solidarity in daily
The space will host events and will create an immersive con‑
life of Romanian migrants testify to the polarised attitudes regard‑
text for the visitors to connect with aspects of history, cultural, social
ing the Roma.
and political reality of Roma in Europe today. Conceived as a strongly
The project aims to uncover by artistic means the human scale
of the European identities which are re‑defined through migration.
How are immigrants and migrants influencing the European
cultural system and how, by questioning it, they become agents of
conceptual work, it will challenge the classic stereotypes in Roma
representation.
This will be installed for two weeks in every city. The project is
expected to visit 12 cities during the year.
change and assimilation via alternative values? How does decon‑
The already existing Roma passport (Romano Lil) developed
structing multiple identities show that a privilege in one context can
by the International Romani Union will be accessible directly at the
become a disadvantage in another?
exhibition space.
Artists who work in the overlapping cultural space between ‘the
Michel Bruyère and the art group, who will work with Roma
normal’ and ‘abnormal’, and between ‘the centre’ and ‘the periph‑
artists and documentarists, are well known for their innovative artis‑
ery’, both Roma and non‑Roma, but all with a strong intercultural per‑
tic concepts combined with an ethical treatment of socially, cultur‑
spective, will follow specific groups and work with them to develop
ally and politically sensitive issues.
37
First cluster of the
peripheries, Fighting Ruin
is essentially a program
about resilience, understood
both as a city’s capacity to
bounce back from obstacles
and crisis and as a constant
ability for reconstruction
and renewal through
counter‑culture and resistance.
PERIPHERIES
Fighting
Ruin
R
uin is inherent in Bucharest’s image and imagination: recur‑
larger network. The project aims to raise awareness about a totally
rent disasters (earthquakes, fires) and conflicts (demolitions)
ignored architectural and cultural heritage, while creating a network
have forced the city to reinvent itself more often than most other
of rescued ruins that could act as potential resources for local devel‑
European cities. Indeed, for the last century and a half, crisis has
opment. It would interconnect peripheries and re‑connect the remote
shaped Bucharest’s urban history. In exploiting and bringing out the
periphery to the city through soft, temporary actions as part of the
culture of crisis, we see it as an opportunity for reconstruction, not
soft‑infrastructure philosophy of the entire programme.
in permanent but rather in floating, ephemeral, changing ways. More
than immutability and permanence, temporality has proven to be
ArtIndustrial
more promising in fostering resilience.
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: UAP (Union of
Romanian Artists)
Curators: Gabriela Mateescu
Budget: €250,000
In focusing on space and its continuous production in the city,
Fighting Ruin deals both with the forgotten past turning to ruin
(Luxus Decay, ArtIndustries) and with the hyper‑contemporary,
alternative counter‑cultures and spaces of the periphery (Bodycity,
Phantom Belts). It ties the city to its larger region, crosses it with
light, almost invisible, transient and immediate acupuncture in the
streets, and moves around its circumference, reinforcing the under‑
standing of periphery as being fluid, off‑centre, and alternative.
In addressing the marginal (both physically and culturally),
A
Partners: National University of Arts
Bucharest (UNArte), Zeppelin, National
University of Music Bucharest (UNMB),
Czech Centre Bucharest, Polish Cultural
Institute in Bucharest, Hungarian Cultural
Institute, JADD Cultural Association
Invited artists: PFA Orchestra (RO), Kiki
Mihuta (RO), Aural Eye (video mapping),
Marina Oprea (RO), Vlad Anghel (RO),
Alexandra Ivanciu (RO), Roberta Curcă
(RO), Vangjush Vëllahu (DE), Zimoun (CH),
Rafael Rozendaal (NL/ BR), Bruno Lévy
(FR), Djeff Regottaz (FR)
mong dozens of derelict, abandoned, or outmoded industrial
sites spread all over the city, ArtIndustrial focuses on the site
Fighting Ruin is in fact a production of heterotopias: the different
of the fine arts kombinat Combinatul Fondului Plastic, a large former
times of architecture (monuments, post‑industrial sites) meet the
socialist industrial site for the production of artworks and artist mate‑
transience of temporary installations, different bodies move through
rial. The site was conceived as a combination of various workshops
the city and settle momentarily only to move elsewhere (Skatezoid),
specialised in casting, stone, ceramics, wood, typographic print,
virtual games tag and consume places they take over simultaneously
paint production etc. After the 1990s, the site has seen continuous
(Game on), long forgotten railway stations become moving sites of
physical deterioration. While some of the workshops still function,
floating intervention, surrounding highways suddenly become pop‑
some have been transformed into artists‑run spaces, but remain in
ulated with carrier‑stages of situations.
precarious physical conditions. Due to the remoteness and difficult
access to the site of Kombinat, a partnership with transport opera‑
Luxus Decay
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Institute for National
Heritage (INP)
Budget: €300,000
T
Local partners: Chamber of Romanian
Architects (OAR), ‘Ion Mincu’ University of
Architecture and Urbanism (UAUIM)
Potential partners: Monumente Uitate,
Pro Patrimonio, Polish Cultural Institute
in Bucharest
Envisaged international networks:
ArtFactories/ Autre(s)Parts (FR), Centre
des Monuments Nationaux (FR), Schloss
Broellin (DE), Schloss Solitude (DE),
Ujazdowski Castle (PL)
tor RATB is envisaged in order to supplement the existing means of
public transportation.
The project deals with the revival of the Combinatul Fondului
Plastic as a case study for the network of industrial spaces in
Bucharest. It involves both new art forms emerging on the scene,
as well as the re‑evaluation of the traditional techniques and work‑
shops existing on site. The project will consist of several components.
A first action involves light infrastructure works for a series of
he programme situates Bucharest in the centre of a larger ter‑
new spaces for artists/ open workshops that will be accessible to
ritory that encompasses at the same time the suburban com‑
the public and will be involved in new on‑site exhibitions, under an
munes of the metropolitan area and the more remote places that
artistic programme to be coordinated together with UAP. It will also
were historically developed around the centre of power. What is left
aim at reviving existing production units that involve screen‑print‑
of a series of manors (conace) and noble courts originally built as sat‑
ing, ceramic workshops, woodcut, casting, stone and metal work.
ellites of the capital are now defined by different degrees of physical
The SIGN IN Intermedia Biennale will start in 2021 as the first
decay, but still represent an important potential for cultural activities,
inter‑media biennale in Romania ( June–November). „Intermedia”
alternative tourism, and for developing the local economy. This archi‑
is a term coined by Hannah and Dick Higgins and refers to works
tectural heritage is spread across several counties around Bucharest
that are formally and conceptually in‑between the established artis‑
(Ilfov, Ialomiţa, or Giurgiu). The project aims to link these cases in a
tic mediums. A novelty for the Romanian scene, SIGN IN will promote
network that will grow during the five years (2017–2021) and gradually
cross‑fertilised forms of art involving installation, performance, new
include other types of peripheral heritage, such as the 19th century
media, video, animation, web‑art, mapping and sound‑based art,
fortifications around Bucharest or the industrial heritage.
and wishes to attract the international public familiar to this type of
A series of manors (conace) at variable distances around
approach and to contribute to the promotion of the young Romanian
Bucharest will be integrated into a network (the manors of Hagi
scene (insufficiently promoted even locally), while creating a context
Tudorache in Grădiştea, Nica Dorobanţu in Coșoba, Ioan Oteteleşanu
for upscaling the event. The lack of spaces for large sculpture or instal‑
in Măgurele, Podgoreanu in Cozieni/ Pasărea, Ghika in Căciulaţi,
lations makes this the perfect location for such an event.
Cantacuzino in Afumaţi, Ion Hagianoff in Manasia, Udrişte Năsturel
in Hereşti) accessible by car, bus (through an envisaged partnership
with the Ilfov County public transportation), or bike routes. The pro‑
Sandwich
ject is coordinated by the National Institute for Heritage (INP) and
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Sandwich
Curators: Alexandru Niculescu, Silviu
Lixandru
Budget: €100,000
will start with Conacul Marghiloman (Hagiești), a property of the
Romanian Ministry of Culture.
Mobile, temporary activities (performance, sound and light), as
well as artistic residencies, will activate several of these places, start‑
ing with one or two (Hagiești, Căciulaţi) that could then expand to a
38Peripheries
A
Partners/ international networks: Club
Electroputere (RO), Cabaret Voltaire (CH),
RUPERT (LT)
Invited artists: Cristian Răduţă
(RO), Daniela Pălimariu (RO), Marieta
Chirulescu (DE), Dan Perjovschi (RO),
Carsten Nicolai (DE)
ssociated with ArtIndustrial, the project involves the support
and development of an already existing initiative that began in
2016 as a collaborative project (Daniela Pălimariu, Cristian Răduţă,
the city’s ring road. Using photography, text, video, and sound, the
Alexandru Niculescu, Silviu Lixandru). The project initially started
project aims to rebuild an image of Bucharest from the perspective
from one of the abandoned, narrow spaces left between two work‑
of its margins.
shops. From 2017 to 2021, the project intends to build a local hub of
self‑organised artists and workers from the site. The project involves
the re‑use and programming of the exhibition‑project space, an art‑
ist residence and two artist workshops. It will invite local and inter‑
national artists from various mediums (from painting to installation,
sound‑art, and electronic music — German musician Carsten Nicolai/
aka Alva Noto will be the guest of one of the events) to engage directly
with the existing site: in reusing the leftover materials from the work‑
shops and industrial spaces, but also by involving the workers and
technicians employed by the still existing manufactures (woodwork,
BodyCity: Stretching
the Margins, Flipping
the Horizon
Years: 2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Cinetic
Budget: €200,000
T
Envisioned networks/ artists: Blast
Theory (UK), David Dufresne, Urbania
Media (CA), Digital Games Research
Association (DiGRA), Abertay University —
Game Research (UK), Underval Festival
Urban (RO), SkateMap (RO)
he city gains an edge when ‘used’ as an adventure ground for
youth subcultures such as skaters, gamers, hackers, graffiti art‑
ists. In their multitude of aggregates, they form a parallel structure to
silkscreen, typography, metal casting, stone, ceramics). The project
the urban experience and engage in multiple ways with performativ‑
will link the young generations of artists with the traditional, already
ity and situationist actions. For BodyCity, we look at the possibilities
established artists that use the spaces of the Kombinat, but also with
of joining both virtual and physical realities of the city into a series
the other jobs involved in the production of the artworks.
of practices engaging these subcultures and their potential, in ways
that stretch the limits of the body.
Phantom Belts
The project addresses two major directions. The first one is
Envisaged artists: Graeme Miller (UK),
Florian Tuercke (DE), Francis Alÿs (MX)
Local partners: National Railways
Company (CFR Infrastructura), Bucharest
Public Transport Operator (RATB),
UrbanEye, ARCUB, Galeria Nouă, National
University of Arts Bucharest (UNArte)
Game On: Let the Imagination Boil and starts from the artistic
his project brings into focus contemporary transformations at the
ing communities and their makings. Be it by re‑living the attempted
periphery of Bucharest, zooming on the ring road, 70‑km‑long
escape of the Ceaușescu couple in the midst of the 1989 Revolution,
road and railways that circle the city, including railway stations in
experiencing a post‑apocalyptic Bucharest after a major earthquake,
advanced state of decay.
digging into with the real‑estate mafia through a virtual documen‑
Years: 2019–2020–2021
Curator: Ger Duizings (DE),
Iosif Király (RO)
Budget: €350,000
T
The ring road mirrors the multiple contradictions of a post‑so‑
cialist city, which are often strongest at the periphery. It is a host of
practices of game‑theatre company Blast Theory that combines the
virtual and the physical, intangible supra‑systems with concrete sto‑
ries, romanticised plots with harsh realities. Bucharest will host a
series of performative and interactive events centred around gam‑
tary, these productions aim to push the visitors’ imagination — both
on‑line and on‑ground — to visualise what a city can involve.
contrasting developments, such as the privatisation of land, the cre‑
The second one, Skatezoid, employs skaters’ natural drive for
ation of gated communities, sex workers, Roma slums, and Chinese
video making and street art through a series of city‑booths that gives
markets. In addition, the ring road has become home to various ‘dis‑
them access to the latest wearable technology, cameras, trackers,
placements’ of partly ‘undesired’ urban functions such as prisons,
and sensors. Here they can not only rent equipment, but access facil‑
waste lands, cemeteries, and film archives where the memories of this
ities for editing and workshops for creating art with wearable tech‑
rapidly changing city are stored and protected against complete obliv‑
nologies. Built like a lab, this series of multi‑equipped booths engage
ion. Phantom Belts uses two means of transportation — a truck and
with a creative subculture that will feed Bucharest2021 with signifi‑
a train — that will be transformed into carrier stages and will be pop‑
cant grassroots urban art.
ulated throughout 2021 by commissioned anthropo‑artistic events.
These booths are temporary and they take possession, simulta‑
The audiences, seated inside, will cover these 70 km through means
neously or successively, of different abandoned or semi‑abandoned
of acoustic and live‑art experiences, mixed with the live reality going
spaces in the city. A partial mapping of these places has already been
on just outside. The audience will make pitstops in the decaying rail‑
accomplished through two projects supported by ARCUB, together
way stations, that will host temporary events such as live concerts,
with teams from the ‘Ion Mincu’ University of Architecture and
banquets, and film festivals.
Urbanism and the Calup Association. These city‑booths are located
Interesting Times Bureau
ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2016–2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: Interesting Times Bureau, Urban Collectors, Urban Forms
Budget: €45,000
I
in sites that bear the texture of the city and, through the continuous,
floating movement of the skaters, the skin of the body is metaphor‑
ically united with the skin of the city.
nteresting Times Bureau is an alternative tours agency that has
Balta Albă Music Festival been developing narratives for the city of Bucharest starting from
Years: 2020–2021
Budget: €100,000
Lead organisation: Fundatia Românească pentru Artă și Informaţie
Author: Silviu Munteanu
the hidden city. Their activities focus on empty and closed buildings,
forgotten monuments, marginalised communities, inaccessible neigh‑
bourhoods. These topics are translated into guided tours and par‑
ticipatory actions, focusing on street art and large mural paintings.
B
ASSOCIATED PROJECT
alta Albă is a housing neighbourhood that due to its display of
living structures and its heterogeneous social texture has gen‑
erated some of the most inspiring music in the country. Urban beats
Periferia/ The Periphery ACCELERATOR
Years: 2016–2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Budget: €50,000
Lead organisation: Asociaţia Centrul de Fotografie Documentară
Author: Petruţ Călinescu
T
39
from Subcarpaţi, the ’90s La Familia and Marijuana, Artan from the
subversive Timpuri Noi indie rock, folk singers can easily label Balta
Albă as the Brixton of Bucharest.
The Festival encompasses the past 30 years of music originat‑
he project documents stories of people living at the periphery
ing in Balta Albă and can be seen as the story of a unique place for
(either in transitory situations or by choice), namely around
Bucharest and its inhabitants.
Infra‑ordinary
T
Encounters of a Close Kind: Comedy Theatre’s New Corners, Excelsior
Theatre’s New Drama and a cutting‑edge section from the National
Theatre Festival, all culminating in 2021.
he elasticity of the inhabited peripheries will be displayed
through projects that seek and exhibit the details of daily life in
the big city — those details that are experienced differently by every‑
one yet are part of the universal experience of life in the metropolis.
We will use the term coined by the writer Georges Perec of infra‑ordi‑
nary: as opposed to what is extra‑ordinary, spectacular, the infra‑or‑
dinary questions the events of the ordinary, the banal, the habitual
Shrinking Markets
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Institute for Social
Economy
Curators: Xenia Kalpaktsoglou (GR), Celia
Ghyka (RO), Ioana Păun (RO)
Budget: €300,000
as commonalities of our life in the city.
Local market vendors, food and its economic chains, daily liv‑
ing in ordinary neighbourhoods, de‑industrialisation and resistance
of local craft will be only a few of the pretexts to unveil the extraor‑
dinary of the habitual through the means of artistic practices.
Cooking, selling, stitching, knitting, sewing, sleeping, walking
F
Envisaged artists/ co‑curators: Tomas
Saraceno (DE), High-Rise Ensemble/
Pierre Sauvageot (FR), Chris Fite-Wassilak
(UK), Dragoș Lumpan (RO), studioBASAR
(RO), Atelier Ad Hoc (RO)
Local partners: Administraţia
Pieţelor Sector 1 (District 1 Markets
Administration), District 1 Municipality,
The Institute, UAUIM
International networks: Standart
Thinking (UK), Atelier d’architecture
autogerée (AAA) (FR), Futurefarmers (US)
ood markets are a key element for Romanian urban life.
Gardening, orchards, and small‑scale agriculture developed in
the sub urban territories around Bucharest or even remoter villages
through the city are some of the mediums for emerging and estab‑
have been traditionally the source of food for the city and the eco‑
lished artists, who in turn will back these practices visibility and aura.
nomical living resource for the farmer communities. But markets are
Performance, video, theatre, installation, photography, digital art will
now in decline, while ‘super’ markets and malls (the city with the larg‑
engage with sustainability and the everyday while involving artistic
est number of malls in Europe) take over and cut off urban consump‑
research‑based practices and Situationist methods and approaches.
tion from rural cultivation. The project aims to slow down this trend
DormStories ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Odeon Theatre
Curators: Cristina Tudor
Budget: €200,000
Envisaged artists/ international networks: Cardbord Citizens (UK), Rimini Protokoll
(DE), Centre for Political Beauty (DE), Pakhama Project (BR, UK, Sub-Saharan Africa),
Waste Land Documentary Crew (BR), Cantabile 2 (DK)
Local partners: ARCUB, ‘I.L. Caragiale’ University of Theatre and Film/ UNATC, District
Municipalities
A
and transform traditional markets into places of conviviality and resil‑
ience with means of artistic intervention, while actively involving
invisible/ unacknowledged minorities in the process (Chinese, Turks,
Armenian, etc.). The project will initially involve two markets for dif‑
ferent urban scenarios & typologies (Matache and Rahova).
Public campaigns that advertise the markets as places of
urbanity (exchange of goods and actions) will kick off the projects.
Artistic actions will reinvent the markets (concerts, installations, etc.)
project initiated by Odeon Theatre, starting from the living
and challenge the opening hours and the buying habits. The series
conditions in the large housing neighbourhoods of Bucharest
Get to know your local farmer are documentary videos about the
that are formed of complex micro‑urban communities. The pro‑
farmers and their communities: they at the same time retrace the
ject addresses this vast majority of Bucharest inhabitants. As its
origin of food and the life of those who produce it. Through a design
title indicates, DormStories is a theatrical project in the dormitory
competition as a common activity with the project Redesigning the
neighbourhoods.
Balkans, market stalls and furniture will be produced (2018–2020) and
An open call invites young playwrights to identify stories in the
installed in the targeted markets. Local restaurants will be involved
neighbourhoods and, by transforming them into unconventional writ‑
in order to use and promote products through a series of incen‑
ings, to expose them to the general public in performances staged and
tives such as ‘This is a Bucharest2021 ally in supporting local farms’
produced by Odeon Theatre, at the main venue or at other spaces in
label, partnering for screenings and talks as part of Shrinking Markets
peripheral Bucharest: spatial structures that have been addressed and
art productions. Moreover, markets will be used as megaphones —
transformed through the projects in the Fighting Ruin programme.
spaces for the dissemination of B2021 events and programmes. The
Some of the stories already mapped through the project 3
Debate toolkit of the Peripheries theme will address the market as a
Encounters of a Closed Kind will also serve as inspirational mate‑
cultural centre through a series of talks/ debates around food con‑
rial for the production of the plays. Others will use more conceptual
sumption and politics, urban resilience, circular economy. The pro‑
approaches of analytical matrix formats translated into performa‑
ject will link directly with the PIDU project concerning the re‑devel‑
tive work such as Rimini Protocol. Others will use the experience of
opment of Piaţa Matache. Associated project: the Living Lab project,
private situations in flats/ rooms to create an immersive labyrinth of
directed by the Academy of Economic Studies, as a trans‑disciplinary
personal stories of Cantabile 2, while Cardboard Citizens will make
action‑research laboratory.
collective works based on community engagement. We envisage col‑
lecting 100 stories from 100 houses. A season when the dormitories
will come to life.
Dorm Stories feeds into Fabulamundi. Playwriting Europe
is another project involving the Odeon Theatre, co‑funded by the
Creative Europe Programme.
New Kids on the Stage hree partner theatres will join in through brand new festi‑
vals dedicated to contemporary theatre and new drama, in an
innovative attempt of bidirectional feed with Dorm Stories and 3
40Peripheries
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Institute for Social
Economy/ IES
Curators: Ioana Păun (RO), Xenia
Kalpaktsoglou (GR)
Budget: €300,000
ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: Teatrul de Comedie, Teatrul Excelsior, UNITER
Budget: €100,000
T
Cantina
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Envisaged artists: Critical Art ensemble
(UK), Diego Cibelli, Fritz Haeg, Tania
Bruguera, Alice and Andreas Siekmann
Creischer, Kiki Mihuţă (RO)
Potential partners: European Network
of Filipino Diaspora — Romanian Branch,
Romanian National Council for Refugees/
CNRR, Interesting Times Bureau,
Kunstraum Lakeside (AU), Workspace
Brussels (BE), Bucharest Municipal
Agency for Employment/ AMOFM,
Welcome Trust (UK)
losely related to the Shrinking markets, Cantina is a concept for
a cultural centre focused around food resources, which assumes
atypical collaboration both between artistic and beyond the artistic
areas: science, medicine, informal experts, farmers, cooks. Conceived
Weaving communication. Another dimension of the pro‑
as a locus that revolves around food as the trigger for intercultural
ject tackles the shrinkage or decay of small textile industry in favour
dialogue, Cantina’s operating principle is that of a collective lab and
of large brands and corporations that export their production to
of collective cultural knowledge.
Romania. The last few years witnessed the slow revival of some small
It will operate as an autonomous space, in Piaţa Matache, man‑
textile workshops — they will be engaged in the production of fabric
aged initially over a period of three years, with a continuous activ‑
items that are designed by artists (selected following an open call)
ity throughout the year 2021, aiming to become autonomous after‑
and contribute to the communication campaign of the whole ECoC
wards. Cantina operates daily as a dining place where people from
programme.
risk groups, such as refugees and the unemployed, cook a fixed‑meal
The project is a meta‑topic of the Periphery theme — that of
type of lunch. It is opened to the general public, especially people
the shrinkage of Europe, not only physically in the realm of urban‑
working in the area, at affordable prices, with ingredients from the
ity, but also symbolically and politically (Brexit, refugee crisis, ter‑
local markets and with the possibility of service delivery.
rorist attacks, etc.). In‑between Shrinking and Stitching, a stronger
Cantina curates and produces contemporary artists from the
Europe will hopefully be rebuilt through culture.
areas of live art, interactive documentary, emerging practices, con‑
ference‑performance, actions and food art. Artists invited to par‑
ticipate as residents of the Cantina will contribute continuously to
the menu and other elements of gastronomic creation related to the
daily activity.
Stitching Europe
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Curators: Celia Ghyka (RO), Corina
Ciocârlie (LU/ FR)
Budget: €300,000
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Envisaged artists: Richard Tuttle (UK),
Simone Decker (LU), Ana Bănică (RO),
Iulia Toma (RO), Aurora Király (RO), Daniel
Djamo (RO)
Partners: MNAC, Atelierul de Pânză (RO),
Living Lab/ ASE, MUDAM (LU)
De‑industrial
ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Budget: €45,000
Curator: Ileana Szász
T
he project aims to artistically transpose the experience of work‑
ers from factories and industrial districts (APACA or Băneasa)
who have lost their jobs and to explore the way they readapted, or
not, to the new market economy. The project will focus on the tex‑
tile industry and the implications of de‑industrialisation on the small
textile workshops and the local craft.
he project addresses the slow decline of decorative fabric
(extremely popular all over Europe) that accompanied the gen‑
eral regression of craft and textile industry. Pieces of decorative pro‑
tective covers for tables, walls, and furniture eventually became the
washable handcrafted pictures brightening the homes of European
workers everywhere. At the same time, even after the decline of the
decorative, the textile industry continued to be a strong asset within
3 Encounters of a
Close Kind
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Bucharest2021
Curator B2021: Ioana Păun (RO)
Budget: €300,000
industrial socialist Romania until as late as the early 1990s. This was
followed by a strong regression that is seen even today. This project
addresses the topic of textiles, seen as both a symbol of domesticity
and gender, and as a symbol of industrialisation followed by its decay.
There is a distinct tendency today to engage with public and
performative actions linked to the idea of textiles as social fabric —
T
Partners: Dafilm (RO), National Theatre
Festival (RO), One World Romania (RO),
Kinodiseea (RO), UrbanEye (RO)
International networks: Goldsmiths
College London (UK), Berlin University
of Visual Anthropology (DE), Ateliers
de production (BE), Rotondes.lu (LU),
Cardbord Citizens (UK)
Envisaged artists: Rimini Protokoll (DE),
Centre for Political Beauty (DE), Cătălin
Rulea (RO), Ilinca Manolache (RO), Diana
Miron (RO)
he project combines a Situationist action‑research of the city
with an artistic approach. A squad composed of artists, script‑
writers, actors, directors, documentary film‑makers, and anthropolo‑
fostering communities and moving from the very private to the pub‑
gists will install their headquarters in three different peripheral com‑
lic and giving visibility to what used to be purely domestic.
munities across the city, successively and for three years in a row.
Techniques such as sewing, tapestry, and embroidery are now
They will install a creative situation that is side by side with the every‑
re‑evaluated in the global context and artists have recently become
day life of that community. This situation is an artistic set‑up with
more and more engaged with such peripheral mediums and practices.
its own artistic aesthetics, therefore cannot be mistaken with true
Nevertheless, at the everyday level, strong reminiscences of
life and has no aim to create confusions between fiction and reality.
decorative craft still exist in many Romanian homes, as they con‑
The headquarter can last from three to six months, depending
tinue to exist in many homes in Europe. Knitting, crochet, doilies,
on the relational dynamics with the community, and throughout this
embroidery, tapestry continue to populate many Bucharest (and
time the team is immersed in the community and permanently plays
European) homes. They are peripheral and occur at the periphery.
to the situation they created. For a better mapping of Bucharest real‑
The project engages with fabric and the contemporary through sev‑
ities and a better coverage of anthropo‑artistic means, each year the
eral components.
focus is on one single community/ lifestyle/ habitat and on one par‑
Sewing in the street. The project addresses the marginal and
ticular artistic situation.
invisible domestic practices related to textiles. It engages both con‑
A film crew will document each of these Situationist interven‑
temporary artists (Romanian and international) who work with tex‑
tions and, at the end, a professional documentary will tell the story of
tiles and the domestic, anonymous fabrication of home‑crafted tex‑
these encounters between artists and life, between fiction and com‑
tiles, involving the crafting communities to participate in collaborative
munity. The documentary will depict not only tools of coexistence
works and workshops. Three workshops will take place during 2021,
in today’s Bucharest, but also the ways in which contemporary art
as well as a final exhibition that would take over the space of the street
and artists deal with real life resources and how general audiences
to take knitting and crochet to an urban level.
respond to artistic imagination.
A large scale site‑specific installation inviting international
artists to work with textiles in an alternative space — abandoned rail‑
way station, thus reuniting two iconic images of modern Europe: rail‑
ways and fabric industry (Richard Tuttle, Simone Decker).
41
D
etached from the periphery, the prefix of circumference reas‑
Maps of garbage. A cross‑disciplinary research project will
sembles into the public, the civic, the common. Peri‑political
document the routes of garbage in Bucharest. During an entire year
revolves around and questions topics that might seem secondary for
(2019), seasonal, weekly, daily routines of collecting will be carefully
front‑page politics, but are in fact insidiously central. What is hidden,
documented and mapped. An interactive image of the dimension
marginal, outcast, precarious (living without a home), wasted (gar‑
of garbage should engage people with a more responsible attitude
bage, sanitation) now comes to the fore and is given a voice and a
towards waste management and the city as a site for continuous recy‑
place on the public agenda. Inversely, what appears to be central is
cling and decay.
Sanitation. International artists will be invited to do a col‑
questioned through its utmost visibility (ideological large scale archi‑
tecture such as the House of the People).
laborative, site‑specific work engaging the sanitation workers of
The peri‑political also brings to the fore the in—visibility of work:
Bucharest. These are one of the many invisible categories of work‑
thousands of invisible workers who collect (formally or informally)
ers. But they are symbolically even more invisible than others, since
the remains of the everyday in the large city, the precarity of job‑
the touch of garbage is seen by modern society as contaminated.
lessness and homelessness, tens of thousands of invisible workers
A centre for alternative recycling/ collecting will ask peo‑
who built the most prominent and yet inaccessible building in the
ple to bring what they consider as reusable material — artists selected
capital, the progressive disappearance of jobs and work in the pro‑
upon an open call will engage those who respond to the public call
cess of shrinkage.
for reusable pieces to get involved in collaborative artworks that use
These issues will be addressed mainly through the method of
waste as material. The project will link the city to ghettos and fave‑
the counter‑monument: subversive, ironical yet surprisingly visible
las of Cape Town, Mombasa, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing, Bombay, Cairo,
artistic interventions (video‑texture mapping, choirs, maps, tempo‑
where local craftsmen, designers, and artists recycle, redesign, and
rary shelters, mobile devices) will join and use solid and extensive
repackage the past, some of their work being relocated to Bucharest.
trans‑disciplinary research.
All the products created will be directed to homeless/ street commu‑
Peri‑political is the periphery in disguise.
nities. A strong link to the Transient Precarity project is envisaged
(see below). A series of debates about waste will be accompanied by
Project: Garbage
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Curators: Iara Bubnova (BG), Celia Ghyka
(RO), Corina Ciocârlie (LU/ FR)
Budget: €300,000
special sections dedicated to this issue associated with already estab‑
Potential partners: Hollmen Reuters
Sandman (FI), One World Romania (RO)
Envisaged artists: Mierle Landerman
Ukeles (US), Wim Delvoye (BE), Vik Muniz
(MX), Erik van Lieshout (NL), Athanasia
Kyriakakos (GR/ US), Can Altay (TR),
Škart (SR)
Only our garbage heaps are growing as they fill up with history.
Peri
Political
Peri‑political would be the third
space of the periphery, one
that is continuously produced
at the intersection of the
physical, the representational
and the symbolical.
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—Gordon Matta-Clark
here is little more peripheral and unwanted than garbage.
Modernity is obsessed with sanitation. Decay and obsolescence
are among the great fears of modernity, but they are actually embed‑
ded in it. Urban sanitation is a political, economical, as well as sym‑
lished film festivals: One World Romania and UrbanEye.
Transient Precarity
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Atelier Ad Hoc
Curators: George Marinescu, Maria Daria
Oancea
Budget: €200,000
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Potential partners: Habitat for Humanity
(RO), Abrupt Arhitectura (RO), Funky
Citizens (RO), studioBASAR (RO), Ukumbi
(FI)
Envisaged artists: Atelier van Lieshout
(NL), Krysztof Wodiczcko (US), Francesco
Marullo (IT), Cătălin Berescu (RO)
his participative project challenges the transience of living in
marginal conditions in the city, shaped by those without homes.
Despite their significant presence in urban space, informal practices
bolical problem. Altogether a philosophical and symbolical question,
remain either severely contested or simply ignored. Constantly fac‑
recycling and waste management are also very urgent issues for the
ing an extreme lack of resources, homelessness involves a series of
citizens and the Municipality of Bucharest, a city that is famous for
networks of solidarity that lead to alternative models of living and
being unclean and unhealthy.
sharing. The adaptation tactics of those left behind by the city’s
A spectacular viral story of 2015 reported that 300 tonnes
administrative politics continuously produce spaces of survival. By
of trash lay on one single street in a housing neighbourhood of
engaging with situations of precarious living, the social‑architects
Bucharest. The project aims to raise awareness about the enormous
spend time with people at risk — evicted, runaways, homeless peo‑
yet little addressed question of garbage and waste, and to stimulate
ple — and devise together strategies of survival that can be imple‑
some creative solutions.
mented and adapted in crisis situations. For two years, several places
Monument to the garbage workers. Historically, Roma metal
with informal activities (Buftea, Măgurele, Chitila) will be test sites
collectors have wandered the streets of Bucharest in search of mate‑
for step‑by‑step collaborations between Ad Hoc and the people with‑
rial to be recycled. They have a very specific way to announce their
out homes, resulting in prototype designs varying from kitchenettes,
presence, shouting along the streets as they pass by (‘Fiare vechi
kits to pliable homes and deposit boxes. The collaborations rely on
luăm!’/ We take away old metal!). This is slowly disappearing as a
relations of exchange and solidarity, brainstorming and work shop‑
recycling and informal economical practice. Starting from this, a
ping. As for 2020 and 2021, the prototypes will be multiplied and dis‑
counter‑monument to the garbage workers will appear as the choir
tributed across the city’s precarious environments.
of the last Roma metal collectors — a one‑time closing event in 2021.
Cloaca. An associated event to open the larger series about gar‑
bage will be the Wim Delvoye exhibition at the MNAC in 2017 (asso‑
ciated: Deconstructing MNAC). The show will bring for the first time
in Romania Delvoye’s famous Cloaca, an installation that accurately
reproduces the trajectory and functioning of the digestive appa‑
ratus, literally producing faeces. The ironical, as well as problem‑
atic, nature of Delvoye’s work, to be installed in the Palace of the
Parliament (House of the People), will be the launching event of the
Garbage project.
42Peripheries
The House — LGBT Community Centre
ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Budget: €45,000
Lead organisations: Lindenfeld Association (RO), MozaiQ (RO), TRANSform (RO)
T
he main goals of the centre are to develop the local queer scene,
to import know‑how and develop partnerships with European
queer artists, and to promote the queer element as part of the larger
cultural and art scene in Bucharest.
Unobserved
ACCELERATOR
Years: 2016–2020–2021
Budget: €50,000
Curator (author): Sorina Adina Vasilescu/ aka Sorina Vazelina
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he project aims to give visibility to people and jobs usually unno‑
ticed, such as street sweepers, junkies, street florists, collectors,
Shrinking Cities in
Europe
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Ideilagram
Curator: Ilinca Păun-Constantinescu
Budget: €200,000
homeless people. The project will collect the stories of these peo‑
ple and integrate them into a chain of urban narratives in order to
enhance the value of individual stories as fragments of a larger image
of the city, one that is usually overlooked.
Collective Authorship:
Private Narratives of Public Architecture
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: Association for
Urban Transition/ ATU (RO), Romanian
Chamber of Architects/ OAR (RO),
Institute for the History and Theory of
Architecture — ETH Zürich (CH)
Curator (author): Călin Dan
Budget: €300,000
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Invited curators/ researchers: Philip
Ursprung (CH), Enrico Lunghi (LU), Ami
Barak (FR), Jochen Becker (DE), Corina
Ciocârlie (LU/ FR)
Guest artists: Armin Linke (DE), Rieneke
Dijkstra (NL), Sorina Vazelina (RO),
Cristian Stanciu/ aka Matze (RO), Ute
Meta Bauer (DE), An Architektur (DE)
Partners: MNAC, Zeppelin, OAR, UAR, UAP
Potential international partners:
Museum of Estonian Architecture, Tallinn
(EE), metro-Zones — Centre for Urban
Affairs (DE), MUDAM (LU)
T
Local partners: Association for Urban
Transition/ ATU, Zeppelin, MNAC, OAR,
UAUIM, Ubanium Turnu Măgurele,
Planeta Petrila, Brăila-Lab
International networks: Bertelsmann
Foundation (DE), German Cultural
Foundation (DE), Learning from Las
Cuencas (ES), IBA Sachsen-Anhalt (DE),
Cities Regrowing Smaller (DE)
Invited researchers/ artists/ curators:
Philip Oswalt, Tim Rieniets, Sara Lopez
Arraiza, Ignacion Ruiz Allen, Stephen
Thomas Wall, Thorsten Weichmann,
Raimundas Malasaukas
he Shrinking Cities in Romania exhibition (2016) is a pioneering
initiative to raise awareness about an acute and pervasive, yet
too little discussed, ‘peripheral’ matter: the shrinking of Romanian
cities as part of a widespread global urban phenomenon. Half of the
country’s cities have shrunk by 20% since 1990. Although perceived
as a growing city, Bucharest is partially confronted with this phenom‑
enon too: while the inner city has lost a large number of its residents,
the periphery has been considerably expanding in the meantime.
Whilst population flows are significant within countries, there
is also a huge migratory process at the European level, where megacities and urban concentrations of people, knowledge, wealth, power
and media creates enormous local/ regional repercussions and imbal‑
ollective Authorship investigates large‑scale architecture with the
ances. In 2021, the topic of shrinkage will be revisited, looking both at
methods of oral history, starting from the assumption that such
the larger, European context and at the differences and developments
projects, while generated through political will, remain a collective
that Romanian cities and national urban policies would undergo dur‑
oeuvre, although never assumed as such. The project focuses on the
ing the five‑year period that separates the events. Moreover, the con‑
House of the People (HP), one of the largest public buildings world‑
temporary political context in Europe over the last two years and
wide, with a problematic implantation in the urban, social, and his‑
especially 2016 (Brexit, refugee and migration crisis, followed by a
torical fabric of Bucharest. 25 years after entering the public sphere,
general, unprecedented unleash of violence) makes this topic more
HP and the neighbourhoods directly affected by its presence remain
acute than ever: symbolically, not only cities, but Europe itself is
an unsolved urban problem, cutting the city into sectors separated by
shrinking.
a huge, inaccessible land: the courtyard of the Parliament and soon
the National Cathedral. The most visible construction in the city, and
promoted for more than two decades as a brand image of the capital,
HP is also the most obscure in terms of genesis, history, and author‑
ship. Initially identified with the persona of Nicolae Ceaușescu and
the chief architect Anca Petrescu, the building is the product of a
massive national effort, involving hundreds of thousands of people.
Re‑constructing MNAC
ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Budget: €200,000
Lead organisation: National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC)
A
five‑year plan meant to define the position of the institution
in the social, political, economic, and cultural fabric of larger
The project assumes that large public buildings are a collective prod‑
Bucharest. Five internationally renowned artists will address the
uct, made and ultimately owned by people. At the European level,
problematic venue of the museum in the city, as well as the topics
a parallel will be drawn with other cases of ideological architecture
tackled by the B2021 themes.
such as the Palace of the Republic — Berlin, the Palace of Culture and
Science — Warsaw, Linnahall — Tallinn.
Tadashi Kawamata will work with people cut‑off from the
public heating system, who are scavenging for wood across the city.
The project aims to identify and interview the female and male
With the material so gathered, he will build a symbolic bridge meant
contributors to HP: engineers, architects, designers, artists, construc‑
to link the Museum with the city at Parcul Izvor. Tino Sehgal will
tion workers, drivers, accountants, cooks, etc. This is an enormous
adapt his Documenta installation by working with the Museum as a
action that has never been done before: it addresses a large number
hollow space ready to be filled with spontaneously delivered stories.
of workers who first have to be identified and accessed. Their pri‑
Marjetica Potrč will bring her expertise of working with homeless‑
vate histories make the social history of public architecture. Video
ness and improvised dwellings in extreme locations, and she will
recordings of their memories will enter a database organised through
develop a workshop with the locals, in collaboration with a group
keywords, sub‑topics, micro- and macro‑threads that will cross‑ref‑
of Romanian architects, in order to develop survival knowledge in
erence into a complex online platform. Ultimately, the project will
adverse conditions. Thomas Hirschhorn will build a MNAC Pavilion
build a parallel monument to the HP: a gigantic texture‑mapping pro‑
in one of the most densely inhabited areas of Bucharest, Militari,
jection covering the back façade of HP in a multimedia testimony to
together with the locals. MNAC will put parts of its collection on dis‑
the people who struggled on that construction site.
play. Wim Delvoye will work starting from two of his landmark
Actions: cross‑media campaign mapping the coordinates of peo‑
oeuvres — Cloaca and the Cathedral. Installed in the marble room
ple who have been active at the construction of HP and resulting in
of the Museum, Cloaca will be fed with products from small farms
a database of local, national, and international (Romanian diaspora)
around Bucharest.
contacts; awareness billboards will feature portraits of former work
The Cathedral will be remade in a low‑key version, replacing
heroes from the HP building site; multimedia opening event: tex‑
the laser technology used in the original version with the support of
ture‑mapping of HP façade with the Collective Authorship material.
Roma metal workers.
43
Balkan Expresses
The title is a pun that combines the Orient Express (as the classical
means of transportation towards the exotic, the margins of
‘civilised’ Europe) with the artistic or imaginative ways of expressing
a region once known as Europe’s periphery par excellence.
T
he cluster addresses the accuracy of this idea of the Balkans
symbolical/ political and concrete, dead (historical, memorial) and
as a super‑periphery of Europe and questions the actuality of
alive. In linking with the Debate toolkit of the Peripheries theme, the
such a position in today’s Europe through projects that focus on the
project will invite a number of philosophers and writers who will
body, both politically and phenomenologically (Balkan Connections
inform, support and question these processes.
& Bodies), the place of local economy and design as a resource
A series of residencies and artistic research camps organised in
(Re‑designing the Balkans), or the mixing of marginal cultures into
Bucharest and several cities will connect artists with the local audi‑
new genres (Outernational). It is a play between means of artistic
ence through a series of workshops, artistic retreats, seminars and
expression and the exchange of ideas, motives, practices, topics, both
debates, creative processes, actions and site‑specific creations.
An ArtistNe(s)t residency programme will involve the setup of
inside the Balkans and outside, towards the larger Europe.
a series of residencies starting with 2018, in which artists from dif‑
ferent cities will be able to develop their own artistic projects and
Balkan Connections
& Bodies
Years: 2018–2019–2020–2021–2022
Budget: €500,000 (+ the project intends
to collect funding from the Creative
Europe programme)
Curator B2021: Cosmin Manolescu
Lead organisation: Gabriela Tudor
Foundation
R
Local partners: ARCUB, Goethe Institute
Bucharest, MNAC, Replika Educational
Theatre Centre
International partners: Derida Dance
Centre (BG), Brainstore Project &
Antistatic Festival Sofia (BG), Quassi
Stellar Company, Station — Service for
Contemporary Dance Belgrade (SR),
Amber Platform Istanbul (TR), CAPa —
DeVIR (PT), Dance House Lemessos (CY),
Dance Days Chania Festival (GR), Exodus
Ljubjana (SI), Galway Dance Project &
Galway 2020 (IE), Balkan Dance Platform
network (EU)
Artists invited: Apostolia Papadamiki
(GR), Sofia Falierou (GR), Erdem Gundez
(TR), Mustafa Kaplan & Taldans Company
(TR), Willy Prager (BG), Mădălina Dan
(DE/ RO), Ferenc Sinkó (RO), Kotki
Visuals — Mihaela Kvandaska & Dilmana
Yordonova (RO/ BG), Lia Haraki (CY)
run a series of open‑air workshops and informal public lectures.
The ArtistNe(s)t residency programme will be organised upon a call
for artists in Bucharest (2018), Sofia and Belgrade (2019), Faro and
Istanbul (2020), Limassol, Chania, and Kalamata (or the Greek city
selected to host the European Capital of Culture in 2021).
The artistic research programme component — Balkan Bodies —
will be organised in Bucharest (2019) and Galway (2020). Some 10–12
artists from different disciplines will share their working experience
and methods, and embark on a co‑authorship process to explore the
relation between the body and the geo‑political context of each city.
Balkan Co‑production. Following the launch of the ArtistNe(s)
t residencies and the Balkan Bodies artistic research, four new dance/
theatre/ music/ multimedia productions will be co‑produced, as pro‑
posed by mixed teams of artists.
A call for projects will be launched in 2019. The co‑productions
ooted in the significance and role played by performance art in
will be shown in spring Bucharest2021 in the frame of the Balkan
the Balkans and its resurgence in a period of increased poten‑
Arts Platform 2021. In spring 2022, two Balkan co‑productions will
tial conflict, and inspired by the work of radical performance artists
be selected to tour the Greek city that will host the European Capital
such as Marina Abramović, Ivo Dimchev or Xavier Le Roy, Balkan
of Culture in 2021, as well as another ECoC city of 2022.
Connection & Bodies is a large‑scale geopolitical artwork located
A mobility fund (B-motion fund) will provide grants to support
throughout the Balkans as a choreographed series of body‑based
the mobility of European and Romanian artists and cultural manag‑
works, actions, and manifestations. Centred on the Balkans, the pro‑
ers between the targeted cities and the Balkan region. Special pri‑
ject goes deeper than a simple regional exchange programme, focus‑
ority will be given to mobility between the winning ECoC cities in
ing on topics such as body, beauty, periphery, and politics. Through
Serbia, Greece, and Romania.
the means of performativity and artistic exchanges, it proposes an
Finally, the Balkan Arts Platfom 2021 (BAP 2021) will be a
inquiry into the phenomenological and the political understandings
major international professional platform to present the productions
of the body, stressing the multiple relationships between the two con‑
developed from the ArtistNe(s)t residency programme, Romanian
cepts — the body and the Balkans — and following their intertwined
and other Balkan performances, concerts, lectures, round tables,
geographical, historical, political, and cultural narratives. These nar‑
video screening, co‑productions. For the opening of BAP2021, we
ratives can be retraced to specific circumstances, various in their
will invite Ivo Dimchev to create a special performance‑installation
nature — such as borders/ frontiers, actions, decisions that constantly
for artists and performers from the Balkan countries.
redesign the context of the Balkan landscape.
The project seeks to explore the interface of the body with these
key elements and proposes the formation of a meta‑mapping of cul‑
tural acupuncture as an antidote to the existing conflicted situations
and tensions. In opposing the hyper‑reality of the actual body to an
often abstract and contextualised landscape of political issues and
Re‑designing the
Balkans
Years: 2018–2019–2020–2021
Budget: €500,000
Lead organisation: The Institute
conflicts, the project aims to build a body of work based on defining
the fault lines, connections, and communalities of the Balkan region,
and to address them with this basic formula. The project directly
connects the two basic understandings of the body, as being both
44Peripheries
T
Local partners: Meşteshukar ButiQ, Ivan
Patzaikin
International partners/ networks:
One Design Week (BG), Mikser House
(RS), Croatian Design Superstore (HR),
Romanian Cultural Institute in Stockholm,
Romanian Cultural Institute in Vienna,
Vienna Design Week (AT), Dutch Design
Week (NL)
he title reflects the double layering of the project: on the one side,
a design‑led investigation into the accumulated characteristics
and the potential elements of contemporary design in all its forms
that is beyond, external, far from the centre — is almost synonymous
in the Euro-Balkan context, and on the other, at a macro level, the
with the peripheral, the marginal, the limit.
questioning of the concept of Balkans as a peripheral and transi‑
tional space while at the same time a rich, complex cultural space.
The outernational scenes are defined in opposition with ‘inter‑
national’, Western‑generated and globally‑adopted genres/ trends.
Re‑designing the Balkans is an opportunity for ‘archiving’
The outernational scenes have their own parallel formats, systems
a common legacy, while accentuating, with the means of design,
of distribution and promotion that reveal obvious similarities from
the cultural traits of this European region and to illustrate how this
Romania to Bulgaria to Syria to Cairo to Lisbon ghettos to other Arab
region has contributed and influenced the common Europe; yet it is
countries etc.
also an opportunity for prototyping new directions and discourses.
The understanding of outernational is however different from
It is an opportunity not only for promotion and attraction of tour‑
world music or world cultures, which tends to be seen as ‘folk’, ‘tradi‑
ists, but also for creating a networked space for cultural production
tional’, ‘pure’, ‘exotic’, etc., a romanticised post‑colonial view of the
and a context for design‑led innovation.
peripheries, which is the only one accepted by the larger public, with
Re‑designing the Balkans will challenge designers (fashion,
lots of conservatory world music festivals still happening around the
textiles, crafts, product design, visual design, architecture, furniture
world. However, world music has little connection to the contempo‑
design) from the Balkans to develop new products by transforming
rary genres springing up nowadays at these peripheries, which may
traditional craft/ materials/ methods/ techniques for contemporary
be harder to ‘digest’ by the average European audiences although
needs and markets, using both high‑end technology and responding
they are highly innovative, provocative, and fresh. As innovation in
to the need to create sustainable products and thus encouraging a
Western‑produced/ influenced genres has started to stagnate and as
new generation of handicrafts and new forms of work.
these genres are most often self‑referential, especially after the last
The core of the project will be to identify a series of handi‑
crafts specific to the Balkan area and then facilitate the collaboration
real experimental decades of the ’60s–90s, the outernational scenes
are now breaking through and slowly infiltrating the ‘centres’.
between Balkan designers and local craftsmen for launching these
Focusing on the music from the Balkans, in 2021, Outernational
products in order to create series of collections and design platforms
will be an extended festival/ platform (May–July each year), with
based on the Romanian Design Week model. The event will also serve
cross‑sectorial programming based around the outernational scenes.
as a link to other Balkan design platforms. The goal is to have a line of
Branded as a festival to take place in spring/ summer every year, it
products in production from 2021 onwards. Young designers will pair
will revolve around live concerts, but it will also host conferences,
with traditional craftsmen, involving at the same time rural traditions
plays, exhibitions, workshops, etc. as side events. Events will occur
and ethnic minorities (e.g. Roma). The project also includes an exten‑
in selected outdoor venues, on mobile platforms/ stages that move
sive research process that will provide a basis for the actual re‑de‑
around the city in different neighbourhoods (representative ‘cen‑
sign, based on a contemporary interpretation of traditional crafts.
tres’ such as the Flowers Market in Rahova and Matache Market —
The activities in the project involve design‑based research, creative
link to the Shrinking Markets project, the Văcărești amphitheatre,
residencies in the region, workshops with art/ architecture/ design
etc.). Conferences, panels, workshops may be hosted at ARCUB or in
schools, a major annual exhibition platform that will be active in var‑
recent cultural hubs located in former industrial venues.
ious parts of the city starting in 2018. In 2021, a major exhibition will
take place in the area around Carol I Park — a location of former indus‑
trial buildings. The exhibition will be key to renewing the neighbour‑
hood and the location is ideal for a possible creative‑industry hub
based on design. This exhibition will be the culmination of platforms
organised in other Balkan cities starting in 2018 and will involve sim‑
ilar local design/ architecture organisations.
Outernational
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Budget: €200,000
Lead organisations: Paradaiz
Association, Rokolectiv Festival
Curators: Dragoș Rusu, Mihaela
Vasile, Vlad Stoica, Ivana Mladenovici,
Adi Șchiop,
Mihaela Drăgan, Ion Dumitrescu,
Cosima Opârţan
O
Local partners: ARCUB; District
Municipalities; Bucharest Lakes, Parks,
and Recreation Administration/ ALPAB
uternational is a recent term emerging from the music indus‑
try but whose meaning was soon extended to describe other
forms of art that come from the periphery. What is outer — something
45
Balkanik! Arts & Culture festival
ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Metropolis Association
Curator: Daniel Constantin Mitulescu
Budget: €45,000
Partners: District 5 Municipality, Radio Guerilla, Mezzo
T
his is the largest festival of Balkan music and culture in Romania
and includes concerts, dance performances, craft fair, work‑
shops, exhibitions, all seasoned with specific food from the Balkans.
The festival takes place in the Uranus neighbourhood and
engages cultures from various ethnic communities in Romania with
the aim to increase public access to cultural content and combat intol‑
erance and discrimination.
Citytopia reconstructs the
reality of city life,and its
power to bring together
innovative ideas and
share resources, making
it a friendly and equitable
place for its residents.
MICROTOPIAS
Citytopia
T
he uniqueness of Bucharest as a capital city lies in its contradic‑
tions: a city where apparently nothing and everything seems to
work, boasts one of the highest concentrations of creativity but which
is also slow to adapt, improve and upgrade. Its vacant plots and empty
buildings stand next to unfinished whims and collective fantasies,
clustered in some of the most improbable and illogical associations.
In Citytopia we focus on the experiences that can make
PulS ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: DU-NE Cultural Association
Budget: €45,000
3
0 young artists selected after a rigorous competition roam
between the various parts of the city over a month to design
and set up their workshops in the middle of communities. The series
Bucharest a more liveable city. We attempt to bring to the foreground
of works, drawings and paintings will be assembled in a collective
the windows of opportunity, the invisible communities and forces
digital installation. This model will be repeated and expanded until
which shape our everyday life. We use the ephemeral as a tool for
2021, when there will be a major on‑site ‘re‑mapping/mixing’ pro‑
incremental change, we hack the city through guerrilla design and
gramme at key sites in the city.
empower communities to work towards collaboration, sharing and
collective ownership.
Temporary City
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: ‘Ion Mincu’
University of Architecture and Urbanism/
UAUIM, Bucharest Architecture Triennale,
Calup, Meeting of Design Students/
MEDS
Curator B2021: Peter Bishop (UK)
Audience: 300,000
Budget: €300,000
O
Design Clinic
Potential partners: European Network of
Heads of Schools of Architecture
Artists: Bureau Detours (DK) and
Raumlabor (DE)
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: Bucharest National
University of Arts UNARTE, UAUIM, Spiru
Haret Faculty of Architecture, Faculty of
Communication with the University of
Bucharest, BAZA.
Curator: Ștefănel Barutcieff
Audience: 150,000
Budget: €300,000
T
Partners: RATB, SNCFR, Colentina
Hospital, Militari Bus Station
Potential partners: Institute of Design
Research Vienna (AT), Bergen University
of Architecture (NO), KTH/ Institute of
Technology (SE), University of Milan (IT)
he Design Clinic revisits the boundaries erected by public
space, institutions as well as by the design of the city which
ur strategy is to bring back the invisible — the forgotten spaces
make some of its inhabitants invisible. The current state of public
of the city — by proposing small scale and temporary, commu‑
access makes vulnerable groups explicitly excluded in many ways.
nity‑oriented interventions. These can be turned into powerful tools
Local institutions remain unfriendly to residents and their introverted
for incremental change, while still maintaining a loose‑fit, flexible
practices underscore the need for a more systemic change in how
vision about how resources can be invested. A new way to change
they relate to their users.
the city…permanently.
The project includes the setup of a ‘design clinic’, a lab for stu‑
We will upscale user‑generated online platforms for mapping
dents and start‑ups in the field of design, communication, graphic
unused or underused land in Bucharest, based on the work we have
design and architecture, functioning as an outreach link between
done with the Ion Mincu Architecture School and NGO Calup to map
the community and Bucharest institutions. The clinic will provide
400 disused industrial sites and 200 urban sites.
advice to enable local institutions to better integrate the needs of the
Every October they will host an annual event on the subject of
elderly and the disabled and to improve user experience. A ‘hacking
the ‘Invisible Space’, showcasing student projects curated by Peter
the city’ pilot will involve guerrilla re‑design of urban fixtures in order
Bishop together with a team of international architects and artists.
for them to become iconic: bus stops, pedestrian crossings, railway
We plan to collaborate with the Bucharest Architecture Triennale and
stations. This will be done in partnership with Bucharest overground
Meeting of European Design Schools on mobile structures, designed
transport operator RATB and railways operator SNCFR. We will imple‑
by a network of almost 300 European students.
ment two pilots to redesign user experience with public service sup‑
We will be prototyping and producing structures for the city
pliers, namely the Colentina Public Hospital and Militari Bus Station.
up to 2021 (50 in 2017 to 250 in 2021). They will provide a spectacu‑
A European best practice exhibition in 2021 will showcase in
lar and useful attraction, while also showcasing and promoting com‑
public institutions the iconic changes in the city, mock‑ups and pho‑
munity and local projects. Every year until 2021 a guest artist/ archi‑
tos of the pilot projects, together with a three‑day conference on the
tecture group will be invited to create a major work in the city to be
topics of design, accessibility and user experience.
displayed for three months as installations/structures.
Pop‑up Event Kit ACCELERATOR
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Reper Atelier
Budget: €50,000
A
mobile, modular and flexible system for making cultural events
happen in unconventional spaces. The modular parts can be
used to host a variety of itinerary events such as film screenings, the‑
atre plays, workshops. The pop‑up event kit will be prototyped and
ACCELERATOR
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Indie Box
Budget: €50,000
A
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: Bucharest
Community Foundation/ FCB
Audience: 250,000
Budget: €300,000
T
Potential partners: NESTA (UK), MitOst
(DE), Ateliere d’Architecture Autogerees
(FR), Culture 2 Commons (HR), Krytyka
Polityczna (PL), Campo de Cebada (ES),
Leeuwarden 2018
Artists: Mundano (BR), Assemblage (UK),
Oberliht (MD)
here has been a recent revival of local community groups in
Bucharest, driven by a need to explore neighbourhood iden‑
tity and lobby for improved amenities. We aim to connect artists
used in 2016 in Titan, Colentina and Drumul Taberei.
Earto Bucharest
Reclaiming the City
and cultural organisations to bottom‑up movements and to a wider
European network of community ‘change makers’ working on city
transformation, local empowerment and collaboration.
We aim to run a match‑making project, by running a call for
series of performances, immersive installations and public
artist residencies within local communities, alongside a call for
space interventions channelling city sounds. Capitol Summer
micro‑grants, supporting yearly ten projects in the period 2017–
Theatre, Ferentari and Giulești-Sârbi are among the selected sites
2021. Within a local idea incubator, community groups will have the
where Earto installations will be tested and showcased in 2016.
opportunity to peer with a local or international artist and work on
46Microtopias
developing local innovative projects which tackle the social relations
by which groups of people gather and share responsibility. These
include neighbourhood festivals, local memory and identity mapping,
mural/ street art projects, local newspapers and community kitch‑
ens. The incubator will include peer‑to‑peer collaboration/ exchanges
with best practice community projects and networks in Europe, as
well as international residencies with European partners for local
community groups. We will create an online community of neigh‑
bourhood projects and change makers, as well as a host platform of
Playgrounds of Reality
Years: 2018–2019–2020–2021
Audience: 200,000
Budget: €300,000
P
Potential partners: Metropolis
Association, Globus Circus, kotki Visuals,
DU-NE Association, Ion Creangă Theatre,
Punctart Association, Tangaj Collective
Artists: Jason Bruges Studio (UK), Chris
O’Shea (UK), Sila Sveta (RU), Chico
MacMurtrie (Amorphic Robot Works)
(US), Anthony Luensman (US)
laygrounds of Reality is a ten‑day wildly imaginative trip into the
ludic at the beginning of June. Designed as a massive interactive
art installation at the heart of Bucharest, the project addresses chil‑
Leeuwarden 2018 Hack your Neighbourhood, running an annual
dren of all ages and marks the first truly disability inclusive flagship
European Open Network of Sustainable Communities event.
event for children in Romania.
More than 200 installations will occupy the main areas of the
Bucharest In/ Out ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Asociaţia din Pod
Budget: €45,000
B
city, transforming even the most rigid environments into urban play‑
grounds and unfurling spaces that will fascinate, amuse, challenge
and engage. From musical swings to interactive mazes, modular puz‑
zles, pieces of virtual hopscotch, biomorphic sculptures, 3D illusions
ucharest In/ Out will temporarily exhibit art interventions devel‑
and many others, Playgrounds of Reality will become the biggest
oped by ten artists in the Bucharest subway. Artistic methods
event for children and their parents, giving them the chance to see,
include painting, drawing, photography and street art, which will
but most importantly, to touch, smell and feel art in one truly sen‑
then be digitised and printed in media which is able to withstand
sory experience within an immersive installation created by artists
time factors and corrosive agents specific to the intervention site.
from all over the world.
The project has three main activities: developing artistic concepts,
A pavilion will also be set up for children to create art. From dig‑
the production and the placement of the artistic interventions, the
ital painting to computer narratives and instant sound composition,
showcase of the works in public spaces in the subway, designated by
Playgrounds of Reality bounces between art and science.
a special agreement with Metrorex.
SALT Festival Expanded Space ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Volum Art Association
Budget: €45,000
E
xpanded Space includes temporary public space interventions
ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: ‘Ion Creangă’ Theatre
Budget: €45,000
A
24-hour international animation festival dedicated to emerg‑
ing artists in the field of visual theatre, targeted at children,
and a public video section. It proposes to develop the cultural
teenagers and adults. Conceived as a showcase and production plat‑
dimension of public space, understood as a place of expression, cul‑
form for experimentation in performance, SALT starts from 2016 as
tural engagement and debate, as a space of dialogue and a cohesion
a national open call for co‑productions and will further address the
factor for the community. Building on the theme limited or unlim‑
international industry.
ited, artists are invited to reflect on the specifics of Bucharest to acom‑
plish a temporary artistic intervention in the outsckirts of the city.
Dok Music Film ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: We Are BASCA
Budget: €45,000
A
Creative Fest ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: CreArt
Budget: €45,000
A
n urban art festival that offers creative expression for the young
generation including graffiti demonstrations, space painting,
three‑day event that joins large communities from various dis‑
3D urban art, skateboard, bike acrobatics and much more. In 2021
tricts of Bucharest around two of the most popular art forms:
the festival will be scaled up by inviting Sweet Damage Crew, one of
film and music. The festival takes place in buildings with an impres‑
the most popular groups of graphic designers, as well as by involv‑
sive history and tradition as well as green spaces in Bucharest, screen‑
ing the young generation as co‑creators of public art.
ing music documentaries and live concerts of local and international
bands.
Live from Giulești Gradients of Reality ACCELERATOR
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Asociatia Arena
Budget: €50,000 euro
P
iloting a mapping tool of communities in Bucharest, Romania
ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2018 - 2021
Lead organisation: DU-NE Association and Tangaj Dance Collective
Budget: €100,000
T
he project brings to light new methods in visual and digital cul‑
ture, performance and music generated by people with disabil‑
ities. Starting in 2018, the project will host a series of intensive work‑
and Europe to create a space for dialogue between communities
shops in alternative methods of art therapy like Alexander Technique,
through online platforms and developing artistic products. Collected
Mitzvah Technique and Rolfing; the project will continue in 2019–2021
stories will be transposed in different cultural products: a comic book
with a Teaching the Teachers programme for the artistic communi‑
and three street art interventions in the public space; a theatre per‑
ties that are interested in working with people with disabilities but
formance; a video and an in situ installation; an online platform. The
lack the know‑how. The project will kick‑start a performance com‑
objective of the project is to promote a narrative coming from citi‑
pany for youngsters with disabilities, aiming to create co‑productions
zens that are not to be found in the current cultural offer.
and exchange programmes with European counterparts.
47
Greentopia
U
as well as public exhibitions and educational programmes. We will
also connect to the Green Diagonal project included in the city’s
Integrated Urban Development Plan (PIDU), which aims to restore
the initial connectivity function of the river.
rban pull is no longer the dominant force for cities. It must be
replaced or countered by the green push. For a city that has
some of the worst statistics on air pollution, traffic congestion and
Wetlands of the Future
lack of green space, and which has only just begun to address these
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: National
Museum of Contemporary Art/ MNAC,
Văcărești Park Association
Audience: 200,000
Budget: €400,000
issues, there has probably never been a better moment to rethink its
role within its natural surroundings.
Although its green spaces have been declining, there is still an
array of untapped potential which can turn around the city’s fate,
making it greener and more liveable for its residents. In Greentopia,
we create scenarios about a future city in which natural and human
ecosystems coexist.
We bring to the fore the most urgent questions of sustainabil‑
ity — declining resources, climate change, biodiversity, water man‑
A
Partners: Kogayon Association, National
Geographic Romania, Save Danube
and Delta Association, 2 Faculties incl.
Ecology and Geography, Bucharest
Botanical Garden, 3 national museums
including the ‘Grigore Antipa’ Natural
History Museum
Potential partners: Cape Farewell
(UK), Landscape and Art Network (UK),
Arts in Nature International Network
(FR/ EU/ AU/ CA), Green Film Network
(IT/ worlwide), Pelicam Festival (RO),
Anonimul Festival (RO)
place with an extremely rich diversity of fauna and flora, the
Văcărești ‘Delta’ was formed after 23 years of no human inter‑
agement — and try to create an alternative of how we think, act and
vention and spreads over a 184 ha area. An accidental oasis in the
relate to our natural surroundings.
inner city, Văcărești’s history is marked by radical development,
We start from the city’s blue spine — the river Dâmboviţa —
by tapping into its potential for a green transformation. The Smart
years of neglect, legal conundrums and resistance to redevelop‑
ment pressures.
River endpoint is Văcărești Natural Park, where Wetlands of the
We aim to connect Bucharest’s wetland (Văcărești) to the
Future stimulates the imagination through a diverse, unique ecosys‑
Danube Delta by bringing more imagination of what waters and del‑
tem, while also connecting it to its mirror wetland, the Danube Delta.
tas can provide in a changing world of scarce resources. Văcărești
From here, the green transformation spreads throughout the city
has just obtained a status as a nature reserve, after years of grass
by involving art, design and gamification for energy consumption in
roots action by citizen groups. While many European cities struggle
Energy Rush and urban garden placemaking in Green the ‘Hood!
to bring back some of their lost biodiversity, the wetlands are the
untapped potential to a future green landscape.
Smart River
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: Ivan Patzaichin —
Mila 23 Association
Curators B2021: Teodor Frolu,
Dan Perjovschi
Audience: 600,000
Budget: €400,000
T
SmartRiver Cluster: Asociaţia pentru
Tranziţie Urbană/ ATU, NOD Makerspace,
Văcărești Natural Park Association,
Expert Forum
Institutional partners: Bucharest
Botanical Garden, National Library,
National Museum of Contemporary Art
MNAC, 4 Universities, Romanian Waters
Agency, Ministry of Environment
Invited artists: Atelier Bow Wow (JP),
Bureau Detours (DK), Raumlabor Berlin
(DE)
In Wetland of Imagination, MNAC will be curating a three‑year
programme of art installations in Văcărești, ranging from biophonic to
visual and land art, immersive and performative installations, show‑
cased yearly between 2019 and 2021. Invited artists will work along‑
side cultural producers, technology innovators and environmental
research groups in a collective exercise of ecological design.
MNAC intends to commision some of the most important art‑
ists in the field to create work on site such as Olafur Eliasson, Anish
Kapoor, Spencer Finch, Matthew Ritchie and Massimo Bartolini.
he root of the project is the forgotten river Dâmboviţa, the city’s
Besides international artists, MNAC intends to invite in the project
backbone that flows from NW to SE. Originally the city’s meet‑
Romanian artists that will work closely on the ecosystem of the site
ing point, linking people, ideas and goods to its hinterland and the
such as: Teodor Graur, Arantxa Etcheverria, Cristian Raduta, Judith
Danube, the river is now an almost completely straight‑jacketed
Balko and many others.
and concrete‑covered channel. Initiated by an independent group
In parallel, the Văcărești Nature Park Association will run a
of architects and cultural activists, Smart River aims to reconnect
five‑year programme of guided tours, bird watching activities, nature
the city to its original backbone, by tapping into the river’s invisible
photography, and events for street artists to paint the surrounding
source of potential memory, waterscape and green economy.
embankments. An annual conference on the theme ‘Cities and bio‑
In Emotional Bridges, ten inspirational crossing points will
diversity’ will connect to the blue‑green cities debates in Europe.
be created to reflect particular aspects of the river and its history and
We have invited Kees Lesuis to work together yearly with a
to activate the senses and memory of neighbourhoods. The installa‑
guest platform, Sense of Place, Oerol Festival/ Leerwarden 2018, in
tions will act as microtopias– viewing points where green ideas and
the Danube Delta in the period 2019–2021. The festival investigates
smart technology can be assembled and experienced — and will
the overlapping spheres of art created in a highly sensitive natural
stretch from Lacul Morii to Văcărești Natural Park. Each bridge will
environment. Sense of Place will be a mirror and counterpart in the
act as an urban lab on a different topic, ranging from ecotourism
Danube Delta for Wetland of Imagination. Temporary productions
and nature (Văcărești), to creative industries (Timpuri Noi), graf‑
will include performative work, visual projects and installations as
fiti and water activation (National Library), contemporary art inva‑
well as soundscape performances. We are aiming to partner with
sion (National Museum of Contemporary Art -MNAC), skaters and the
Pelicam and Anonimul film festivals, both held in the Danube Delta.
young generation (Opera Park), green economy (Botanical Garden)
Pelicam is the only film festival in Romania on environment and peo‑
and leisure (Lacul Morii).
ple, while Anonimul is one of the largest independent film festivals.
The SmartRiver Cluster aims to build a platform that will
We aim to collaborate on relocating specially curated series in
enable collaborative work amongst the city’s universities, research
Bucharest to temporary green sites in the city, while annual residen‑
institutions, businesses and government sectors. The long‑term pro‑
cies based on co‑creation summer‑labs in the Danube Delta will be
ject includes a green economy innovation lab, an annual conference
showcased in Văcărești.
48Microtopias
Energy Rush
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: University of
Construction, EFdeN
Audience: 200,000
Budget: €400,000
E
Potential partners: ICLEI — Local
Governments for Sustainability (DE/
worldwide), Romanian Green Building
Council, 5 Universities/ Faculties
including Arts, Architecture, Polytechnics
Companies: Pilotfish(DE/ NL/ TW),
Polycular (AT)
Following the placemaking calls, land and eco‑artists will work
in the neighbourhoods to develop both the selected community gar‑
dens, as well as a wider extent of public and private spaces. These
include the Botanical Garden, the District 5 and 6 Greenhouses, the
Morii Lake Island, the Astronomic Observatory garden, Opera Park,
nergy Rush focuses on the ability of art, design and gamification
Zefirul Factory, Tineretului Children Amphitheatre and Băneasa
to create and inspire movements which stimulate creative dia‑
Forest. Mobile micro green structures will be continually moved
logue and fast‑track discussions about the alternative scenarios for
around the city to animate and house open greenhouse events,
a future city. Bucharest is still at a ‘beginner’s level’ in terms of inte‑
classes and clinics. Invited artist groups include La Machine, whose
grated energy production within the fabric of communities and devel‑
huge sculptural green installations will create a natural focus for the
opments. A holistic approach to renewable energy includes diversify‑
programme, as well as Assemble, 2015 Turner Prize winners who
ing strategies for energy generation and targeting behavioural change.
are invited to work in the neighbourhood of Drumul Taberei, and
30 temporary installations designed by Pilotfish will be show‑
the Italian-German company Plastique Fantastique with their inflat‑
cased in 2021 in micro‑spaces in Bucharest, bringing forward
able structures housing gardens of herbs and spices throughout the
human‑centred solutions for sustainable energy infrastructures that
winter months. A Night of Gardens event will take place annually.
enhance the city through works of public art. The installations will
be site‑specific and combine aesthetics with clean energy generation,
including capturing solar energy, wind and water. They will be set
up in public spaces and parks including, Bazilescu and IOR Parks, 13
September Square, Amzei Square, Morii Lake, Radio Hall.
Starting with 2017, Polycular will coordinate an adaptation for
Bucharest of EcoGotchi — an application combining mobile games
with mixed reality experience. EcoGotchi is a game which unlocks
Bucharest Living Lab
ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisations: Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, University of Bucharest
Budget: €45,000
B
ucharest Living Lab establishes the experimental research
approach to rapid innovation on the principles of circularity,
proposing an urban living laboratory (LL) as a platform for value
the sustainability potential of a city and its inhabitants, while edu‑
co‑creation by prototyping circular economy solutions in real‑life
cating digital narratives in a playful social way. The game will include
settings. The pilot phase will engage students from the University of
BTL campaign in public transport and a large scale city gaming event
Economic Studies and the Technical University of Bucharest as well
in 2021, involving public bike stations in which competitors pedal to
as fashion designers in a textile waste upcycling challenge, combining
light up an installation and gather EcoGotchi points.
research on non‑toxic waste with workshops led by designers work‑
An annual call for ideas will generate the development of exper‑
ing with recycled materials and with guests from the textile indus‑
imental projects, with students and young professionals to work in
try. From 2017 to 2020, the Lab will focus on a yearly theme, namely:
cross‑disciplinary teams, developing micro power plants that func‑
upcycling textiles (2017–2018), adding rubber and plastic in the upcy‑
tion as artworks, simultaneously enhancing the environment and
cling game (2018–2019), complex solutions for multiple waste based
increasing liveability. International mentors will support the process
products and policies (2019–2020). The Lab will engage with European
and selected projects will be prototyped by 2021.
forums of municipalities and local administrations, fast‑tracking inno‑
vation through urban living labs and connecting to other urban living
Green the ‘hood!
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: CERE, Ecology
University, Bucharest Community
Foundation
Audience: 250,000
Budget: €350,000
W
Partners: Bucharest Civic Network,
Seneca EcoLogos, D’Avent Association,
Landscape Planning University, Botanical
Garden, School Inspectorate
Potential partners: International Network
for Urban Agriculture
Artists: Assemble (UK), La Machine (FR),
Plastique Fantastique (IT/DE)
ith only 4,506 ha of green space, Bucharest has only 23 sqm
of green space per inhabitant, low compared to the European
average of 26 sqm per inhabitant. Having gradually lost its green pub‑
lic areas, the city’s untapped potential consists of its unused sites
and hidden gardens, which provide the context for co‑creating a
greener city. In Bucharest, green spaces surrounding blocks of flats
labs in Europe. In 2021, an Ideas Festival on Circularity and the
Arts will take place that will include panel discussions, exhibitions
of installations and prototypes. LL is partnering with five other uni‑
versities and the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL).
The Grand ShortsUP Picnic ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisations: ShortsUP SRL
Budget: €45,000
T
he Grand ShortsUP Picnic is a festival of short films that aims
to bring back to life the Dimitrie Brândză Botanical Garden in
Bucharest through quality cinematic content as well as through a
are appropriated, a sort of resistance through urban farming, food
series of adjacent artistic projects that could increase the cultural
growing and micro‑design.
value of the area. Alongside the screening of short films, the project
Through our Urban Gardening Placemaking programme, we
includes music, multimedia shows and workshops. Themes include
aim to expand and support the urban gardening movement and con‑
escape, the need for freedom and being in touch with nature. In 2016,
nect it to a European network of knowledge exchange. We will sup‑
Grand ShortsUP Picnic inaugurated a platform for a collective inves‑
port 20 groups/ landlord associations annually in mapping, plant‑
tigation of the history of the Cotroceni area, recording together with
ing and activating intra‑block green spaces, green walls or rooftops
In Cotroceni Association a series of filmed interviews with members
for urban gardening.
of the local community, which will be linked to an action to recover
Our Schools Farming Programme will offer training and on‑site
an archive of photographs of the area; the collected data becomes
learning to pupils about urban agriculture and permaculture. We
a series of experimental short films and documentaries screened in
are investing in a three‑year community programme to deliver a
the Bucharest Botanical Garden. ShortsUP showcases short films from
year of green acupuncture through the city, focusing on Militari,
around the world in Romania through themed events in Bucharest
Drumul Taberei, Titan, Vitan, Tei, Rahova, Pantelimon, Crângași
and other big cities, aiming to reinvent the way people interact with
neighbourhoods.
short films.
49
T
he question before us is how does art function as an agent of
change? Are the social art practices swinging away from the art
market or have they found a more comfortable nest in urban resil‑
ience practices? Curator Lars Bang Larsen defines ‘social aesthetics’
as an artistic attitude focusing on the world of acts, where social and
aesthetic are integrated into each other.
Projects gathered under Politopia promote an osmotic exchange
of society from within, fostering the transformations of citizenship,
factors of production, gender balance, ability/ disability duality,
Politopia
Politopia might as well be a social fantasy,
a rush of participatory and interventionist
art in a framework in which citizens,
thinkers, and artists share visions and
missions, spark new ideas, catalyse critical
thinking, and evoke new actions.
Bucharest
Futurespotters Lab
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: Edgeryders
Curator: Noemi Salanţiu
Audience: 200,000
Budget: €160,000
T
Partners: unMonastery (EU), Common
Futures (UK), Lighthouse (UK), Chaos
Communication Congress (DE),
Foodhacking Base (worldwide), OuiShare
(FR/ ES/ UK/ DE/ CA/ BR)
hrough Futurespotters Lab, culture is reoriented as a space
maker for building solutions in open and collaborative ways,
directly with the European community. With a focus on storytelling,
capacity for visioning of work‑life balance and city‑making. Politopia
continuous sharing and use of open digital platforms, Futurespotters
questions ideas of: freedom of data, undiscovered prediction meth‑
Lab will evolve into a blueprint for European asset sharing by com‑
ods, disruption in the public domain, the dichotomy of institutional/
munities, connecting Bucharest2021 with other cities running for
non‑institutional space, arts at the borderline of cognitive science
European Capital of Culture, either winners or losers (Matera 2019,
and redesigning the city through thousands of micro interventions
Leeuwarden 2018, Galway 2020). Futurespotters Lab meets the need
that awaken the citizens’ curiosity and playfully encourage them to
of enabling physical infrastructure for Bucharest2021 activities by
be part of the change, co‑creating the future collectively.
becoming a sandbox for community‑managed spaces in the city.
Citizenship &
Democracy 3.0
laboration: part physical and part digital. The project is designed
The vision is a set of scaffolding structures for grassroots col‑
Years: 2020–2021
Lead organisations: Centre for Public
Innovation, Open Data Coalition
Audience: 200,000
Budget: €100,000
B
Partners: Arhipera, Miliţia Spirituală,
Median Research Centre, Odaia Creativă,
Red de Ciudades Como Vamos
Potential Partners: Ministry of Culture,
Bucharest City Museum, Government of
Romania — Department of Design and
Online Services
ucharest citizens trust in the local administration is one of the
on a progressive matrix starting with a Harmonious Hackathon in
order to gather support for a minimum three collaborative projects
between Bucharesters and global Edgeryders and further develops
an International Residency for ten Edgeryder community mem‑
bers, continuing the work initiated during the Harmonious Hackathon
as a global team.
lowest in Europe — 42% compared to a peak 87% in Luxembourg
The project further evolves into a Co‑design Competition for
(2015). The apathy of voters and mistrust in local government are por‑
international craftspeople for creating the mobile tools and equip‑
trayed by local election turnout rates in June 2016: 33% in Bucharest,
ment needed for the residency space based on the requirements of
one of the lowest in the country. Slow and inflexible, representative
the selected projects.
democracy in European cities needs new forms of urban democ‑
All the activities of the project will be iterated continuously at
racy: ad hoc participation, open data, participatory practices. How
the intersection of three areas: responsiveness (agility in tackling
are we doing, Bucharest? develops a citizen barometer, based on
social, economic and civic problems), responsibility (empowering
the model of Colombian cities, aggregating existing statistics, run‑
citizens to act according to how they prioritise issues) and resilience
ning opinion polls, online and offline, on the ‘Invisible City’: envi‑
(the ability to withstand severe systemic shocks).
ronment, cultural provision, European questions. The polls will take
place annually and cover a sample of 10,000.
Futurespoters Lab is deeply open, participatory and inclusive
of very diverse voices and projects. The vision is a set of scaffolding
Pump up Bucharest Agora proposes an innovative public
structures for grassroots collaboration: part physical and part digi‑
open space around a traditional water pump connected directly to
tal. These will be then used by citizens to deliver, connect and
groundwater in central Bucharest, fostering dialogue on open data.
scale‑up projects that could be as different to each other as mapping
The project consists of installing a water pump, gathering and pub‑
and repurposing unused buildings in the city and installing the big‑
lishing data on water quality and availability in Bucharest, develop‑
gest public fridge in a Romanian square for people to feed each other.
ing debate curricula, hosting regular debates and an Open Data
Engaging citizens does not simply mean offering them opportunities
Exhibition. In Open Culture Hack we create an inventory of avail‑
to collaborate on projects others have selected for them but it means
able cultural datasets, hosted by the Bucharest City Museum and the
challenging them to propose and deliver their own contribution to
Bucharest City Hall. Three hackathons will lead to developing viable
Bucharest 2021.
applications, free and open source.
One World Romania Building the Social: Art and Architecture ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: One World Romania Association
Budget: €100,000
O
ne World is the biggest documentary festival dedicated to
human rights in Romania and which presents cutting edge
ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Salonul de Proiecte
Budget: €45,000
B
uilding the Social encourages new methods of artistic research
that rely on a number of issues that go too little discussed in
Bucharest. The project kicks off with the exhibition: The Plant of
films addressing urgent political and social issues confronting today’s
Facts and Other Stories (untold) curated by Alina Șerban, along
Europe. Starting 2017, One World will curate a special section within
with other artists who are looking to bring together a montage of
the festival, consisting of film showcases and collaboration pro‑
visual comments reflecting the status of today’s civic centres.
grammes between documentary filmmakers and activists, provid‑
The project will continue with another exhibition curated by
ing a solid base for highly debated subjects such as the European ref‑
Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor and further unfold in other show‑
ugee crisis, political views in the Orient, corruption and future world
cases curated by the same team on the concept of building the social.
scenarios. Parallel, One World Association organises the educational
The educational dimension is found in all events of the project. In
programme One World Romania at School, which aims to intro‑
this way the public will benefit from a quality cultural offer that does
duce human rights debates and documentary film screenings in high
not encourage passive consumption of artistic actions, but turns the
schools from Bucharest.
audience into an active partner for dialogue.
50Microtopias
(Shhh!)HE city
Years: 2017–2019–2021
Lead organisation: Experimental Project
Curators: Olivia Niţiș (RO), Izabela
Kowalczyk (PL), Ivana Bago (HR)
Audience: 150,000
Budget: €200,000
T
Potential partners: CAF-Contemporary
Art and Feminism (AU), Bunny Collective
(IE), Girls Get Busy (UK), Feminist Art
Project (US)
elastiCITY
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: Odaia Creativă,
BIS — Body Process Arts Association
Audience: 600,000
Budget: €400,000
he fact that it has been almost impossible to import a feminist
movement in Romania, coupled with the unruly response to
legislation on gender mainstreaming, has only underscored a city
of intersecting identities. Subtle lines of fundamental disconnection
and constant ideological anxiety have emerged between the blocks
of flats but also in galleries and museums. Because of the different
political and social ideologies, any attempt of creating a specific type
T
Partners: Tangaj Collective (RO),
Polycular (AT), CRIDL (RO), MKBT (RO),
National Institute for Research and
Development in Construction (RO)
Potential Partners: National Institute
for Earth Physics (RO), Institute of
Atomic Physics (RO), Istanbul Technical
University Faculty of Architecture
(TR), Bosphorus University Kandilli
Observatory (TR), DOHAD (TR)
Artists: Tellas (IT), Janet Echelman (US),
Aaron Koblin (US), Dominik Lejman (PL),
Skid-Robot Project (US), Leon Keer (NL),
Burak Arikon (TR)
he most intriguing scenario is the one that might happen and
imaginative incentives come from what is about to occur. elas‑
tiCITY addresses the challenges of creating resilient human and infra‑
of feminism has been blocked from within by precarity, ideology and
structure networks, which are key in dealing with urban disruptive
economic anxieties.
events, in Europe and globally. Elastic cities are resilient cities, able to
(Shhh!)HE city tackles new angles that integrate the gender per‑
spective such as assimilating male discourse on the subject matter,
bounce back, reconstruct, redefine and reorganise when confronted
with partial or total collapse.
the incapacity to find a common voice and a feminist community,
We focus on earthquake risk, a current threat that occupies
questioning the role of a curator in a feminist practice and how this
the minds of citizens but which is insufficiently addressed in both
aspect differentiates itself from other practices. Are we dealing with
Bucharest and Istanbul. Bucharest is known to be the country’s most
a specific issue or do we find ourselves under the generous umbrella
vulnerable city to earthquake hazards, estimates of potential losses
of the contemporary art practice?
for a future event pointing to a loss of 6,500 lives. In Istanbul in 1999
(Shhh!)HE city is a biennial festival developed around three sec‑
two major earthquakes caused destruction and the death of 18,000
tions: creating commonalities, integration of new directions (the
people and more than 20,000 serious injuries. The main reasons for
opposition paradigm: east/ west, masculine/ feminine, seeing part‑
such a high number of deaths in both cities are the quality of the
nership as probably one of the biggest challenges and seeking for
housing stock and the corrupted urban planning.
something different from the oppositional feminism) and curating
elastiCITY works with methods of prediction, prototyping cat‑
feminism(s). The festival is developed by a group of three curators,
alysts of change, a context for artists and scientists to come together
each responsible for one of the three sections: Olivia Niţiș (RO),
and create new forms of expression out of collapse. The earthquake
Izabela Kowalczyk (PL) and Ivana Bago (HR).
is physical but also mental, geopolitical and intergenerational, fos‑
Analize: Journal of Gender ASSOCIATED PROJECT
and Feminist Studies
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Romanian Society for Feminist Analyses AnA
Budget: €45,000
A
tering ideas of creative struggle, action taking, edgy journalism and
guerrilla public artworks.
Designed as a four‑year collaboration between Bucharest and
Istanbul, but also unfolding in Nepal, Japan and Brazil, elastiCITY
is a large scale project consisting of four main sections: ShakeUP
nalize is an on‑line, open access, peer‑reviewed international
Jam (interactive design, seismology and cybernetics), a Residency
journal that aims to bring into the public arena new ideas and
Platform based on the production and incubation of new media art
findings in the field of gender and feminist studies and to contribute
projects developed in scientific institutes from Bucharest and Istanbul
to the gendering of the social, economic, cultural and political dis‑
and commissioning documentations derived from the concept of
courses and practices about today’s local, national, regional and inter‑
collapse and fatality.
national realities. The journal intends to open conversations among
The project is backed by a series of disruptive public inter‑
eastern and non‑eastern feminist researchers on the situated nature
ventions that will be held simultaneously in Bucharest and Istanbul,
of their feminism(s) and to encourage creative and critical feminist
and comprise graphic and light art, performance and happening,
debates across multiple axes of signification.
video mapping and 3D street art. In 2021 both cities will feature a
large‑scale public art installation.
F Platform — (re) building ASSOCIATED PROJECT
a community
Years: 2019–2021
Lead organisations: The Romanian Feminist Front, The Filia Center, The Association for
Promoting Roma Women’s Rights and Vagenta, Giuvlipen Theatre Company
Budget: €100,000
F
Platform builds on the need of having a community dedicated
to culture for women and by women and consists of scholar‑
Bucharest Disaster Detour
ACCELERATOR
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: ORDU/ Romanian Association of User Rights
Budget: €50,000
B
ucharest Disaster Detour is a collaboration between Geneva and
Bucharest and is based on the project Geneva Disaster Tour
(2014–2015). The Bucharest of the future is already traceable in cin‑
ships and residencies in art, science and journalism, a micro festival
ema, the internet, mass‑media, infographics, futurology treatises,
in the neighbourhoods and a community centre supporting dialogue
international and local sci‑fi books and stories.
between women working in different environments. Embracing con‑
BDD explores and assists the appearance of ‘the archaeology of
tradiction, the platform is a window slightly open to a new regime
the future Bucharest’ from a mass of dispatches, mentions and mul‑
that thrives on unambiguously emancipatory critical views but which
tiple sources, scenarios, diagrams, prognostications and virtualis‑
is timid on female wage labour, human trafficking and intersecting
ations stratified in time. The organisers will hold a series of guided
identities. Fantasy and utopia become the agents of change, coded
tours in Bucharest and Măgurele/ Ilfov County (where the Institute for
as dual and ambivalent in a tense ionate, chaotic, creative mixture
Atomic Physics is based). The idea is to get a glimpse of this non‑ac‑
of cutting edge visions and past but still vivid legacies.
tualised but possible future.
51
Artopia
A
International
amberArt and
Technology Festival
rtopia reflects the era of global mixing, intertwined economies,
population uncertainty and planetary limits. The programme is
a critical intrusion of fiction inside reality, an opportunity to explore
the externalities of a future world.
In Artopia we deal with what might become a declination from
the digital into postdigital eras, harvesting notions of perfect hybrid‑
ism, sensorial approaches and kinaesthetic art, a cluster of change
Years: 2017–2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisation: BIS (Body Process
Arts Association)
Curator B2021: Ekmel Ertan
Audience: 400,000
Budget: €400,000
a
amber partners: DECOL (TR), İskele47
(TR), Design In-Situ (TR), Makers Turkey
(TR), İndustrial Design Department
Faculty of Architecture İstanbul Technical
University (TR)
amber artists: Stelarc (CY), Bill Worn
(US), Mladen Dolar (SI), Robert Pfaller
(AT), Bojana Kunst (SI), Chris Hables
Gray (US), Hans Bernhard (Ubermorgen)
(AT/ CH/ US), Janez Jansa (SI), Marcelli
Antunesz Roca (ES) & more
mberFestival was initiated by Ekmel Ertan/ BIS in 2007 in
Istanbul, presenting nine editions of the festival so far. Since
2015, amberFestival has been re‑designed as an activity of amberNet‑
makers that work within a micro frame but achieve macro effects
work to become an internationally implemented platform, anchored
and an inquiry‑based view upon activism and the future of artistic
in Istanbul, Berlin and Bucharest. amberFestival believes the ‘con‑
debate. Artopia is highly performative, but also reflective and gen‑
temporary’ can be only comprehended with a collaborative hands‑on
erative, continuously researching and producing.
approach which is the essence of creativity and the leading force of
Crisscrossing domains such as digital art, installation, dance,
creative industries, participatory citizenship, social innovation and
music, film and visual art, Artopia embraces their defragmentation
scientific achievements. amberFestival consists of exhibitions of art‑
of content and form by constantly (re) framing them under a par‑
works created in the junction of art and new technologies, perfor‑
adigm of a new formative ideology. This cluster brings to light the
mances, conference panels, lectures, artist presentations, commu‑
change makers as replicating organisms, connecting cultural ecosys‑
nity gatherings, hackathons, jams, alternative gaming, workshops
tems around the world, speculating the ‘what is about to happen’ and
and educational activities for children. These will take place in a net‑
incubating new methods, techniques and aesthetics in art.
work of venues in Bucharest starting from 2017. In 2021 amberPlat‑
In 2021 we foresee a Bucharest occupied by mesmerizing art,
embracing holism while being accessible to the community and build‑
ing new generations of artists.
Catalyst — Creative
Technology
Challenging Realities
Years: 2018–2019–2020–2021
Lead organisations: Polycular,
Modulab, kotki VISUALS, Les Ateliers
Nomads, Mindscape Studio, Zeppelin,
Scientifica Association, UNMB/ Center of
Electroacoustic Music and Media (RO)
Curator B2021: Robert Praxmarer
Audience: 500,000
Budget: €450.000
B
form Bucharest will be located in the new centre for media art in the
Rosenthal Building.
Spotlight International Festival Partners: Ars Electronica — Future
Lab (AT), University of Art and Design
Linz — Interface Culture Programme (AT),
Fachhoschschule Salzburg (AT), CINETic
(RO)
Potential partners: Interactive Institute
Umea (SE), Media Lab Helsinki (Aalto
University) (FI), Media Lab Prado (ES),
Bauhaus University Weimar (DE), Hasso
Plattner Institute (DE), Zurich University
of the Arts (CH)
ucharest is a city with a huge untapped potential in the fields
ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2017–2021
Budget: €400,000
S
potlight restores public space to its traditional role as a set up
for the rituals of communication by treating the architectural
dimension of the city as a living structure that auto generates. We
challenge artists and architects working with light to use the rich sym‑
bolism of Romanian folklore and translate it into digital art collabo‑
rative projects, to explore the superposition of spaces, experiment
with the architectural dimension of the city as media carrying con‑
nections, rather than as static object, and eventually use the public
space of the city as a temporary museum.
of creative industries, startups, social entrepreneurship, ICTs
Following the LUCI Bucharest City light strategy began in 2014,
and interactive media art. The Catalyst Media Lab (CML) (re) unites
we will develop a multimedia research laboratory, as a collaborative
the scattered local media art collectives, initiatives, artists and crea‑
project between Ars Electronica Centre, Artmix Cultural Association
tive entrepreneurs and gives them a space and laboratory to collab‑
and ARCUB, working on innovative concepts to create ambient urban
orate, share knowledge and work together. The lab will function as a
lighting solutions using SSL lighting technology and solar panels that
think tank redefining, combining and transforming realities through
could materialise in a network of solar power light installations in
art and technology.
the peripheries of Bucharest. As potential artists we envision Usman
The lab’s selected participants and members will share the pas‑
sion to promote and leverage arts and technologies as a transforma‑
tional force for shaping a better future and understanding crisis as
a potential to innovate and challenge the status quo. Together they
will be able to tackle bigger projects and ideas cumulating in work‑
shops, exhibitions, talks and a yearly festival.
From 2018 to 2020 the CML will occupy the temporary struc‑
tures set up on the reclaimed land from the urban renewal project of
Buzești/Berzei, as well as in the Rosenthal Building (Calea Victoriei
Haque, André Décosterd, Klaus Teltenkoetter, Nestor Lizarde and
many others.
iMapp Bucharest ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: CreArt
Budget: €400,000
i
Mapp is one of the biggest video‑mapping events in Europe. iMapp
Bucharest is held at the largest civil building in the world, with
more than 104 projectors used, 23.000 square meters of projection
surface, over 2.000.000 ANSI lumens and one huge stage. Each year
22).
From 2021 onwards the Rosenthal Building, after undergoing a
in autumn the most innovative video artists worldwide showcase their
thorough refurbishment, will host the CML as a repository for postdig‑
work on the façade of the Palace of Parliament, in front of a large
ital art. At the same time, practitioners from the Catalyst Lab, together
audience. Starting 2017 the event will be extended on other periph‑
with international guests, will hold lectures, workshops and courses
eral areas of the city on the facade of buildings such as the Summer
at local universities to help in the education of art, design and tech‑
Theater from Bazilescu Park, Radio House, the Beer Factory from
nology students, shaping an international curriculum in interactive
Bragadiru, Obor Train Station. In 2021 a large scale festival will link
arts and technology by partnering with various European faculties.
the Palace of Parliament with the other micro spaces from Bucharest.
52Microtopias
Internetics ASSOCIATED PROJECT
I
Bucharest International ASSOCIATED PROJECT
Experimental Film Festival
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: The Institute
Budget: €45,000
Experiment The City
nternetics is the first branding, marketing and online advertising
festival in Romania. The competition was founded and run annu‑
ally by The Institute. Internetics has appeared ever since the start
of the online industry in Romania, in 2001. Since the beginning, the
festival has contributed to the development and improvement of
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisations: Art Revolution
Budget: €100,000
B
IEFF promotes the border area between cinema and visual art,
working in partnership with Oberhausen ISFF, Berlinale — Forum
Expanded and Cinedans — Dance on Screen Film Festival Amsterdam.
the online and digital industry in Romania. In 2021 Internetics can
‘Experiment the City’, an independent extension of BIEFF, will be
develop a specially curated section on the theme of the post‑digital
organized in collaboration with CINETic, the art‑technology research
world providing a strong and innovative platform for new entries in
lab of the University of Drama and Film (UNATC), and showcase inno‑
the world of advertising, while foreseeing the new artistic strategies
vative films, visual art and VR creations. In 2020–2021 we will create a
criss crossing the marketing industry with the digital one.
spin‑off micro‑festival using a non‑conventional format, based on the
temporary structures and green rooftops created in the city to show‑
Bucharest
Contemporary
Choreography
Biennale
Years: 2017–2019–2021
Lead organisation: The National Centre
of Dance CNDB
Curator: Iulia Popovici
Audience: 200,000
Budget: €350,000
A
case experimental films in neighborhoods outside of the city center.
Partners: The National Museum of
Contemporary Art, Tranzit.ro Association,
Salonul de Proiecte Association, The
National Library, EEPAP (Eastern
European Performing Arts Platform)
(PL/EU), Centrum Kultury Lublin (PL),
Mladinsko Gledalisce Ljubljana (SI),
cultural associations from HU (Trafo) and
BG(Culture Palace/Dance Department,
Sofia)
Artists: Agata Siniarska(PL/DE), Matija
Ferlin (HR), Rok Venar, Mihaela Dancs
(RO)
s part of a much needed strategy for building up a strong com‑
munity of contemporary dance, CNDB has launched The
The programme will blend the cinematic experimentations of inter‑
national and Romanian artists, which will take part in the CINETic
programmes, on themes like: (in)visible communities, activism, cul‑
tural identities of the urban periphery.
Future Scenarios
Years: 2018 –2019 –2020 –2021
Lead organisation: Future Scenario
Network
Curator B2021: Xenia Kalpaktsoglou
Audience: 100,000
Budget: €150,000
Choreography Biennale, an international showcase for perfor‑
mances, installations and in situ interventions, reinforced by a
strong discursive programme of research and reflection on current
dynamics in choreography as well as on social and political changes.
The biennale helps design the future of the region and lays the foun‑
dations for a new generation of managers and producers and directly
addresses non‑professionals as both public and co‑creators in a par‑
adigm of ‘how dance is made’ and ‘how dance is being perceived’.
T
Potential partners: Tensa Konsthall
(SE), Chisenhale Gallery (UK), The
Showroom and Studio Voltaire (UK), Arts
Colalborative (US), Cluster, European
Cultural Foundation ECF (EU), Les
Laboratoires D’ Aubervilliers (FR),
Actopolis –PAT (EU)
Potential participants: Chto Delat (RU),
Dora Garcia (ES), Daniela Ortiz (ES), Ane
Hjort Guttu (NO), Georgia Sagri (GR),
Alice Creischer (DE),microgeographies
(GR), Lucy Beech (UK), Time Bank,
Actopolis — PAT (Temporary Academy for
Arts) (EU), Silent University/Ahmet Ogut
(EU), Open School East (UK).
he project takes as a departure point the open‑ended method‑
ology and the inquiry‑based approach of Bucharest2021, and
becomes a flexible site that critically investigates the existing leg‑
The biennale addresses the reality of the dance scene and aims to fill
acy of cultural collaboration and self‑organisation while offering the
the gaps hindering the current dance scene: chronic lack of critical
conditions for piloting future cultural practices. Future Scenarios
reflection, analysis, recovery and theorisation, political fragmenta‑
will equally endorse and act as a host for an ongoing series of pro‑
tion, poor institutionalisation and the ambivalent relationship with
jects, actions and interventions that addresses the intersection of
western traditions. The biennale is envisioned as a matrix of creative
art, politics and everyday life. It aspires to remain an active meeting
hubs, connecting different communities of artists and is managed by
site where the roadmap to and beyond Bucharest2021 is constantly
a ‘bureau’ affiliated to CNDB, while being supported by a migratory
revisited and negotiated. Future Scenarios has a three‑layered approach: an interna‑
platform of co‑productions and showcases.
Bucharest International ARCUB OPEN CALL
Dance Film Festival Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Tangaj Dance Association
Budget: €100,000
B
tional debate and production platform, a site for the develop‑
ment of alternative approaches to education and a European meet‑
ing network for cultural praxis with the view to develop avenues of
cooperation as well as share practices based on both structural col‑
laborations and transitory alliances. This network will be the lead
IDFF is an international showcase platform dedicated to the
consortium of the project starting 2019 and concluding in multiple
theme of the digital body. Every year the festival will feature
layered activities in 2021.
four main sections: a competition for dance films around the world,
an exhibition that explores multimedia installations that deal with
the digital body approach, a production lab and market for young
filmmakers and a platform of stage based interaction performances.
BIDFF works in collaboration with a network of international festivals
such as: Pool International Dance Film Festival Berlin, San Francisco
Dance Film Festival, Dotdotdot Vienna, Bestias Danzates Chile, Leeds
SHAPE Bucharest ARCUB OPEN CALL
Years: 2017–2021
Lead organisation: Rokolectiv Association
Budget: €45,000
S
HAPE Bucharest is an interdisciplinary project within the
European platform SHAPE, an acronym for ‘Heterogeneous
Sound, Performance and Art in Europe’. The project is an initiative
International Screendance Competition and many others. In 2021
involving 16 international film festivals and partner art centres who
BIDFF will develop an extensive collaboration platform with Kalamata
together selected 48 young European artists to attend a series of inter‑
Dance Festival for showcasing performances and organising work‑
national events: live performances, workshops, residencies, exhibi‑
shops and residencies in Bucharest and Kalamata.
tions, conferences and other specific events in Europe.
53
Capacity
to deliver
Despite a challenging political environment, we feel that we
have succeeded in keeping this process of reengaging the
city independent of party, city, district and personal politics.
We have achieved a common project driven by the cultural
sector, which engages and gathers support from all sides.
1.
Please confirm and evidence that
you have broad and strong political
support and a sustainable commitment
from the relevant local, regional
and national public authorities.
B
ucharest has always had an extremely complex political scene and a difficult power balance, which
is due to its scale compared to other Romanian cities. We have worked to establish both the political
foundations and working relationships with the city, the districts, and the regional authorities. Following
the local elections in June, the new six District Mayors, the new City Mayor and the President of the Ilfov
County signed a new formal protocol in August, confirming their support for Bucharest2021.
The General Council of Bucharest Municipality was unanimous in its vote to approve the Cultural
Strategy 2016–2026 early August and made a formal commitment to the final ECoC bid including the
detailed budget with contributions from the city (2017–2022).
Spatial Strategy
2.
Please confirm and evidence that your
city has or will have adequate and viable
infrastructure to host the title. To do that,
please answer the following questions:
2.a.
Explain briefly how the European Capital
of Culture will make use of and develop
the city's cultural infrastructure.
T
he Bucharest2021 philosophy of space or cultural infrastructure takes into account aspects related
to necessity, choice, logic and aesthetics, but also draws just as much on an ethos of sustainability.
The Invisible City spatial concept is an expression for finding and using invisible, forgotten, unused
spaces, or marginal and unknown ones. We believe that this approach will allow an array of activities in
many different sites. This in effect will help re‑configure movement patterns of citizens and audiences thus
opening‑up completely new perspectives and narratives. An integrated approach, space also becomes
an issue of identity, territory, locational aesthetics and functionality and infrastructure can be a trope
where the physical becomes in itself a manifestation of an artistic vision and philosophy.
This is absolutely essential to the concept of the programme and therefore we will allow ourselves
to find a middle ground where content and product, hard and soft, inner and outer, real and imagined,
are connected and overlaid. This approach is in line with the Invisible Cities novel of Italo Calvino. The
novel deconstructs the city as architecture and reconstructs it as an artwork. Building on this perspec‑
tive leads to an antithesis of the past 50-year history of Bucharest with regards to the socialist monumen‑
tal architecture and the notion of macro scale.
Our critique of and take on the city’s relation with space starts from the major discrepancies in the
spatial structure in the city. While, it provides many excellent facilities for institutional requirements and
for mainstream cultural events, this is neither sufficient nor healthy for the city in the long term. However,
we are not advocating or even hoping for a massive investment in a large‑scale hardware. Instead, we
have encouraged a soft approach on a human scale, driven by content, process, and context.
We consider urban space to be the most democratic and open cultural infrastructure in Bucharest,
where outdoor activity can be scheduled from March to the end of October. Approx. 70%, of the pro‑
gramme will be located in public space. Our soft urban space strategy has several perspectives: reus‑
ing existing buildings; temporary and lightweight refurbishments which allow use but does not restore,
based on interest‑driven clusters of activity — a highly distributed pattern, enabling activities in all parts
of the city, and particularly in neighbourhoods with no facilities; mobile and easily transportable.
Key principles:
2.d.
In terms of cultural, urban and tourism
infrastructure what are the projects
(including renovation projects) that your
city plan to carry out in connection with
the “European Capital of Culture” action
between now and the year of the title? What
is the planned timetable for this work?
+see p. 60
•
using the existing cultural infrastructure when suitable and with institutional partners. We aim for
around one‑third of the Bucharest2021 programme to take place in the existing cultural venues.
The city not only has sufficient capacity, but also the technical capability and user‑friendly envi‑
ronment. We have the support and also the involvement of many of the state & city institutions e.g.
the refurbished National Theatre, the National Library, city theatres, concert halls etc.
•
key strategic transformation processes such as the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC)
which will in itself be regarded as an artistic project (see below)
54 Capacity to deliver
•
a number of small scale refurbishments which provide strategic thematic platforms such as the
Museum of Multiculturalism.
•
opening up empty, unused industrial infrastructure and public buildings as temporary spaces,
including the Creative Hubs initiative. This is a major strategic priority for Bucharest2021 given the
acute need for independent shared spaces in the city for all types of cultural production and pub‑
lic programmes and given the specific needs for project partners for the ECoC. (see below)
•
the use of public space (green, blue, and urban) on a major scale, including the following major pro‑
jects: The Urban Chambers, The Dâmboviţa — Smart River project, and the Vacărești Park where
programmes and infrastructure are developed in synergy. This is key to our understanding of cul‑
tural space and to how we can generate a far wider participation in the cultural life.
•
to extensively use mobile, temporary, pop‑up, micro‑structures. These would be visible and acces‑
sible all over the city through caravans, tented structures, outdoor mobile exhibitions, redesigned
tramway carriages, pavilions, mobile garden projects. This programme will be linked to the pro‑
posed Architecture Triennale as a platform for design and production of new prototypes. The focus
on the city’s micro‑spaces and an almost non‑stop involvement in 20 of our key neighbourhoods has
ensured that public space remains an integrated part of the programme, and is not simply a venue.
Key transformation, reconstructing the National Museum of Contemporary Art MNAC (2016–2021)
five‑year‑plan meant to define the larger role and position of the institution in the social, political,
A
economic and cultural fabric of Bucharest. The institution will relocate from its present site in the
House of the Parliament where it has been invisible for the citizens and dominated by political and admin‑
istrative constraints which are counterproductive in a contemporary cultural landscape. The four‑step
plan will involve a research and incubation phase with international participation (a collective analysis,
an institutional introspection), and a visioning process whereby all the material and immaterial culture
of the museum will be disseminated and communicated in innovative artistic formats. This approach is
a creative artistic venture and it is precisely the type of integrated artistic practise Bucharest2021 aims
to support. The result of the process may be a relocation but it will allow for a re‑configuration of the
role this museum will play in the future of the city.
Key Cultural Platform: The Roma Cultural Centre & Museum
he refurbishment and extension of this centre, established literally on the periphery of Bucharest
T
in Giulești, was a 2012 private initiative. This will be the first independently funded and run Cultural
Centre for the Roma, which will also be linked to the European Archive initiative, as well as driver for key
projects involving the city’s Roma community in Bucharest2021. The extension will house the Creative
Education Lab, a project initiated in 2016 as part of the ECoC bid process. The Centre is a major hub in
the Bucharest2021 programme and the main exhibition and activity space will be upgraded.
Key Cultural Platform: ARCUB European Cultural Centre
he totally refurbished Gabroveni Inn has functioned as the ECoC hub and as the European Cultural
T
Centre since January 2015. ARCUB will be the motor for the ECoC process, providing a platform for
development of projects, facilitating European partners and serving as a link to European centres and
to the city. In 2021 the centre will combine general information and contact functions for the ECoC by
being a digital and real hub with a year‑round series of programmes.
Key Cultural Platform: The National Dance Centre
solution is now on the table of the Ministry of Culture for the Bucharest National Dance Centre
A
(CNDB), which has long been located in extremely limited premises. As from 2019, the centre will
be located in the Omnia performance hall (currently under the administration of the National Opera
House ONB) with vastly improved facilities and increased capacity.
Key Cultural Platform: The Museum of Multiculturalism
B
ucharest has confirmed that a large, centrally‑located building of 5000 sqm will be converted into a
Museum of Multiculturalism in 2016. The project celebrates the city’s historical, present and future
minorities, and challenges the widespread perception of Bucharest as a city without identity by offering
insights into its different stages of development.
Key Network of Community Centres run by Citizens’ Groups
S
ome active neighbourhood‑based citizen groups in Bucharest have already advanced their vision for
future small‑scale community centres in their negotiations with local municipalities. These would
serve as a basis for the group’s activities and as a social and cultural hub for the neighbourhood. A
good example is the Lacul Tei initiative group, which successfully lobbied for a new lightweight public
55
VATRA NOUĂ
BĂNEASA
HENRI
COANDĂ
11
31 24
BUCUREȘTII
5 NOI
DĂMĂROAIA
19
6
1
33
21
AVIAȚIEI
PAJURA
3
CHITILA
HERASTRAU
ANDRONACHE
14
GIULEȘTI- SÂRBI
14
22
1 MAI
ION CREANGĂ
23
GIULEȘTI
PRIMĂVERII
5
KISELEFF
3
24
CRÂNGAȘI
12 10
5
GRIVIȚA
4
DOROBANȚI
GARA 12
DE2 NORD
35
3
4
16
GRADINA
BOTANICĂ
28
COTROCENI
4
DRUMUL TABEREI
BRÂNCUȘI
3
3
12 URANUS
DELFINULUI
17
PANTELIMON
15
1 18
VATRA
LUMINOASĂ
COLȚEI
HALA TRAIAN
1
4
UNIRII
19
CAROL/11
IUNIE
2
9 17
8
13 SEPTEMBRIE
GHENCEA
MOȘILOR
26
8
26
UNIVERSITATE
8 10 5
36
1
ELECTRONICII
(BAICULUI)18
OBOR
2
2
27
FUNDENI
7
29
8 7
11
ROMANĂ
30
6
9
1
13
8
32
25
PLEVNEI
21
20
2
COLENTINA
TEI
13
25 27
REGIE 14
MILITARI
FLOREASCA
6
PANTELIMON
13
9
6
2
BALTA ALBĂ+TITAN
20
1
22
7
10
VITAN
11
23 AUGUST
3
9
DRISTOR
TINERETULUI
34
7
POLICOLOR
16
RAHOVA
LACUL
VĂCĂREȘTI
FERENTARI
GIURGIULUI
BERCENI
PROGRESUL
23
PROGRESUL
emerging hubs
Bucharest built-up area
potential HUBS
district limits
landmarks, emerging cultural activities, temporary activities
road infrastructure
points of interest - built spaces (see list)
central “ring road”
points of interest - open spaces (see list)
Integrated Urban Development Plan limit
potential places for activating cultural happenings
roads proposed for temporary closure (weekend)
”urban chambers” according to the Integrated Urban Development Plan
for cultural activities
CLUSTERS FOR ACTIVITIES RELATED TO WATER AREAS:
roads proposed for temporary diversion of trafic
landmarks, parks, existing cultural points of interest
forest areas
sport facilities
green areas (parks), sport and other leisure activities
places with cluster potential - short list
water areas (Dambovita and Colentina River water area)
places with cluster potential - extended list
BUILT SPACES
Former Radio House
Artist's Plastic Works Factory
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
Mihai Eminescu Summer Theater
Piata Amzei Street
13 September Market
Favorit Cinema
Bazilescu Summer Theater
Historical monument, school
Outdoor amphitheater - Tineretului Park
Corso Cinema
Filaret Electrical Plant
Capitol Cinema / Summer Theater
Muntenia Hotel
Former headquarters Romania Film
Dacia Cinema
Gloria Cinema
Former brick factory
Postăvăria Română și Filatura
Bragadiru Beer Factory
Delfinului Commercial Building
Former Pionierul Factory
Former Lemaitre Plant
Former Radio House
Triumf school sports club
Cireșarii sports facility
Buildings and free land (Administration for
Environment Fund)
Buildings and free land (Biology Institute)
Rosenthal building
House for Didactic Staff
National Centre for Arts, building
Studio Cinema
Union Cinema
Warehouse and free land, Romanian
Academy Library
Building, UAUIM-Bucharest
Sports Club
Nicolae Balcescu Summer Theater
Building and free land, National Institute for
Research and Cultural Training
Building, National Museum of Contemporary Art
OPEN SPACES
Former "Pionierul" Factory
Carol Factory
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Filaret Electric Plant
NOD Makerspace
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
ROADS proposed for temporary closure
(weekend) for cultural activities
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
57
Drumul Taberei
Dezrobirii
Calea Crângași
Banu Manta (alternate 5)
Kiseleff
Lacul Tei (alternate 7)
Colentina
Iancului
Liviu Rebreanu
Râmnicu Vâlcea
Tineretului
Mihail Sebastian/Ferentari
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Free lands, Opera Park
Free lands, resulted from the Buzesti-Berzei
restructuring area
Romexpo central axis area
Free land, former Pumac Factory
Morii Lake Island
Free land, Artist’s Plastic Works Factory
Greenhouses, ALPAB
Greenhouses, District 6
Greenhouses, Agriculture Department Bucharest
Greenhouses, Biology Institute
Greenhouses, free land Free land, Administration for
Environment Fund
Free land, Ministery for Youth and Sports
Park, Politechic University Bucharest
Park, Agronomical Science and Veterinary Medicine
University Bucharest
Outdoor amphitheater, Tineretului Park
Free land, former Zefir Factory
Mihai Eminescu Summer Theater
Bazilescu Summer Theater
Former Radio House
Herastrau Park, north area
Free land, Astronomical Observatory
Free land, ISPIF Bucharest
Free land, Romanian Academy Library
Garden, National Institute for Research
and Cultural Training
Free land, Romania Film
Free land, National Museum of Contemporary Art
URBAN CHAMBERS according to
the Integrated Urban Development Plan
EMERGING HUBS
“contemporary culture” chamber
“bridge” chamber
“historical” chamber
“entertainment” chamber
“academic” chamber
“classical culture” chamber
“ambiance” chamber
“turistic square” chamber
“alternative culture” chamber
Artist’s plastic works factory
Carol Factory
Nod makerspace
POTENTIAL HUBS
Filaret Electric Plant
Former "Pionerul" Factory
Former Radio House
construction in a large park. Similarly, the Favorit initiative to use a former neighbourhood cinema, as
a multifunctional community space. Following in their tracks, other groups are now advancing propos‑
als to local councils to convert existing spaces.
A growing number of initiatives respond to the need for social infrastructure by opening hybrid
community‑oriented spaces: social coffee shops, bars as community centres, residencies, gardens, and
school yards. Bucharest2021 will be a support platform for these independent initiatives, providing devel‑
opment know‑how and trainings in community organising, cultural facilitation and hospitality‑related
skills. Some of our key projects, such as Green the ‘Hood!, or Noah’s Ark. Museums on a Human Scale, and
the Reclaiming the City micro‑grants + capacity building scheme target directly these groups which are
seen as interfaces of larger communities.
Creative Hubs
rom an original mapping of 400 empty buildings in the city by Ion Mincu University of Architecture
F
and Urbanism UAUIM, 60 potential spaces were selected, also based on research initiated by Calup,
a local NGO. In a partnership with the UAUIM, six key sites have now been proposed as potential creative
hubs. Some already have users as well as initiatives, like the NOD Maker Space, while others, like the build‑
ing owned by the Association of Romanian Fine Artists UAP, has been awaiting restoration for many years.
The approach is to advocate a light transformation of a number of sites in order to make them legal
and usable up to 2021 and to offset permanent investment until after 2021. These spaces would become
research and production hubs, each with a clear profile and with a programme of exhibitions and events
during 2021 while also addressing current critical needs. They would also host artist residences. This
would help develop audiences and attract potential synergy and partnerships for possible long‑term
investment in permanent solutions.
Trans Europe Halles will take part in a series of seminars about developing sustainable cultural
hubs. The European Network of Cultural Centres and AMATEO‑European Network for Active Participation
in Cultural Activities will also be involved in the project.
Key Urban Chambers
s part of the overall Integrated Urban Development Plan PIDU, it was decided in January 2016 to
A
implement the ‘Urban Chambers’ project which will create links between ten major urban spaces
in Bucharest in an attempt to re‑define the city. The project was drafted in 2012 and the implementa‑
tion agenda fits perfectly with the timetable and concept of Bucharest2021. This ambition signals a peo‑
ple‑first and a human scale approach, showing that social comes before functional, and uniqueness
before standardisation.
The project puts emphasis on residents and visitors as main beneficiaries of spaces linked by pedes‑
trian and bike routes (two‑hour walking / 30 min biking). The main output are pedestrian areas, and
thus improving the quality of public space and defining clear artistic & cultural themes for each of the
proposed Chambers. The themes will be used to develop artistically driven projects and to design solu‑
tions for each space, bringing much needed individuality to the architecture of the modernist commu‑
nist period and design quality to the city.
A partnership has been established between Bucharest2021 and the implementation team of the
project. Bucharest2021 will invite artists to work with architects on the overall concept of each urban
chamber and activate the spaces as part of the design process. In 2021, each space will be curated to align
with the Bucharest2021 programme and also to match the profile of the chamber.
The Urban Chambers will be used as sites during the process, which is expected to be completed
by 2021. However, the true value of the project will consist in the urban laboratory format which will
last for four years.
Dâmboviţa — Smart River
he Dâmboviţa river is a 10 km long channel that dissects the city into two, creating a physical and
T
mental barrier that undermines many of the city’s historical links and new developments. The divi‑
sion of the city is compounded by the fact that much of the southern part is poor and with little social
and cultural infrastructure. The Smart River project has been proposed by a network of urbanists in the
city and is potentially part of the long term strategy of Bucharest City, to be co‑funded by EU regional
funds for infrastructure and environment. Key aspects of the project are to open the river again and to
secure a pedestrian pathway along the whole axis with recreational spaces along the riverside.
The project will create a green network of research centres, businesses and cultural institutions
along a green axis, which will function as a green knowledge hub. The third element will be to launch
ten original designed ‘bridges of emotion’ which will re‑connect parts of the city to the centre again.
Bucharest2021 will engage in the artistic and design process of the temporary & semi‑permanent bridges
as prototypes for permanent solutions.
Tourism
Although it is the largest city in Romania, Bucharest has
never been viewed as a tourist destination par excellence.
T
here is a broad consensus among tourists visiting the city, international bloggers and travel experts
that Bucharest’s potential lies in its complex urban landscape, featuring a unique mix of styles,
where the part crumbling, partly regenerated historic old city collides with the formal rigidity of com‑
munist architecture, and where European urbanism can be traced in the city’s many undiscovered neigh‑
bourhoods and green parks. It is a vibrant, informal, chaotic city, with a cultural mix, and with a sense
of authenticity, immediacy, creativity and change.
The title Bucharest as ‘Little Paris’ has now been replaced by ‘Bucharest, the new Berlin’ — and
has, in many ways, become the perfect city for cultural tourism in the 21st century. However, the city
has never taken this opportunity seriously but instead has relied on its position as the capital as well as
on business tourism thus failing to identify any attraction to the potential of the city itself.
A tourism destination on the rise?
T
he number of visitors in the Bucharest-Ilfov region grew from just 831,000 in 2005 to 1.85 m in 2015.
The number of overnight stays increased from 1.48 m in 2005 to 3.04 m in 2015, with 60% recorded
by foreign visitors. Still, statistics clearly show that Bucharest has failed to utilise its assets for cultural
2.b.
What are the city's assets in terms
of accessibility (regional, national
and international transport)?
tourism, as approx. 70% of all visitors are still business travellers, a constant figure over the past 20 years.
Almost all visitors rely completely on attractions in the city centre and rarely interact with resi‑
dents or explore the (in—visible) city. The experience lacks authenticity and creativity, which in turn has
a negative impact on tourists’ decision to return. A marketing plan commissioned by the former Ministry
for Regional Development and Tourism (2011) shows that Bucharest is relatively invisible on the interna‑
tional tourism market and that there is a severe lack of up‑to‑date online information. The city tourism
services are outdated, and the level of information in the city for tourists is substandard and insufficient.
However, Bucharest is now searching for those vectors that can generate competitive advantages.
Yet there are still obstacles to overcome, as the city has had to grapple with the stereotypes of being the
home of one of the most despised former communist leaders, Nicolae Ceaușescu, as well as of being
linked implicitly to the current, increasingly negative image of Romania in a European context, fuelled
by stories of corruption and by often exaggerated media coverage on large scale migration to Europe.
We reviewed the tourism sector and incorporated recommendations from the National Tourism
Authority analysis 2011, as well as from 45 interviews with key players and Bucharest Tourism Association
members. We have also engaged 25 key persons in the growing sector of alternative, cultural, heritage,
and green tourism to develop a series of strategic partnerships based on concrete thematic cultural pack‑
ages we intend to launch and develop from 2017.
Connectivity and capacity
T
he city is extremely well connected to the region, to the country and to Europe. This applies to both
road and rail connections, which make it possible for four million people to access the city within
one hour and 10 million within four hours.
As regards air connections, there are 32 airlines operating from Bucharest and with direct flights to
38 European cities. The 8.3 m passengers in 2015 marks an increase of 1 m since 2014. London (63 weekly
flights), Paris (53), Vienna (49), Istanbul (39), Rome (38), Amsterdam (38), Brussels (35), Frankfurt (34),
Berlin (32), Milan (30) are the major cities with incoming visitors to Bucharest. Tarom, Wizz Air, Blue
Air, Lufthansa and Ryan Air are the major incoming carriers and have all increased the number of con‑
nections (15 new destinations in 2015–2016). Wizz Air, Blue Air and Ryan Air have all committed to part‑
nerships if the city is selected and this can be a key factor, given their combined market share of 40%.
The region has 182 accommodation facilities with a total capacity of 13,300 rooms. The used capacity
is only 40%, with potential for increasing both weekend stays and summer visits. Cultural tourism would
therefore complement this pattern. Additionally, price levels are also relatively low on a European level
(55% of the European average for major cities). Recently there has been a large increase in the number
of hostels catering to young travellers (estimated 40 with an estimated 20% increase in overnight stays
over the past five years) and more than 300 rentals on Airbnb, also a sharp increase.
59
2.c.
What is the city's absorption capacity
in terms of tourists' accommodation?
This is the starting point for the ambition of using the ECoC project to create a major focus on the
city, to change the way it is perceived internationally, to kick‑start a cultural tourism strategy and to cap‑
italise on the huge potential.
Cultural tourism and ECoC 2021
Business Travallers
•
Over 35 years of age
•
relatively short stays
•
accomodated in business
hotels
•
potentially attracted to
organisez tours and ‘soft’
events in the city centre
•
70% visits
•
20% increase
City Breakers
•
•
Young explorers
travelling in small groups or
couples
potentially attracted to free
events in the city, key music
festivals and large concerts
•
culturally hyperactivate
•
enjoy well planned trips
•
interested in contemporary
arts and alternative culture
•
generally travel in couples
•
interested in local life‑style/
community interraction
•
interested in local heritage
and culture, green tourism,
classic music festivals (e.g.
George Enescu International
Festival)
•
motivated by the availability
of low‑cost flights
•
travelling in small groups
•
20% visits
•
•
50% increase
very mobile and displaying a
high level of participation
2.d.
In terms of cultural, urban and tourism
infrastructure what are the projects
(including renovation projects) that your
city plan to carry out in connection with
the “European Capital of Culture” action
between now and the year of the title? What
is the planned timetable for this work?
W
Seniors and organised groups
•
5% visits
•
100% increase
•
5% visits
•
50% increase
Members of cultural
organisations and networks
•
open and culturally
interested in a variety of
events, from art exhibitions
to film festivals and
cultural‑themed workshops
and conferences
•
may have keen interest
in certain topics (e.g.
architecture, visual arts, etc.)
•
5% visits
•
100% increase
e are proposing a strategy for the development of cultural tourism in the Bucharest-Ilfov
region, with some key actions and pilot projects. The 2011 marketing plan commissioned by
the Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism identified five major market segments for tourism
in Bucharest. These segments have been reconfirmed and redefined in the Cultural Tourism strategy.
At present, business travellers account for the largest share in tourist arrivals and overnight stays
(over 70%), followed by city breakers, young explorers and seniors and organised groups.
The aim is to develop all market segments throughout 2017–2022. The two core groups for cul‑
tural tourism are young explorers and members of cultural organisations and networks. The aim is to
increase overnight stays by 100% by 2021. Bucharest2021 will also target the other market segments: for
city breakers an increase of 50%, for seniors and organised groups of 20% and for business tourists of
10%, through an extension of planned visits.
Young explorers hold the largest potential for growth in light of ECoC 2021 and are by far the most
interested in discovering new meanings behind cultural assets. They are generally youth from large
urban centres, they are well connected to the new European culture and keen to embark on a journey
of exploration. They are cost sensitive but are seeking authentic experiences: alternative tours, creative
events, and authentic food.
Members of cultural organisations and networks represent a new segment to the Bucharest market
and it is crucial to develop this area since culture professionals and creative makers are not only consum‑
ers of cultural and tourism services, but potential multipliers of information and promoters of the region.
Helping the city help itself:
capacity development
I
n order for the city and the region to be able to reap the benefits of ECoC 2021, it is necessary that all
representatives of the local business environment, and particularly the tourism industry, understand
how they can become active.
We have established a partnership with the Bucharest Tourism Association to address key issues
and to coordinate a more long‑term approach to tourism in general and to cultural tourism in particular
with ECoC. We are developing a strategy that is now being discussed with the city and the Ilfov region.
Raising awareness:
•
essentially means providing entrepreneurs, managers and workers in tourism and tourism‑related
industries with the information necessary to earn their support for the ECoC 2021 project:
•
make all partners and providers in the tourist sector proud to be part of the ECoC 2021 project;
•
motivate actors from all the sectors of the tourism industry (travel agencies, hotels, restaurants,
cafés, museums, visitor centres etc.) to take responsibility for disseminating information;
•
transform entrepreneurs, managers and workers in tourism and tourism‑related fields into ambas‑
sadors of their city, eager to work with new concepts and models.
Channels and means used in raising awareness include:
•
Information packages to personnel in the tourism industry (e.g. hotels, restaurants, cafés) and tour‑
ism‑related sectors (museums, information centres etc.);
•
Organising information workshops, seminar and sessions for managers and entrepreneurs in the
field, in partnership with professional networks/associations (e.g. National Association of Travel
Agencies in Romania, Skal International Romania, and Romanian Hotel Industry Federation).
Developing soft‑skills
•
of personnel experiencing direct interaction with tourists, such as hotel receptionists, concierges
and bell‑boys, workers in restaurants, cafés, bike rental centres, tourist information centres, taxi
drivers, police (there is commitment from the Traffic Police Academy) but also those working in
museums, festivals and heritage sites. Joint working sessions and the dissemination of information
packages are an important aspect of this as well.
Improving interaction between the local population and tourists
•
by motivating residents to become ‘ambassadors’ of the city. We plan awareness campaigns on
themes such as ‘the open city’ targeting the city’s residents, creating volunteer hubs for non‑for‑
mal groups at the level of local neighbourhoods and linked local info centres, neighbourhood and
themed tours etc. The hubs will encompass members of NGOs and local initiative groups, already
involved in community development.
Authentic cultural experiences:
new product development
•
working with tour‑operators and the non‑governmental sector to create sustainable tourism pack‑
ages and guided tours focused on ‘alternative’ themes and attractions, such as street art and cul‑
ture; minorities; lifestyle in peripheral neighbourhoods; nature, Văcărești lake and Dâmboviţa river;
‘hidden’ or ‘forgotten’ historical sites;
•
linking cultural events with themed tourism products — pilot projects showed that participants
at international cultural events and members of cultural networks are interested in taking part in
tours that relate to the theme of the event or conference;
•
integrating ‘forgotten’ or ‘hidden’ historical buildings with events and themed tours — the cultural
tourism strategy revealed that there are a number of non‑governmental organisations that have
already expressed their interest in reviving and animating previously unused spaces (e.g. histori‑
cal houses, manors, industrial heritage sites etc.) through open‑day events, non‑formal education
sessions, free tours.
Themes and clusters
A
series of thematic priorities for product development have also been identified, together with
potential partners and projects.
All themes focus on combining categories of products which are relevant for both the cultural sec‑
tor as well as for the tourism industry: (1) places / sites / buildings / neighbourhoods (2) cultural walks
or tours (3), cultural events, festivals, exhibitions (4) a clear cultural / subcultural theme.
The aim is to build clusters of organisations and products that could create synergies and develop
a supply of services that is coherent, original and attractive.
Each theme has a minimum of three major events and five key partners plus a strong Bucharest2021
relevance. The eight thematic priorities that could be launched starting 2017 are:
•
Redesigning Bucharest (contemporary architecture, design, fashion) • Invisible Bucharest • Classic
Bucharest • Bucharest On Film • Street Art and Culture • Bucharest Peripheries • The Smart River/
Văcărești • New Music Bucharest (Balkan music, alternative music).
Together with around 40 partners, 25 existing events and festivals and 40 planned B2021 projects,
we are developing themed cultural clusters as a focus for cultural tourism partnerships, to be developed
incrementally and to be sustainable platforms post B2021.
The potential is clear. For instance, the Bucharest ‘street art’ tours by Interesting Times Bureau,
a key alternative cultural tourism operator, reached 400 tours in 2015 compared with 30 in 2011 when
the project started.
We see tourism as an extension of the cultural development of the city, and not as a separate con‑
struct. The cultural tourism strategy is thus linked to the international communications and marketing
strategy but also, just as importantly, to the community engagement strategy, as the key driver of cul‑
tural tourism is in fact the active communities in the city.
They create the product and are increasingly able to manage and market this product. The term
‘creative tourism’ might in fact be a better term.
61
Outreach
Almost all our projects are layered and offer
opportunities for a more committed engagement
1.
Explain how the local population
and your civil society have been
involved in the preparation of the
application and will participate in
the implementation of the year.
A
s we had pointed out in our answer detailing the motivation for our bid, the engagement process
of citizens with the city of Bucharest builds on notoriously weak foundations and the sheer scale of
the city is in itself a challenge. We have been working on reconstructing a new perspective on engage‑
ment in the face of an historical lack of public support for the participation of citizens and
communities in the city. We are also up against a backlog of distrust that pervades all levels of society.
2.
How will the title create in your city
new and sustainable opportunities
for a wide range of citizens to attend
or participate in cultural activities, in
particular young people, volunteers, the
marginalised and disadvantaged, including
minorities? Please also elaborate on the
accessibility of these activities to persons
with disabilities and the elderly. Specify
the relevant parts of the programme
planned for these various groups.
Despite this, we can sense that there is clear evidence of a major shift in perspective. However, to cap‑
italise on this, we need to address multi‑level barriers, both hard and soft, and in doing so, a five‑year
perspective is necessary.
We have connected with many emerging initiatives and platforms, addressing particular groups
and engaging with many different communities.
We are also testing direct engagement methods for developing relationships with key communi‑
ties. This is crucial and needs to be addressed as part of a strategic process.
Our basis has been to be honest, open, realistic, and concrete. Every action we have taken and tac‑
tics we have applied in the preparation phase will also have a corresponding key role in the next phase.
Engaging via Cultural Events and Actions
W
e have used outreach cultural events and actions to inform and have managed to create a solid
base for a growing programme of open events which provide temporary spaces for play and for
involvement and debate.
These are the perfect points of access for everyone — the threshold between the non‑engaged and
the engaged. As such, we aim to keep the threshold low and at the same time extend this first level of
participation.
Almost all our projects are layered and offer opportunities for a more committed engagement
whether these are workshops, debates or instant, informal sessions. The majority of the projects are
“informal”, dynamic in format, and are totally suited to photographing or recording. Citizens will there‑
fore be encouraged to translate the personal experience into a social experience and share their recorded
memories with others.
Equipped with the yellow B2021 info caravan (we plan to have a small fleet by 2021) as a mobile info
point we have met with more than 15,000 event visitors. Our B2021 blackboard with 2,500 comments and
our pack of persuasive games have entertained thousands. We have filled the city with B-FIT International
Street Theatre Festival, The White Nights, Bucharest Jazz Festival B2021, Spotlight and connected with
more than 150 major events and projects in the city in 2015 and 2016.
In 2016, under the banner of the Open Lab, we launched a series of engaging and celebratory pro‑
grammes. Running from July to October 2016, these present the pilot version of projects developed for
B2021. We plan to do this work‑in‑progress event annually, with its chaotic mix of fun installations, serious
debates, open rehearsals and pop up actions in the most hidden spaces in the city. This is the first step —
a start, not a goal — in our attempt to invite the whole city inside the In—visible City concept.
Engaging neighbourhood communities
W
e worked with 400 active citizens in 12 neighbourhoods over one year in 2015 to analyse local
needs and to develop small scale initiatives which might be suitable to upgrade into projects.
In the second phase, these initiative groups set up the first Bucharest Civic Network, which now acts as
common shared resource platform, having support from local NGOs.
This approach has generated the initiation of a micro‑grant scheme (Generator) which has been
implemented together with the Bucharest Community Foundation, which has a long experience in work‑
ing in the social sectors with both civic initiative groups and marginalised groups.
The scheme is now established as part of B2021, with a project‑incubation and mentoring aspect.
Ten projects from an initial list of 40 have been allocated seed funding to deliver pilot projects in autumn
2016. The translation of an informal process to workshops and finally to concrete projects has been
62Outreach
successful but has taken 18 months. This scheme will be repeated and upscaled annually until 2021 to
stimulate an even wider participation. It will be an important mechanism to source and develop local
ideas and we expect this to catalyse around 75 projects for 2021.
Engaging civil society
S
ome of the NGOs we have engaged in the bidding phase have a remarkable track record and have
been for the past years the voice of and support for the citizens. They are active in many fields, e.g.
heritage (protesting against illegal demolition of heritage sites), promoting the case for more bike lanes
in the city, advocating rights for the LGBT community. In recent years many young, emerging, informal
citizen groups joined these causes, some reclaiming derelict cinemas to convert into community centres,
others advocating for the regeneration of public parks or for ethnic minority groups, etc. These will be
our main partners to establish links with non‑culturally active sectors of the community.
By actively involving representatives in debates and workshops, we have established a partnership
with the Platform for Bucharest initiative covering 42 civil society networks who have committed to a
programme of integrated action. In the fall of 2016 we are hosting the Civic Initiative Fair and have com‑
mitted to co‑design a programme together with the Resource Centre for Public Participation (CeRe) for
the Bucharest Civic Network, comprising 13 civic groups.
For these NGOs and civil society stakeholders, the tools B2021 offers help to develop their capacity
to sustainably engage larger numbers and to practice cultural mediation.
Engaging and investing in collaborative processes
T
he process of open curating has led to a strategy of interdisciplinary approach to co‑curating. Instead
of an open call for projects, we decided to set up an open laboratory for ideas, project design and
implementation, running over three months. Launched as the Accelerator in April 2016, this has proven
ideal to engage a wide constituency of independent actors from the cultural, social, environmental sec‑
tors and particularly young and emerging artists and cultural actors with no structural backup.
The five programmes of the Open Lab (OL) are designed to deliver new partnerships and projects
and they reach out to social and cultural entrepreneurs, youth‑led projects and community- oriented
startups as well as environmental activists. Projects are already being prototyped this year with fund‑
ing (€950,000 in total has been invested). Particularly the Accelerator and Generator, which have been
mentored, co‑curated processes, demonstrating the clear potential of the OL as a soft and positive access
point to B2021. The Open Lab will be repeated annually as a key programme of engagement.
Engaging cultural resources
L
ast year’s Memory I Exploring I Imagining the City project has inspired a number of projects and this
will be used as a clear method for integrating the everyday and the ordinary into collectively devel‑
oped projects. Projects such as Bucharest Citizens’ Family Album, Noah’s Ark, Golden Age Toys are exam‑
ples of applying the similar practice of crowdsourcing and citizen co‑curating.
Engaging citizens as guides and hosts in the city
I
f Bucharest is to become a more open, responsive and participatory city, where levels of trust and
social cohesion increase, it is vital that citizens are invited to re‑present their city and become proud
to also showcase it. We have initiated several large scale programmes to encourage participation on a
personal level. Symbolically, the Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner project entails the opening of flats and
private homes to an artist for one evening, and the Routes and Routes programme is designed as a net‑
work of walks in all neighbourhoods. The ambition is that every street is somehow included in a walk and
that all the city has a local narrative. Citizens will be invited to provide information but also act as guides.
A training programme to support citizen‑driven walks, guided tours and narratives will be launched in
2017 with the first neighbourhoods being Giulești and Drumul Taberei.
No walls and collaborative place‑making
S
patialisation is a cross‑cutting challenge, thus also a red line in the strategy for widening the access
to the cultural offer of B2021. Reaching the so‑called non‑consumers has a clear geographic dimen‑
sion: with most cultural infrastructure in or around the city centre, neighbourhoods in Bucharest are
poorly catered to by cultural services.
Having developed neighbourhood‑located programming and tools that incentivise local cultural
productions, we contribute to decentralising the cultural offer by reaching out to residents closer to
where they live, work and study.
Following this bid’s vision of not constructing new infrastructure but rather recuperating and cre‑
atively repurposing the existing one including the built heritage, public space is the ground for experi‑
ments with temporary and mobile infrastructure for cultural and community use.
63
The city itself will become the main cultural space and the ‘no walls’ principle points out barriers that
need to be overcome: geographic distance (20 of the 32 neighbourhoods have no cultural institutions/
facilities); political distance (most cultural institutions restrict access by default); intellectual distance
(art often defines its own language and context); economic distance (lack of balance between ticketed &
free events for different target groups); physical accessibility (very few events in the city are easily acces‑
sible to people with special needs); social distance (formal events rarely allow for more social situations,
family or friends gatherings etc.).
The strategy of ‘no walls’ and soft architecture will provide lightweight, pop up structures, tem‑
porary local conversions of vacant spaces and support, sustaining the livelihood of the neighbourhood
and facilitating alternative resources — from hybrid spaces serving cultural community purposes, to local
identities and the social and cultural capital they carry.
Engaging the next generation of problem solvers
T
he steady collaboration with the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism has inspired
other departments and universities to establish a B2021 network in order to facilitate the engage‑
ment of students from 12 universities.
As a platform for fast prototyping and testing of innovative solutions in real‑life settings, a pilot ver‑
sion connecting textile waste and fashion design is underway. Up to 2021, a series of circularity‑based
design and development challenges can be tested in the Living Lab, while in the title year, resulting prod‑
ucts can be made available for use, exhibition or sale.
Engaging young people
T
he autumn 2015 workshops involving arts & crafts and literature students in more than 100 schools
has enthused both pupils and teachers. This project has facilitated a more strategic approach to
developing a creative education project with a strong arts‑based content (see below). The Education
Department of the City signed a five‑year partnership programme which will commit 70 schools in 32
neighbourhoods (an estimated 25,000 pupils) of the city to participate. As the programme also takes
part in the community, the engagement of families and friends will multiply the levels of engagement
and the social and cultural legacy. See below for more details on specific programmes for young people.
Engaging through asking
A
s a follow up to the Cultural Barometer 2015, we are performing a more detailed analysis of cit‑
izens’ cultural behaviour with 1,200 representative citizens by age/ sex/ neighbourhood/ family
status/ occupation. They will also be invited to reflect on issues related to the cultural provision in the
city and on more general issues about city life, which will feed into future planning and possible initia‑
tives and projects.
We will also activate an online citizen forum to address principle questions which may arise, such
as the urgent question of the use of public space, and the question of unlimited advertising in the city.
The forum will also be used to inform debates and workshops, media output, and messages from B2021
and include informed reactions from the citizens’ panel. The project may be upscaled as an ‘official’ cit‑
izens’ sounding board after 2017 as part of an e‑government instrument for the city.
Building trust with vulnerable groups
D
ecades of marginalisation cannot be countered by a few months of role playing no matter how
strong the will. In relation to groups such as Roma and other ethnic communities, we have there‑
fore spent time in establishing links with key gatekeepers. Examples include ethnic groups, Roma lead‑
ers and associations (EUroma, Re‑designing the Balkans, (Shhh!)HE City projects), street cleaners (Project:
Garbage), Chinese and Indonesian stall holders in markets (Shrinking Markets).
At this stage in the process, we regard these as key to activating groups otherwise often not active
on the public cultural scene. We chose in many cases to discontinue our involvement so as to avoid‑
disappointment. These contacts are informal and personal and such groups also include the physical
and the mentally challenged.
B.Vol.2021. Our volunteer platform is conceived as a network of networks, connecting existing
interest and identity‑based communities (LGBT, Roma, civic activist, differently abled, high school stu‑
dents, street artists etc.) on the basis of upcoming B2021 activities of mutual interest and coordinated
through the OpenLab.ro platform.
This match‑making approach is meant to connect different groups and communities by offering
opportunities to do creative work together, under the B2021 programming. For 2021, a consolidated
group of core volunteers (high school and university students, activists, cause‑based communities) affil‑
iated with different communities will coordinate the volunteer support for the programming, as well as
the partnerships with schools, universities and student associations.
64Outreach
Children, youth & education
T
he city of Bucharest is a young city and if we are intent on changing the self‑perception of the city and
to develop its creative potential and cultural citizenship, children and young people are key. B2021
has created a strategic partnership with the Bucharest Education Department (ISMB) which marks the
first initiative to open schools to community and neighbourhoods. Under 18s will contribute to key issues
of the future of their city, challenging the status quo, break the mould of the school as a closed system.
B(e)Child
he programme liberates young people’s creative energies and their potential transformative faculty.
T
The Education Department has already committed to cover all costs of the participating staff and
material costs. Through the B(e)Child Programme, Bucharest becomes not only the frame for its activ‑
ities, but also the tool used in the imagining and exploration process by those who are children today
and the engine of the city’s development in the future.
Creating the City
project which implements cultural education in schools and transforms the schools into creative
A
hubs. It involves 12 schools in 2017, and growing to 70 schools in 2021, and an estimated 50,000
children in 32 neighbourhoods. An annual creative workshop series held by artists (art, media, archi‑
tecture, writing, performance, music) will extend the methods and practices of the non‑formal into the
school environment. This will be in part interdisciplinary and link to research and field work done by
students, while building on the overall content of the ECoC programme.
The second layer will translate this and make it visible in the city through a series of large scale
interventions in key neighbourhoods in collaboration with artists commissioned to remodel the work
with the students over a ten‑day period, every June. The third layer focuses on developing an online plat‑
form — creativWEBhub, with the goal of raising children’s visibility in the online environment.
Thinking the City
project which engages Bucharest teenagers (15–18 years) as a platform for excellence and capacity
A
building through a transdisciplinary approach. It builds on directing their creative energy towards
re‑thinking ‘living in a city’ and translating it into actions and practices that make ‘the living city’.
Its key element is the establishment of the Creative Urban Academy for teenagers. The Academy
will consist of three microhubs: the Urban Lab, the Creative Lab, and the High-Tech Lab. Specialists in
various fields include: Vlad Eftenie (photographer, architect), Vivi Drăgan Vasile (director of photogra‑
phy), Alexander Nanau (film director), Cătălin Cristuţiu (film editor), Cristian Teodorescu (writer), Sorin
Alexandrescu (semiotician), Vava Ştefănescu (choreographer), Peca Ştefan (playwright), Felix Alexa (the‑
atre director), Ioan Ianoşi (urban geography specialist). The Academy will function in two‑year cycles,
each cycle with 100 teenagers. In 2021 they will be commissioned to make projects under the banner
Bucharest — a creative city, to present in the Artopia programme.
Open Schools
ased on the idea of active intervention in the schools by direct involvement of pupils, teachers, facil‑
B
itators, visual artists and architects with the precise goal of transforming the physical space of 70
schools. Participatory art becomes a tool in the actual physical transformation of both the inside and the
outside and to opening the school to the community. The project is initiated by Komunitas Association
following a pilot project in 2015 at four schools in Bucharest and Ilfov County, funded by EEA Grants
Apart from these core projects, other relevant events that address young audiences are: Playgrounds of
Reality (p. 47), which addresses children of all age through immersive installations and is also designed as
a disability inclusive flagship event; associated projects such as Bucharest. Cooltural Adventure, Kinodiseea,
Golden Age Toys.
Education programme lead: B2021 and Bucharest Education Department (ISMB), Komunitas Association
Public partners: PROEDUS, Ilfov County Education Department (ISJI), National University of Arts Bucharest
UNArte, ‘I.L. Caragiale’ Theatre and Film University UNATC, Ion Mincu University of Architecture and
Urbanism UAUIM, National University of Music Bucharest, Student Council in Bucharest, Youth Council
Independent partners: Calea Victoriei Foundation, Da’DeCe Foundation, Dalcroze Foundation, De‑a
Arhitectura Foundation, Replika Education Theatre Centre, 111 Film & Entertainment Association,
Cartierul de Dans: Policolor, StudentPlot. International Partners: Fotokino Marseille (FR) Bibiana —
International House of Art for Children (SK), Ici-Même, Grenoble (FR), Royal Norwegian Embassy in
Bucharest, Centre for Community Organising of West Bohemia (CZ).
65
Audience
Development 2017–2021
3.
Explain your overall strategy for audience
development, and in particular the link with
education and the participation of schools.
The Audience Development Strategy will be an integrated approach linked to the following:
•
Community Outreach Strategy (the strategies used can be clearly related to the proposed strate‑
gic actions below);
•
Communications Strategy;
•
Capacity Development Platforms;
•
The Cultural Strategy;
•
B2021 Programme Strategy and Concept;
•
B2021 Spatial Strategy.
A
udience development addresses the issue of increasing the level of participation of citizens in cul‑
tural activities: we identify consumers, participants, and producers and we aim to increase on all
levels. The Cultural Barometer 2015 and the supplementary Neighbourhood Cultural Barometer (expected
2016) are key elements.
To increase the cultural offer in the city we must engage with existing cultural institutions and fes‑
tivals; stimulate change in the existing supply; supplement the existing cultural offer with new formats
generated by the ECoC process. Since this is mainly a product‑led strategy, the upcycling of the cultural
product is aimed mainly at challenging well‑established users to create a more intelligent user base which
can in fact drive the quality of the cultural sector.
Population
YOUNG 15–30
ADULT 31–50
MATURE/ELDERLY +50
28%
33%
38%
NON AND VERY SELDOM
USERS
23% (322,000)
B
C
A
2% (28,000)
6% (84,000)
15% (210,000)
Potential consumers
low level of education
low level of income
singles/ couples
low average level of education
low level of income
family members
low income
low/ medium education
singles or couples
Total estimated visits:
350.000
Estimated: 2 visits/ year
56,000
Estimated: 1 visit/ year
84,000
210,000
RATHER SELDOM USERS
38% (532,000)
B
C
A
10% (140,000)
15% (210,000)
13% (182,000)
low income
low/ medium education levels
single/ couples
low income
low/ medium education level
family members
low income
medium education levels
single or couples
Total estimated visits
672,000
280,000
Estimated: 1 visit/year
210,000
182,000
AVERAGE USERS
27% (378,000)
D
D
10% (140,000)
11% (154,000)
high level of education
medium/ low level of income
singles/ couples
medium/ high levels of education
medium high level of income
family members
952,000
420,000
308,000
RATHER FREQUENT USERS
11% (154,000)
F
F
4% (56,000)
5% (70,000)
low/ medium income
high education levels
singles/ couples
high education levels
medium/ high income levels
single/ couple/ familes
742,000
392,000
350,000
VERY FREQUENT USERS
2% (28,000)
F
Potential average
consumers and users
Potential frequent
consumers and users
Potential frequent
users and producers
Frequent users and producers
336,000
E
8% (112,000)
medium/ high level of education
medium level of income
single/ couples
224,000
2% (28,000)
high education level
low/ medium income
singles/ couples
336,000
TOTAL: 3,052,000
Total estimated visits: 4,800,000 (of which: Bucharest 3,050,000, Metropolitan Region 500,000, National 500,000, International 750,000)
66Outreach
It is also a question of an overall positioning of art and culture in the city and this requires a broad set
of communication‑driven campaigns to change mind‑sets and perspectives, which can be driven by the
ECoC title.
Based on an analysis summary from the 2015 Cultural Barometer, we can identify the follow‑
ing relevant approaches:
A socio‑economic/ age/ gender approach:
•
address the non-/seldom user groups (A, B, C)
•
major campaign will be launched to engage groups where there are multiple barriers
•
high‑visibility general campaigns linked to free events in public squares and parks, use of interven‑
tions which meet citizens where they are, e.g. public transport system
•
focused campaigns targeting specific segments: the young, families, adults, the elderly
•
partnerships with public authorities to address key employment groups, e.g. transport sector
•
strong partnerships with mass media is a key aspect
•
key ethnic and language groups will be addressed individually
A neighbourhood approach:
•
impact all user groups, but the prime target groups would be non/seldom/average users A, B, C, D.
•
based on the Neighbourhood Cultural Barometer (2016) — 32 neighbourhoods in the city
•
actions will concentrate in 18 neighbourhoods which house 80% of citizens in categories A, B, C
(non-/ seldom users)
•
campaigns over the four‑year period and in partnership with the six local district administrations;
•
linking to the cultural resources and potential activators in neighbourhoods
•
ECoC programmes in neighbourhood areas and linked to local networks and key multipliers includ‑
ing local schools, libraries, sports groups
•
each neighbourhood will be encouraged to develop an annual ‘Open Neighbourhood’ weekend
event to strengthen local identity, plus ‘Neighbourhood Map’ and ‘Neighbourhood Tours’
•
1st neighbourhood action as a test case planned for autumn 2017 in Drumul Taberei
A cultural approach:
•
key partners are cultural institutions, festivals with core audiences / categories D, E, F
•
actions based on widening the outreach of their institutions’ events and programmes
•
motivate users to increase level of activity and expand attention to other artists, fields, and formats
•
developing artistic product and linking to the B2021 project and programme, e.g. external activities
•
support cross marketing, cluster marketing and themed communications from B2021
•
most relevant for existing user groups, categories C, D, E, F
•
the core group (F) are key potential multipliers for B2021; engaging this group as ambassadors for
in the city, new cross -genre formats, allowing the independent sector to programme in institutions;
B2021 is a key strategy (e.g. annual pass / membership of B2021 club etc.)
•
increased advantage as B2021 is building on top of strong cultural events and platforms e.g. ARCUB
(400,000 visitors p.a.), the city theatres (300,000 visitors p.a.) and museums (400,000 visitors p.a.)
A communications approach:
•
setting the stage for a generally more positive attitude towards culture developing communica‑
tions channels to various key target groups, via mainstream and social media, group channels and
through artistic & cultural platforms
•
campaigns and actions which raise the cultural profile of the city/region and motivate users
•
developing targeted innovative communication channels for key target groups, themes, and clus‑
ters which can be adapted to various focus groups;
•
providing an integrated ticketing and information service in the city for local & international visi‑
tors, including various discounts e.g. students, pensioners, etc.;
•
developing and promoting a regional cultural pass linked with transport and events/institutions;
•
promoting a far wider and deeper perspective of the city as a cultural container, i.e. linking the
image of the city to culture, underlying a more dynamic and contemporary image.
67
Management
Finance
City budget for culture
1. a.
What has been the annual budget
for culture in the city over the last 5
years (excluding expenditure for the
present European Capital of Culture
application)?
W
e confirm the budget for Bucharest2021 is €75 m. This is based on the calculation of the level of
investment needed to ensure a substantial programme of quality, diversity, and geographical
distribution. The budget will secure sufficient investment over a period of six years, from 2017–2022. We
have also considered the size of the city, the levels of co‑financing from the sector as well as cost levels
and finally compared it to studies of other ECoC cities. The budget allocation has been readjusted for the
period 2017–2020 by some 10% to fit with programme requirements.
T
he city’s budget for culture is comprised of budgets from the Bucharest Municipality, which has the
overall responsibility for arts & culture of the city (this includes also: sports, recreation, religious
services, maintenance of city parks, historic monuments and public buildings), plus supplementary
budgets of the six District Municipalities, which have budgets for the same activities on the local level.
Table 1 shows the overall budgets for culture for the Municipality and the Districts. The overall
budget includes arts & culture plus sports, heritage, religious services, monuments, maintenance, invest‑
ments etc. In 2016 the overall budget for Bucharest is €301 m (13.14% of the city budget).
However the net budget for arts and culture is only €87 m (9.2% of the city budget). This budget
is for arts & culture alone, covering cultural institutions, programmes, events and activities, and is the
more relevant. The same combined budgets in 2016 for the six Districts are €153 m. for the overall cul‑
tural budget and only approximately €8.7 m for arts & culture.
The overall trend of the past five years indicates that whilst the overall budget for culture is stable
and adjusted for inflation, it is declining as a percentage of the city budget (from 15% to 12%). However,
the amount and percentage for arts and culture has increased significantly, from €48 m to €87 m in 2016,
owing to new priorities and initiatives in BCC. The budget increase in 2016 compared to 2015 was 1.14%.
The split between the budgets of the Bucharest Municipality and the six Districts as shown in
Table 1, clearly indicates that the operative budgets for arts and culture at a local and district level are
extremely limited.
The vast majority of the total budget for Bucharest for arts and culture is allocated directly to annual
fixed grants of 21 public institutions, (12 theatres/performance institutions, three museums, an Agency
for Monuments, the public libraries and three cultural centres, including ARCUB).
This shows that funds for any non‑institutional activity are extremely limited. The only source is
ARCUB’s fund for independent cultural projects established in 1996. This is around €1 m annually and
at present totally insufficient to cater for the funding initiatives and projects of the independent sector.
In 2016 budgetary funds were invested in piloting 55 projects related to the ECOC themes, which has
proved highly successful.
Table 1
Annual budget for culture in the city (Municipality & Districts) including
arts & culture, sport and recreation, maintenance of parks, public
buildings, heritage, monuments, restoration and investment, sports and
religious services (in Euros)
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
€233,976,140
€201,220,689
€211,628,973
€250,396,370
€301,025,621
% of the total annual budget for the city (Municipality & Districts)
14.43%
12.06%
12.00%
12.00%
13.14%
The annual cultural budget within Bucharest Municipality (in Euros)
€116,883,952
€94,059,516
€89,050,012
€112,274,104
€147,928,812
% of the total annual budget for the city
(Municipality & Districts)
7.16%
5.63%
5.16%
9.70%
15.68%
Total annual cultural budget within Bucharest Municipality including
only arts & culture: all public arts institutions, funding of activities,
festivals, cultural centres etc. (in Euros)
€46,813,723
€44,402,403
€57,547,899
€72,026,822
€87,011,211
2.87%
2.66%
3.33%
6.22%
9.22%
The annual cultural budget within District Municipalities (in Euros)
€117,092,188
€107,161,173
€122,578,961
€127,752,152
€153,096,809
7.18%
6.42%
7.00%
11.00%
11.36%
The annual cultural budget within District Municipalities including only
arts & culture: all public arts institutions, funding of activities, festivals,
cultural centres etc. (in Euros)
€7,049,625
€6,285,572
€7,189,907
€8,197,700
€8,716,955
0.43%
0.37%
0.41%
0.70%
0.65%
68Management
Capital
expenditure
T
able 2 shows the level of capital expenditure of the Bucharest Municipality and the Districts. This
amount fluctuates depending on current projects. In 2015 the Bucharest Municipality allocated in
its budget an investment of over €33 m, financed both from the local budget (€11 m) and from European
funds (€22 m). These funds were primarily directed to the restoration and refurbishment of ten muse‑
ums, theatres and architectural monuments in the city. In 2016 the allocation is €41 m.
Investment in new arts and cultural venues and spaces is extremely limited despite the obvious
need. The most important investment has been the total refurbishment of the 18th century Gabroveni
Inn, primarily supported by Norwegian funds (with a total budget of €8 m). This has created the first
open, multifunctional cultural centre for the city. It opened in January 2015 and is managed by ARCUB
as the platform for the ECoC bid.
Table 2
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
The total annual culture budget
within the city (in Euros)
€233,976,140
€201,220,689
€211,628,973
€250,396,370
€301,025,621
Capital Expenditure Bucharest Municipality
(in Euros)
€44,242,854
€23,546,363
€2,168,547
€11,564,337
€19,013,341
Capital Expenditure District Municipalities (in Euros)
€17,982,978
€11,010,751
€7,135,027
€24,166,380
€22,318,942
T
he process of active candidacy lasts three years (2014–2016). In 2014, €65,000 was allocated from
ARCUB’s annual budget for research and preparations of the Cultural Strategy and of the ECoC bid
process. In 2015, €500,000 was allocated from ARCUB’s annual budget and €300,000 is budgeted for 2016.
In total, €865,000. In addition, ARCUB has invested a further €950,000 in project grants, micro‑grants,
1. b.
In case the city is planning to use funds
from its annual budget for culture to finance
the European Capital of Culture project,
please indicate this amount starting from
the year of submission of the bid until
the European Capital of Culture year.
community schemes, educational workshops etc.
Table 3
2014
2015
2016
Supplementary budgets allocated
for implemented projects in 2016
Financing lines
The amount from the
annual city budget
allocated for ECoC
operative expenditures
(in Euros)
Status
(Allocated/Estimated)
€65,000
Allocated
€500,000
Allocated
€300,000
Ammounts
No. of Projects
ARCUB Open Call
700,000
55
Accelerator of Ideas
110,000
11
Microgrants for Communities
20,000
10
Piloted & Associated Projects
120,000
30
Total
950,000
106
Allocated
Allocated
The projections for the 2017–2022 budgets are based on current calculations, but obviously these
may need to be adjusted. The intention is that the Municipality’s contribution, accounting for 50% of the
budget, will cover preparation costs, marketing and communications, so there is a greater allocation of
its budget over the six years than that of the other public stakeholders, who are primarily co‑funding the
programme. The projected budget spread over 2017–2022 is to be allocated without reducing currently
allocated budgets for culture, underlying the wish to continue selected initiatives post 2021.
W
e have proposed to the city to allocate 15% of its annual budget to culture at a 3% increase on
the amounts invested over the last years. We expect that the city will adjust its priorities in cul‑
ture in 2021–2022 in connection with the evaluation of ECoC and in the context of a mid‑way review of
the Cultural Strategy.
Table 4
2022
The amount from the annual city budget (Municipality & Districts) estimated for culture after ECoC year (in Euros)
€270,000,000
% of the total annual budget of the city (Municipality & Districts)
estimated for culture after ECoC year
15%
% used to increase the investment in culture after ECoC year
3%
Status (Allocated/Estimated)
Estimated
69
1. c.
Which amount of the overall annual
budget does the city intent to spend
for culture after the European Capital
of Culture year (in euros and in %
of the overall annual budget)?
Operating budget
for the title year
2.
Income to cover operating expenditure:
2. a.
Please explain the overall operating
budget (i.e. funds that are specifically set
aside to cover operational expenditure).
The budget shall cover the preparation
phase, the year of the title, the evaluation
and provisions for the legacy activities.
F
or the ECoC’s operational activities we maintain a budget of €75 m to cover the six year span, 2017–
2022. After consultations with the public and private sectors, we estimate that 92% will be financed
by the public sector (the Municipality of Bucharest, the Districts, Ilfov County, the Ministry of Culture,
EU funds, the Melina Mercouri prize) and that 8% will come from the private sector (private fundraising,
sponsorships in cash or in kind, contributions, revenues from commercial activities).
Table 5
Income to cover operating expenditure
Euros
%
From the public sector
€69,000,000
92%
From the private sector
€6,000,000
8%
TOTAL
€
100%
75,000,000
Income from
the public sector
2. b.
What is the breakdown of the income
to be received from the public sector
to cover operating expenditure?
A
s initiator of the project, the Municipality has agreed to finance 50%, i.e. €37.5 m. This will cover
the whole administrative expenditure of €7.5 m, the communications budget of €15 m, as well as
20% of the programme budget with €15 m.
The contribution from the Districts is agreed at 12% of the budget, i.e. €9 m. Although there are
considerable differences in population and socio‑economic index in the six districts, it has been agreed
to split the financial responsibility equally. It is agreed that the funding of ECoC should not affect com‑
mitments to existing cultural budgets.
Given that Ilfov County is predominantly rural, with a significant number of low income and socially
imbalanced areas, the agreed financing level has been set at only 2% of the budget i.e. €1.5 m. However,
we expect a significant budgetary contribution from regional EU funds (see below).
There are individual signed protocols with all six Districts signed by the mayors and with Ilfov
County, signed by the president of the Regional Council, based on the provisional budgets and organi‑
sation plans.
We propose that the government contributes 20% of the budget i.e. €15 m. The Ministry of Culture
has issued a statement underlining its commitment to the programme, but has not as yet established the
principles for its commitment to ECoC2021, despite a collective proposal from all four‑candidate cities
sent in July 2016. We have kept our initial budget proposal.
Table 6
Income from the public sector to cover operating expenditure
2. c.
Have the public finance authorities (City,
Region, State) already voted on or made
financial commitments to cover operating
expenditure? If not, when will they do so?
70Management
Estimated
(in Euros)
Estimated
(in % from the
total budget)
Ministry of Culture
€15,000,000
20%
Bucharest Municipality
€37,500,000
50%
12%
District Municipalities
€9,000,000
Ilfov County
€1,500,000
2%
The Melina Mercouri Prize
€1,500,000
2%
EU Funds (excepting the Melina Mercouri Prize)
€4,500,000
6%
TOTAL
€69,000,000
92%
T
he City of Bucharest, the Municipality and Districts have all agreed to the main elements of the bid,
including overall programme lines, budget and organisational framework.
EU
funding
T
he City of Bucharest and Ilfov County have established a strategic partnership: the Bucharest‑Ilfov
Agency for Regional Development (BIARD), which administers strategic funds on both the national
and European level. We have already had a series of meetings to discuss relevant themes and initiatives.
2. d.
What is your fund raising strategy to seek
financial support from Union programmes/
funds to cover operating expenditure?
On the basis of a thorough analysis of the current EU programme 2014–2020, we are confident of
the proposed level of funding, in particular after further development of the projects. The estimated
budget that can be covered from European Funding is estimated at €4.5 m, a €1.5 m increase on the first
application.
The BICRD manages the European Union INTERREG and Social Funds for the period 2014–2020. Within
this, there are three strategic aims and four main funding streams that are relevant for Bucharest2021.
There are two main programmes: POR Regional Operational Fund and POCU Operational Programme
for Human Capital.
•
Supporting entrepreneurship / creative industries
•
Developing a strong regional culture tourism strategy incl, heritage
•
Supporting a renewal of management practice of public authorities
•
Supporting selected urban infrastructure, which increases mobility, public access to recreation
etc. and urban sustainability (incl. heritage sites)
Relevant funding streams include:
•
A programme to develop the skills, networks and positioning of young entrepreneurs. This could
mainly co‑finance the independent sector in the pre‑2021 capacity development programme as well
as projects that support long‑term sustainable initiatives;
•
A major regional cultural tourism investment plan with specific strategies to increase public access
by public transport, bike routes, etc. to an integrated network of locations in and around the city.
There are also budget lines for regional and European marketing initiatives;
•
The development of a portfolio of tourist attractions in a network that could work together with the
regional tourism operators and agencies. This could encompass both the potential of traditional
crafts, heritage, architecture and nature based attractions, but also festivals and events with a clear
contemporary profile, with the aim to link the strategy to young and culturally active city visitors;
•
The improvement of management of public authorities and public institutions as well as provid‑
ing skill‑development programmes for managers — programmes to support management and mar‑
keting positions.
Table 7
Potential EU funding
Relevant EU programmes
Budget
(in Euros)
EU Funds
(in Euros)
Cultural Tourism Strategy and Action Plan
(incl. capacity development, info/ servicing/ partnerships/
marketing. Includes also to built and cultural heritage aspects
2017–2021
€1,500,000
€475,000
1. Horizon 2020/ P1
2. POR Regional Operational Programme/ Priority 2.1
3. POR Regional Operational Programme/ Priority 5.1
4. EEA & Norway Grants
Capacity Development Programme
for cultural sector/ institutions and NGOs 2017–2021
€3,150,000
€1,000,000
1. Horizon 2020/ P1
2. POR — Regional Operational Programme/ Priority 2.1
3. POCU — Operational Programme for Human Capital
4. URBACT/ Phase 1
Creative Education Programme
for primary and High Schools 2017–2021/ 75 schools
€1,800,000
€1,000,000
2. ERASMUS +
3. Europe for Citizens
4. POCU — Operational Programme for Human Capital/ Priority 6
EURoma programme
with 5 projects incl. social inclusion, creative learning and EU
capacity development project
€1,170,000
€500,000
1. Horizon 2020/ Cult Coop/Participatory Approaches & Social
Innovation in Culture
2. Horizon 2020/ SC6 Europe in a changing world
3. Creative Europe
5. UIA Urban Innovation Actions
Balkan Innovation
projects with design architecture, digital media/ 3 projects
€3,000,000
€1,000,000
1. DTP Danube Transnational Programme/ Priority 1
2. POCU — Operational Programme for Human Capital/ Priority 6
Greentopia,
with 5 major projects e.g. Vacaresti Natural Park, The Smart River
(green and circular economy)
€1,850,000
€250,000
1. DTP Danube Transnational Programme/ Priority 2
Soft Infrastructure
Mobile non‑permanent use of industrial heritage buildings
€500,000
€250,000
1. POR– Regional Operational Programme/ Priority 5.1
2. URBACT/ Phase 1
Living LAB
Circular Economy Project developed with the University of
Economy
€45,000
€25,000
1. UIA Urban Innovation Actions
8 Key Programmes/Projects
€13,015,000
€4,500,000
71
Secondly, there is also funding potential regarding the Balkan/ Danube INTERREG Programmes 2014–
2020 which have clear links to Bucharest2021 initiatives regarding arts, culture, heritage and tourism.
Thirdly, we plan to develop and support applications for a number of European network‑based cul‑
tural projects via the Creative Europe Programme 2014–2020 as well as other core funding streams e.g.
Horizon 2020, Erasmus and Europe for Citizens.
Fourthly, we have contacted EEA and Norway grant management (as the transformation of ARCUB
and the proposed base for B2021 was primarily funded by EEA/Norway grants) and we have included
them in three relevant projects.
2. e.
According to what timetable should the
income to cover operating expenditure
be received by the city and/or the body
responsible for preparing and implementing
the ECoC project if the city receives the
title of European Capital of Culture?
W
e refer to the table below which outlines the necessary funding timetable, based on our projected
programme build up and pre‑programme as well as our detailed admin and marketing budgets
for the same period.
Table 8
Income from the public sector to cover
operating expenditure
Estimated
(in Euros)
Estimated
(in % from the
total budget)
€37,500,000
50.0%
Distribution per year
(in % of the total amount for each institution)
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
5.6%
7.4%
12.9%
23.3%
37.3%
13.6%
€9,000,000
12.0%
6.8%
6.8%
16.2%
22.8%
34.7%
12.8%
Ilfov County
€1,500,000
2.0%
6.4%
6.4%
16.2%
22.7%
35.3%
13.0%
Ministry of Culture
€15,000,000
20.0%
6.4%
6.4%
16.2%
22.7%
35.3%
13.0%
The Melina Mercouri prize
€1,500,000
2.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
100.0%
0.0%
EU Funds (excepting the Melina Mercouri prize)
€4,500,000
6.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
100.0%
0.0%
Commercial sponsorship, private funds and initiatives
€6,000,000
8.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
100.0%
0.0%
TOTAL
€75,000,000
100.0%
Income from
the private sector
2. f.
What is the fund raising strategy to seek
support from private sponsors? What is the
plan for involving sponsors in the event?
W
e estimate that 8% i.e. €6,000,000 of the Bucharest2021 budget will come from the private sec‑
tor, as follows:
•
Business Partnerships € 2.5 m
•
A new Business in the Community Fund : € 1.0 m
•
International and national foundations € 1.5 m
•
Commercial income: tickets sales and advertising
€ 0.5 m
•
Project driven funding initiatives, e.g. crowd funding € 0.5 m
Sponsorship and business engagement in the arts and cultural life in the city has been developed over
the past 20 years in Bucharest, which has a key position in Romania and South Eastern Europe as the
base for many multinational as well as major national companies.
The format for arts and business collaboration is based on models used in the USA and in Europe
(marketing and facility resource based) and this has indeed created a base model, which is ready to be
expanded and developed further. This potential is closely linked to the positioning of Bucharest in a highly
competitive regional market, where Bucharest is a clear leader and driver for the Romanian economy.
We have confirmed this model with the Romanian Business Leaders Association who represent
most of the relevant businesses and have agreed on a partnership agreement to co‑manage a new Arts
& Business Platform.
The model allows a broad coalition of businesses to be involved. (See table). This includes both the
traditional key partners (main sponsors) and Project Partners together with Strategic Partners, who can
be proactive in participating in project development. Finally, we have decided to launch a Community
Partners scheme to attract investment in local communities / neighbourhoods on a 50/50 basis with ECoC
funding. The model is open for adaptation while offering a structured approach. We have opted for an
inclusive model, which allows a range of companies and associations to participate.
“In kind” support will also be important to the implementation of Bucharest2021 and this will
include equipment, know‑how, services (accommodation, domestic and international travel and trans‑
portation, communications, technical equipment, advertising space, IT equipment, office space, etc.).
72Management
Table 9
Business partnership programs
Bucharest2021
Partner
Bucharest2021
Service Partner
Bucharest2021
Strategic partner
Bucharest2021
Project Partner
Bucharest2021
Community partner
Maximum 10 businesses which
will commit to long term
partnership. One business from
each key sector e.g banking.
Insurance, industry, IT.
A range of companies which will
provide resources, equipment,
hotel accommodation,
transportation, advertising
& media, legal & financial
services, materials etc. for the
Bucharest2021 Association and
projects. Companies’ advantage
is to present their business to a
large potential of customers &
consumers
With a potential 150 projects
festivals, exhibitions, etc. there
will be a range of projects which
have strong appeal for a large
number of companies which align
to concept, target venues, public
profile etc.
With a potential 150 projects
festivals, exhi‑bitions, etc. there
will be a range of projects which
have strong ap‑peal for a large
number of companies which align
to concept, target venues, public
profile etc.
With a clear focus on
neigh‑bourhoods, there is a great
interest to engage & support local
initiatives. The scheme is open
for all businesses and with a low
participation fee
€
€
€
50,000 per company
€
10,000–25,000 per project
€5,000
€500,000
€
750,000
€1,000,000
100,000 per company
€500,000
50,000 per partner
€750,000
We are already in direct contact with businesses and key partners will be presented at the ECoC visit.
We also have a significant number of companies who are prepared to join the partnership programmes.
We will encourage the business sector also to engage with ideas and projects as part of the annual
Open Lab funding scheme and to propose projects relevant to Bucharest2021 themes. These initiatives
can have maximum 50% support from public funding / ECoC.
We plan to establish an online Bucharest2021 Business Forum, where the private sector can inter‑
act, and matchmake with Bucharest2021 project as well as identify joint projects, according to their com‑
pany profile. The involvement of the private sector will strengthen the project regarding communica‑
tion and public engagement, attracting political support, guaranteeing credibility and independence of
action.
Table 10
Operating expenditure per activity
Euros
%
Programme expenditure
€52,500,000
70%
Promotion & marketing
€15,000,000
20%
Wages, overheads & administration
€7,500,000
10%
Total of the operating expenditure
€
75,000,000
100%
Table 11
Timetable
for spending
Programme
expenditure
(in Euros)
Programme
expenditure
(in %)
Promotion &
marketing
(in Euros)
Promotion &
marketing
(in %)
Wages. overheads
& administration
(in Euros)
Wages. overheads
& administration
(in %)
2017
€2,625,000
3.5%
€52’5,000
0.7%
€600,000
0.8%
2018
€2,625,000
3.5%
€1,050,000
1.4%
€750,000
1.0%
2019
€6,562,500
8.8%
€1,500,000
2.0%
€900,000
1.2%
2020
€9,189,500
12.3%
€3,825,000
5.1%
€1,500,000
2.0%
2021
€26,250,000
35.0%
€6,075,000
8.1%
€2,625,000
3.5%
2022
€5,250,000
7.0%
€2,025,000
2.7%
€1,125,000
1.5%
TOTAL
€52,502,000
70.0%
€15,000,000
20.0%
€7,500,000
10%
73
3.
Operating expenditures:
3. a.
Please provide a breakdown of the operating
expenditure, by filling in the table below.
3. b.
Planned timetable for spending
operating expenditure.
Programme
budget
T
he total programme budget is €52.5m. In Table 12 we have given an overview of the allocation by
year and by programme / activity.
The programme included in the bid book has a budget of €25,2 m, approx. 50% of the total pro‑
gramme budget. We have decided to cap the budget allocation at this stage, primarily to allow a logical
build‑up of the programme over the next years in a strategic plan of the open process led by the Open
Lab and the Curators. There is also the consideration of avoiding over budgeting at this stage, and finally,
there is a consideration of ensuring updated programme content and allowing the artistic director &
team to develop the programme.
We have calculated costs for the individual projects and ensured a 10% reserve in each budget. We
give in Table 12 an overview of the three themes and the 12 programmes clusters with the 75 projects at
this stage.
We specify both the ECoC budget as well as the brutto budgets, which include partner contribu‑
tions from their own budgets/funds and also external funding which they can access. We have generally
expected a minimum of 50% co‑financing from institutional partners (where ECoC only funds additional
costs) and 25% from NGOs. This is however, only a general guideline. For more experimental and com‑
munity projects / youth projects etc.. with little or no access to additional funding, the allocated budg‑
ets are higher. The brutto programme budget for this phase is calculated at €25,2 m. Similarly we have
tentatively budgeted the same amount for the second period of ECoC bringing the total brutto budget
to around €52,5m.
Approximately 50% of the programme budget is allocated to 2021 and 9,5% is allocated to 2022,
which includes a general reserve as well as funds to facilitate a continuation of the key projects in a tran‑
sition year.
2017
Table 12
Programme Budget
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
Total
Programme Phase 1 Bid Book Themes:
Lost & Found
Peripheries
Microtopia
Core Projects
€110,000
€360,000
€590,000
€840,000
€3,035,000
€4,935,000
Asociated Projects
€60,000
€60,000
€80,000
€80,000
€320,000
€600,000
Accelerator
€30,000
€30,000
€30,000
€30,000
€30,000
€150,000
Arcub Open Call
€50,000
€50,000
€50,000
€50,000
€115,000
€315,000
Total Theme 1
€250,000
€500,000
€750,000
€1,000,000
€3,500,000
€6,000,000
Core Projects
€120,000
€370,000
€620,000
€870,000
€3,135,000
€5,115,000
Asociated Projects
€100,000
€100,000
€100,000
€100,000
€335,000
€735,000
Accelerator
€20,000
€20,000
€20,000
€20,000
€20,000
€100,000
Arcub Open Call
€10,000
€10,000
€10,000
€10,000
€10,000
€50,000
Total Theme 2
€250,000
€500,000
€750,000
€1,000,000
€3,500,000
€6,000,000
Core Projects
€90,000
€220,000
€450,000
€1,020,000
€3,180,000
€4,960,000
Asociated Projects
€70,000
€150,000
€170,000
€350,000
€685,000
€1,425,000
Arcub Open Call
€50,000
€90,000
€90,000
€90,000
€95,000
€415,000
Accelerator
€40,000
€40,000
€40,000
€40,000
€40,000
€200,000
Total Theme 3
€250,000
€500,000
€750,000
€1,500,000
€4,000,000
€7,000,000
€200,000
€350,000
€350,000
€400,000
€500,000
€1,800,000
Education & Community Projects
€450,000
€600,000
€700,000
€700,000
€700,000
€3,150,000
European Debate Platform
€90,000
€90,000
€90,000
€90,000
€140,000
€500,000
€120,000
€120,000
€120,000
€120,000
€270,000
€750,000
Total
€860,000
€1,160,000
€1,260,000
€1,310,000
€1,610,000
€6,200,000
Total Phase 1
€1,610,000
€2,660,000
€3,510,000
€4,810,000
€12,610,000
Eurocity Residencies
€0
€25,200,000
Programme Phase 2:
Budget Open Lab
€540,000
€790,000
€750,000
€1,000,000
€0
€3,080,000
Ecoc Partnerships
€50,000
€250,000
€290,000
€590,000
€2,640,000
€3,820,000
€500,000
€2,000,000
€2,500,000
Lost & Found
€500,000
€500,000
€3,000,000
€4,000,000
Peripheries
€500,000
€500,000
€3,000,000
€4,000,000
Official Openings Etc.
Projects Phase 2
Microtopia
Total Phase 2
€590,000
€1,040,000
€500,000
€500,000
€3,000,000
€2,540,000
€3,590,000
€13,640,000
€4,000,000
€0
€21,400,000
Budget Reserve
€0
€0
€0
€0
€0
€5,000,000
€5,000,000
Total Programme Budget
€2,200,000
€3,700,000
€6,050,000
€8,400,000
€26,250,000
€5,000,000
€51,600,000
74Management
The pre ECoC year programme budget is calculated at 5% in 2017, 5% in 2108, 12.5% in 2019, and
17.5% in 2020. These budgets allow financing for the annual Open Lab, which will generate prototypes
and pilot projects requiring funding, as well as R&D, pre‑production, production / coproduction.
These budgets will also secure ongoing programmes such as the European Platforms as well as the
pre‑programmes concentrated in 2019 and 2020.
Budget for staff
and preparation costs
Table 13
Breakdown of staff and admin
costs
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
Total
303,800
597,800
882,000
1,185800
1,313,200
607,600
4,890,200
Staff Overhead Costs (2.500 Euros P.p.)
38,750
76,250
112,500
151,250
167,500
77,500
623,750
Meetings, Seminar, Workshops
25,000
25,000
25,000
25,000
25,000
25,000
150,000
International Travel, Meetings Etc.
15,000
20,000
30,000
75,000
50,000
15,000
205,000
International Visits/ Meetings Bucharest
20,000
25,000
50,000
75,000
100,000
200,000
470,000
Consultants/ Advsiors
20,000
25,000
25,000
25,000
20,000
20,000
135,000
Communications/ Internet Etc
10,000
10,000
10,000
15,000
200,000
10,000
255,000
External Accountants, Legal Adv.
25,000
25,000
25,000
25,000
25,000
25,000
150,000
Board, 2017 Forum, Business Platform
15,000
25,000
25,000
25,000
25,000
10,000
125,000
Evaluation/ Monitoring
50,000
50,000
50,000
50,000
50,000
100,000
350,000
Facilities & Hub
12,500
12,500
12,500
25,000
25,000
12,500
100,000
Total Admin Costs
231,250
293,750
365,000
491,250
687,500
495,000
2,563,750
Total Staff & Admin Costs
535,050
891,550
1,247,000
1,677,050
2,000,700
1,102,600
7,453,950
64,950
-141,550
-347,000
-177,050
624,300
22,400
4,6050
600,000
750,000
900,000
1,500,000
2,625,000
1,125,000
7,500,000
Total Staff Budget
Project Contingency/ Reserve
Total Budget
Investment in
Infrastructure
T
here is no specific budget for investment in infrastructure in Bucharest2021 budget and it is not fore‑
seen that grants will be received by Bucharest2021 to cover these capital expenses. As the ECoC pro‑
gramme has long underlined, all public investment in projects linked to the ECoC should not be man‑
aged by the ECoC management, but rather by the Municipality, the Districts, the National Government
4.
Budget for capital expenditure:
4. a.
What is the breakdown of the income
to be received from the public sector
to cover capital expenditure in
connection with the title year?
or by separate consortia of individual projects.
T
he Bucharest Municipality is currently revising Bucharest Urban Master Plan 2015–2035. This cov‑
ers the overall infrastructure projects planned and is expected to include a number of projects rel‑
evant for ECoC. Under this plan each individual project must be followed up by a specific budget pro‑
4. b.
Have the public finance authorities (City,
Region, State) already voted on or made
financial commitments to cover capital
expenditure? If not, when will they do so?
posal to the City Council. We will make an update in time for the panel visit.
O
ne of the strategic objectives of the Bucharest–Ilfov Council for Regional Development BIRCD con‑
cerns a major regional cultural tourism investment plan with specific aims to facilitate public access
to transport and bike routes as part of an integrated network. Cultural venues and facilities are being
4. c.
What is your fund raising strategy to seek
financial support from Union programmes/
funds to cover capital expenditure?
researched at present in negotiations with the city’s Chief Architect Department in connection with the
Bucharest Urban Master Plan. We will make an update in time for the panel visit.
T
75
he budget of Bucharest Municipality has been allocated to the PIDU/ Urban Chambers Project. This
is in implementation between 2016–2020.
4. d.
If appropriate, please insert a table here
that specifies which amounts will be
spent for new cultural infrastructure to be
used in the framework of the title year.
76Management
Organisational Structure
T
he question of the organisation of Bucharest2021 has been addressed from three perspectives:
•
The establishment of a formal legal structure for the ECoC project, Bucharest2021 in the
period 2017–2022;
•
The practical, logistical, organisational, management structure of the project;
•
The linking and anchoring of the Bucharest2021 organisation to the community, to
Bucharest2021 projects, to stakeholders, etc.
The Bucharest2021 Association
W
1.
What kind of governance and
delivery structure is envisaged
for the implementation of the
European Capital of Culture year?
2.
How will this structure be organised
at management level? Please make
clear who will be the person(s)
having the final responsibility for
global leadership of the project?
e have maintained the proposed non‑profit formal structure from the first bid, which both
addresses the formal legal considerations in Romania and also takes into account the experi‑
ences and practice of many ECoC cities.
The formal structure of the Association (see diagram on p. 80) has three levels: the Association
Committee, the Board, the Management.
3.
How will you ensure that this
structure has the staff with the
appropriate skills and experience to
plan, manage and deliver the cultural
programme for the year of the title?
The Association Committee (AC) will be established by the founding members (public stakehold‑
ers) and representatives from the cultural sector, civil society and the business sector. There will be a
proportionate balance of members from these sectors in the membership and we will limit the number
of members to 100.
Membership will also be open, and members will be required to document their relevance and com‑
4.
How will you make sure that there is
an appropriate cooperation between
the local authorities and this structure
including the artistic team?
petence. In the light of the focus on ensuring transparency and independence, this is a key factor. The
Association will de facto act as an open platform of dialogue between various communities and sectors
in the city. We see this as a strategic step to engage the city and citizens in the process.
The Association will be comprised of the following types of representative
The founding members of the Association, including the City of Bucharest, the six Districts of Bucharest,
the County of Ilfov, the Regional Association Bucharest–Ilfov, and a broad representation of the cultural
institutions and the independent cultural sector, the business community, tourism, media, education,
and civil society.
The Association will have three main responsibilities:
•
To elect the Governing Board; to set up and monitor a robust system of control for administrative,
legal and financial procedures; to oversee annual plans and budgets; to verify annual accounts and
reports presented by the CEO and the Board.
The Governing Board is the strategic hub of the project, having a clear role in the overall development,
structuring, and delivery of the project.
The Board will be recruited and appointed by the Association Committee. The 15 members will be
recruited as follows:
•
Public stakeholders (5), including the City Council/ Mayor (3), the Ilfov County Region (1), the
Districts (1);
•
Cultural institutions (3) at city and state level, including ARCUB, the Romanian Cultural Institute,
museums & performing arts sector, heritage, universities;
•
NGOs, the independent and civil sectors (3), including the arts, architecture & urbanism sectors,
civil society platforms, performing arts sector, environment sector;
•
The business sector (3), including tourism, media, and finance sectors.
The Board will meet quarterly and have the following main functions:
•
To appoint the management team — the CEO, the Programme Director (PD) and the Administrative
Director (AD) — on the basis of an international open call and a consultation process with inde‑
pendent advisors;
•
To verify overall strategic decisions concerning staff and organisation, programmes, marketing,
finance and resources based on the CEO & PD's proposals;
•
To ensure good relationships with stakeholders and key partners;
•
To control the budget, timelines, and ensure that the organisation is functioning well.
77
5.
According to which criteria and
under which arrangements have
the general director and the artistic
director been chosen — or will be
chosen? What are — or will be — their
respective profiles? When will they
take up the appointment? What will
be their respective fields of action?
A Transition Structure
A
n important aspect of securing a stable structure is to secure the transition between the applicant
structure and the implementation body. The recent history of the ECoC initiative has seen a num‑
ber or problematic transitions and we see this as a potential danger.
We are proposing that ARCUB have an extended mandate for a maximum of 12 months. This will
allow sufficient time to appoint the board and to make a call for directors. In this way, legislative restric‑
tions on the allocation and spending of public funds will not prevent the implementation of the project.
At the same time, it will ensure that the synergy of the process is not disregarded, that continued
development of projects can be ensured, and that the second Open Lab can be held. It will also secure
the implementation of the First Phase of the Cultural Strategy, i.e. the Bucharest2021 platform for capac‑
ity development.
Project Leadership
W
e have decided to maintain the project directorship with three key persons: a CEO having the
overall responsibility for the project, supported by an Admin Director and a Programme Director.
These are linked appointments, as individual skillsets and profiles must be complementary and matched
to ensure an optimal senior management team.
Ideally all appointments should be made by the Board after a process based on an open interna‑
tional call plus a closely scrutinised process, supported by an external management consultancy.
CEO
Programme Director
AD
The CEO will have the overall responsibility for the project
and be directly responsible to the Board of Governors.
The appointed CEO should have:
The PD will be the driver of the project and must have a
minimum ten‑year working experience at an international
level and with a profile that matches the ethos and profile
of Bucharest2021. The appointed PD should:
The AD will secure the delivery of the project and be
responsible for securing the organisation of the financial
and communicative platform for the project. The AD
should have:
Proven ability to have managed a major institution
or company at CEO level for a minimum of 10 years,
with strategic and analytical competence which covers
organisation, finance, and business;
Act as spokesperson and chair for the Curatorium; the
PD must be open, collaborative, communicative and able
to build enthusiasm and engage the artistic and cultural
sector in a common vision;
Minimum ten‑year experience of managing and developing
major organisations or institutions in Romania; the
AD needs to have worked in the cultural, media, or
educational sectors;
A clear commitment and support of the ethos and
ambitions of Bucharest2021 and the ECoC programme,
knowledge of Romanian legislation in the field;
Have a clear international profile with strong relevant
networks and have proven ability of curating and
managing the delivery of major international cultural and
arts projects within a broad cultural format;
Relevant networks on a city and national level, with public
administration, city and regional political structures, and
media;
Strong communication skills, be able to represent
Bucharest2021 in the media, in a political and cultural
context, locally and internationally;
Have the ability to manage large project budgets and
the delivery and production of complex and ambitios
programmes;
Proven internal management skills which can ensure an
affective, open, and responsive organisation that can
deliver major projects and programmes;
Ability to develop and lead an open, innovative and
dynamic organisation;
Have knowledge of the ECoC programme, the ability to
work strategically, and link the ECoC to the long‑term
cultural development of the city;
Strategic communications and marketing skills, and
excellent contacts in the media;
Broad knowledge of the cultural and media sector, and of
operating in an environment subject to a context with a
high degree of public scrutiny;
Have the ability to work with broad and innovative artistic
formats, and work across all art forms and sectors;
Experience in working with the business community and
the commercial sector;
Strong and relevant networks at local, national, and
international levels, e.g. political, cultural, educational,
and business.
Have experience working at the community level and
with vulnerable social groups, insight in the local cultural
situation and the context of the bid in Bucharest.
High standards of ethics and morals, be a natural problem
solver and mediator. To identify with the aims of the
Bucharest2021 bid.
The Role of the Curatorium
A
•
nother key factor in our model will be the role of a Curatorium as the programme driver.
In the second phase we continued working with a Curatorium. Twelve curators were engaged for
the three programme themes, with three lead curators and curators working with cross cutting
themes of community engagement, education, and minorities.
•
These were appointed via an open call in January 2016. The model has functioned extremely well
and has secured both strong links and credibility with the cultural sector and also produced a robust
process, which ultimately finally secured strong content.
•
We also strengthened the European curators’ role and worked with 12 invited curators (ECoC,
European networks, key artistic fields). This has also worked extremely well, with their role of
support for local curators and strong links to Europe. Their contribution can also be seen in spe‑
cific projects as (co-)curators.
78Management
We are therefore proposing a Curatorium as the driver of the project: 12 local curators and 12 European
curators. They will work in teams and on themes, and also in tandem. The local curators will take the
lead; they can be part‑time initially, but full‑time from 2019. The European curators will have part‑time
roles, and commit to three‑day full Curatorium sessions quarterly, as well as working individually.
•
We have discussed this with the present and past members and we are pleased to say that we have
a commitment from our Curatorium.
•
We are convinced that this model can also create a solid basis for Bucharest2021, signal a clear
artistic direction, and maintain an open dialogue with the Bucharest and European cultural scene.
•
We see the Curatorium as part development agent, part curatorial and artistic committee evalu‑
ating incoming proposals. We see the Programme Director acting as the ‘chair/ spokesman of the
Curatorium’.
External Relations with Stakeholders
T
•
he relation with the City will be key, as will be relations with the six Districts and Ilfov County. This
builds on several elements:
The public stakeholders will be part to the Association and be allocated five out of 15 seats on the
board at a political level. This will secure ongoing strategic links. The role of the deputy chair will
be taken by one of the political representatives from the Bucharest City Council (CGMB).
•
The existing protocols with each of the stakeholders will be renewed and will include all relevant
points in the partnership agreement. The deadline is January 1, 2017.
•
They will not only include direct financial contribution, but also agreement for partnership level
use of public space and parks, use of facilities, participation of key institutions etc. The protocols
will be a rolling document, updated every six months and ratified by the Bucharest2021 Board.
•
Stakeholders will take part in task forces, committing themselves to participate via the relevant
departments.
•
Bucharest2021 will set up a Department for Strategic/ External Relations to manage ongoing con‑
tacts, task forces, and protocol agreements.
•
Annual reports will be forwarded to all stakeholders with financial reports, revised budgets (every
January, starting with January 2017). There will also be interim reports every six months ( July), with
updates. More, there will be Council meetings to supplement the reports.
Projects and Project Management
W
e do not aim to build a major producing organisation. This would in fact be counterproductive in
the long run. We believe that this undermines the commitment to ensuring that the programme
is, in fact, driven by the city.
We aim to keep Bucharest2021 as a lightweight structure, with a strategic and creative focus, initi‑
ating, supporting, facilitating processes, coordinating, communicating, and also monitoring — enabling
partners and institutions.
The vast majority of projects will be implemented by external organisations and institutions or part‑
nerships — we estimate a minimum of 70%. This is also, in fact, capacity development in action. We are,
however, aware that Bucharest2021 will instigate large, specific projects, and this would be best solved
in a partnership with experienced producers in the city, with ARCUB as a key partner. This model will be
more efficient, will save resources, and also avoid the possibility of unnecessary competition.
Management Teams
T
he main tasks of any ECoC management team include six divisions: programme & production; finance
& budget control, marketing & communications, business & sponsorship, evaluation, external/ stra‑
tegic relations & international relations.
•
We envisage the usual vertical structure of management teams, complemented by an internal struc‑
ture of teams working with the three programme themes as a horizontal structure.
•
Around each theme we would cluster programmers, administrative and financial staff, marketing
and communications.
We believe that this double axis will secure a greater shared responsibility, a larger degree inte‑
grated decision‑making and a greater degree of flexibility.
79
Municipality
Districts
Region
Cultural Sphere:
Institutions
Independent Sector
Individuals
Public Institutions
Cultural & Educational
Business Entities:
Chamber of Commerce
Romanian Business
Leaders
B2021 BOARD
CEO
Programme
Director
Administrative
Director
Permanent
task forces
Curatorium/
Artistic Council
(RO–EU)
Local Authorities
Programme
and Project Dpt.
Tourism
Finance, Legal,
Administrative,
HR Dpt.
Communications
Dpt.
Business
Community
Infrastructure
Evaluation
European &
International
Relations.
External Projects and partners
2017
2018
2019
Admin & Policy
3
6
7
Finance
1
2
5
Number of
staff per dpt.
per year
2020
2021
2022
Total
8
8
7
39
8.5
11
6
33.5
1.5
5.5
8
14
15
4
48
Programme
2
6
11
14
14
3
50
Office Support
2
5
5
7
10
5
34
Curatorium
6
6
9
9
9
6
45
15.5
30.5
45
60.5
67
31
249.5
Communications
Total
Advisory Task Forces
W
e see a continued role for a number of externally resourced task forces as to ensure engagement
of key sectors of the community and to sustain collaboration. It underlines participation, common
ownership and also ensures access to both networks, knowledge, and resources. It is also for Romania,
a welcome relief to more formal structures and underlines an intention to work with an open, matrix
model, where informal partnerships can be supportive. In particular, the business sector has encour‑
aged us to actively involve the private sector. Similarly, the sectors of public education, in particular,
the universities, have applauded the notion of creating forums for common actions, as well as partici‑
pating on an individual level.
We propose 7 key task forces (see diagram), with the possibility to set up ad hoc additional TFs as
appropriate.
80Management
1.
Have you carried out/ planned
a risk assessment exercise?
2.
What are the main strengths and
weaknesses of your project?
Contingency Planning
O
ur general approach to securing a stable project has been to address these issues in all aspects of
the project proposal and integrate our risk assessment into the bid.
Firstly, we have opted for an ongoing proactive monitoring strategy, which will continually reflect
on key issues and challenges which ought to be addressed. Secondly, working in a matrix organisation
will secure maximum flow of information and will allow issues to be addressed from various perspec‑
3.
How are you planning to overcome
weaknesses, including with the
use of risk mitigation and planning
tools, contingency planning etc.?
tives. Thirdly, the Bucharest2021 platform will increase the sector’s organizational capacity to deliver,
provide the methods and technical solutions to maximize management procedures. Fourthly, the part‑
nership with ARCUB will reduce production‑related risk, as will the decentralization of the programme.
Fifthly, we have also opted for a strong pre‑programme 2017–2020 precisely in order to develop a
resilient delivery structure, develop audiences and content. Finally, we have built in reserves/ contin‑
gency at all levels of the budget and commitment to projects and programme will be made incrementally
to avoid risk of over commitment. We have edited the SWOT to address the key risk issues:
S
strengths
A strong base and cultural hub for the project in the city centre.
A strong Curatorium and considerable relevant input and support from the cultural sector into the programme. More than 140 local
cultural and civil organisations are participating and investment of funds into projects is already providing results.
Engaging from the beginning many key external stakeholders and partners to secure authentic content and viable project proposals
and partnerships for the ECoC process and to build a level of independence and trust.
Growing support from citizens, civil society and the media, who have supported the ECoC process and vision in public debates.
Concept and themes which already prove to be highly relevant, engaging and motivating.
A project that focuses on positioning citizens as the voice city and engaging predominantly young audiences.
W
weaknesses
Traditionally poor collaboration between the City and District Municipalities.
The lack of a cultural strategy and of cultural tourism.
Poor dialogue between public, private, and independent cultural sectors.
Weak engagement of citizens in dialogues and public debates.
Low level of active cultural participation.
We will address these weaknesses as follows:
The local elections in June 2016 have secured a more cohesive political situation.
We have opted for a culturally driven process lead by a strong partner. We believe we can maintain and build synergy and not
implode after the bid, as seen in many other ECoC selected cities.
We intend to set up a neutral, independent, and open management structure to avoid direct conflict at the political level.
We have invited the independent and institutional sectors to work together.
In reality, the lack of a tourism or branding strategy for the city gives the freedom to develop both a clear ECoC profile and cultural
tourism as a viable alternative. A partnership between the City (the Tourism Association) and ECoC is under negotiation.
We have allied ourselves with proven pioneers and respected NGOs to support and build long‑term relationships which we can tap into.
A strong programme of capacity building, including audience development is proposed for 2017–2020.
O
opportunities
The development of the first Cultural Strategy of the City (2016–2026) as a parallel action with connected aims, strategies, and
proposal of actions can be a significant agent for change.
The opportunity to increase the number of actively engaged citizens in the city with micro‑grant schemes, a massive cultural
outreach programme and decentralised activities.
To stimulate and address local issues and offer new bases for cultural and civil initiatives.
To use the international attraction of ECoC and improve Bucharest’s and Romania’s image.
Create, consolidate, and maintain a real dialogue between public, private, and independent cultural sectors.
Activate an immensely vibrant, underground arts and cultural scene.
A strong Curatorium that will continue to be the key of the creative programme, and also secure a local-European dialogue and
dynamic.
T
threats
The historically disjointed and unstable political scene and a history of a lack of collaboration between the Districts and the City.
Lack of support from the business community.
The negative cliché images of Romania and Bucharest.
The difficulty to create new, viable forums for citizen engagement.
We are addressing these threats as follows:
Securing an independent structure and long‑term commitment of the stakeholders.
We will establish a long term Arts & Business model, which will be set up in partnership with Romanian business leaders to develop
a sustainable collaboration between the two sectors.
The negative image will be addressed as a key aspect of the In—visible City theme, which will be based on alternative images of the
city, of its citizens, testimonials from visitors, and materials which we will use in communication and marketing.
Supporting grassroots initiatives and engaging citizens in a clear process will continue to be at the core of the process. Through
funding mechanisms and idea‑incubation schemes from 2016 we are already addressing this and seeing success.
81
Marketing & Communication
Bucharest 2021’s communications strategy aims to
inform, motivate and engage citizens and visitors alike.
1.
Could your artistic programme
be summed up by a slogan?
T
he European Capital of Culture 2021 (ECoC) primarily means a chance to rebuild Bucharest citizens'
confidence in their city and recover civic values. Like in many other capital cities of former com‑
munist countries, the dominance of centralised power that has been visible through large scale pro‑
jects and mass festive events has given way to mass consumerism, reducing the city to a global adver‑
2.
What is the city's intended marketing
and communication strategy for the
European Capital of Culture year?
tising board, turning citizens into consumers and pushing them to the periphery of the city's civic life.
The ECoC 2021 title will give Bucharest's hidden micro‑cities (neighbourhoods, communities and
sub cultures) the chance to come into the light once again. At the same time, the title is a chance to
restore European connections, with the possibility to challenge stereotypes that are part of the city’s
3.
How will you mobilise your own
citizens as communicators of the
year to the outside world?
European reality.
The key to Bucharest's bid is the people who create, design, multiply and distribute messages
and stories about events and who are calling on others to join them, and who have adopted an activist
approach under the motto ‘art makes the invisible visible’.
The project’s core is the connection between people. In this context, the strategy for commu‑
4.
How does the city plan to highlight
that the European Capital of Culture is
an action of the European Union?
nication, information and mobilising (potential) audiences plays a key role. This vision, which starts
from the desire to get citizens involved, has led to a less than traditional approach that does not rely on
media and advertising campaigns, but on the use of artistic interventions, actions and pop ups infiltrat‑
ing daily life, mobile caravans, instant digital graffiti, cultural actions, facilitators and ambassadors to
audiences and communities that can activate and engage Bucharest residents in the process by means
of their own online communication channels (formal and informal) and through direct communication
in their social networks.
This approach will be reinforced by the involvement of traditional media (TV, radio, print, online)
and new media (social media, blogs), as well as by the creation and distribution of communication and
The overall
communication
strategy has been
developed with
the support of a
broad Consultative
Group that includes
prominent figures in
Romania, including
business leaders,
media professionals
and cultural sector
representatives.
promotional products, the involvement of partners from the cultural, educational and business com‑
munities and cross marketing events.
The key challenge of the communication effort will be to expand the segment of culturally engaged
audiences by developing strategies that primarily address culturally non‑active communities (almost
60% of Bucharest’s population according to the Bucharest Cultural Barometer 2015). Audience develop‑
ment campaigns will build on concrete data and practical pilot projects. We have already established a
citizens’ platform of 1200 citizens. On the basis of the Cultural Barometer we have both measured cur‑
rent patterns of engagement in cultural activities, and a full follow up analysis on a neighbourhood level
(32 neighbourhoods) is underway. This analysis will also address issues of communications, programme
strategy, barriers for cultural participation and will be used to develop integrated actions and strategies.
It is clear the ECoC project offers a unique chance to position arts and culture more strategically and to
initiate a five‑year communications strategy, which will not only attract audiences to ECoC events but
also strengthen the general relationship between the cultural sector and the citizens.
Specifically, the communication objectives of the Bucharest ECoC 2021 strategy will aim to:
•
Communicate Bucharest's application for the European Capital of Culture 2021 title to the two mil‑
lion inhabitants of the city and get them involved in the project;
•
Engage the city in debates on the themes in the programme developed under the in—visible City
concept;
•
Improve and change perceptions of Bucharest in the international media by at least 20% in ratings;
•
Develop and expand culturally active audiences at the city and regional level and attract a total of
five million visits from participants to the events and projects.
The communication strategy proposes the formulation of a clear networked process and a set of tools
and techniques that can help create an integrated cultural communication system.
82Management
ONLINE SYSTEM
OFFLINE SYSTEM
•
•
•
•
Online hub & cultural portal (2018)
Unique online tickets selling point
New technology (smart phone apps)
•
•
Bucharest ECoC 2021 Information Hub
(Gabroveni Inn)
Regional Information Centres for tourists
Tickets selling points (in partnerships, i.e. RATB)
Phases of
influence
and timeline
The In—
visible City
into Visible
2017–2022
Influencers:
culture creators
2017/18
2019/20
2021
2022–on
Mapping &
Networking
PreProgram
ECoC 2021
ECoC Legacy
Multipliers
Receivers:
(domestic & foreign)
MECHANISMS
CHANNELS & TOOLS
•
•
•
•
•
•
Domestic partnerships (public & private sectors)
European partnerships (cultural sector)
Media partnerships (national & international media)
Cross marketing (business & cultural sectors)
Cultural Facilitators Network & Communities’ Ambassadors
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Online platforms (ECoC 2021 Hub, cultural platform,
newsletters)
Printed materials (event calendars, city guides, albums, maps,
brochures, flyers, posters)
Bucharest ECoC 2021 newspaper supplement (Romanian,
European languages, ethnic languages)
PR & storytelling
Bloggers relations
Social media
Behavior change campaigns addressing communities (low &
non culture users)
Artistic & cultural events & activations
Workshops, seminars, briefings
Communication Strategy Approach
A
rt makes the invisible visible: We will use artistic methods, language and aesthetics as drivers and
carriers of our communication strategy. Art as carrier and message. We will use an explorative
ethos as an overall ethos.
One Loud & Proud Voice: Establish a unique online & offline point of information about Bucharest
ECoC 2021: cultural portal & Bucharest ECoC 2021 Information Hub (ARCUB Gabroveni)
Strong partnerships: Develop strong partnerships with key actors from the cultural, business, pub‑
lic and media sectors to generate visibility, support and policy‑led interventions to reach the Bucharest
ECoC 2021 objectives.
Snowball Effect: Identify and train cultural facilitators and ambassadors of the ECoC 2021 Programme
to further influence their peers & groups.
Feel Romanian, Act European: Increase the visibility of Bucharest2021 in the international media
through European media and cultural partners and through close connection with other ECoC 2021 cities.
Culture is made by people. Behaviour change techniques: Work with different audiences (by age,
education, ethnicity) to engage and activate regarding culture (culture is not given by authorities. cul‑
ture is made by people)
83
COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
AUDIENCES
Influencers (culture creators):
• Cultural industries (film, digital
media, design, architecture, fashion,
handicrafts)
• Artistic and cultural organisations
(museums, galleries, theatres, concert
halls)
• Communities of artists
• Cultural and European Institutes
• Universities and art schools
• NGOs working in the cultural sector
• Urban projects (including those aimed
at protecting the environment)
• Other related industries
(communication and advertising
industry, tourism)
Multipliers: 40% of Bucharest
population
• Frequent and very frequent culture
users (medium and high education
levels): professionals and persons
engaged in culture related sectors,
teachers, students;
• Millennials
• Relevant authorities / state
institutions, local and national mass
media
Potential audiences (domestic): 60% of
Bucharest population
• Seldom & Non users (low education
& income levels), mostly adult (35–50)
and elderly (50+) population
Potential audiences (foreign & domestic
tourists):
• Business travellers
• Young explorers
• City breakers
• Seniors
• Members of professional networks
Phase 1
Networking &
Mapping
AUDIENCES
OBJECTIVES
•
•
•
Key Audiences: Influencers (Culture &
Content creators)
Secondary Audiences: Multipliers
Create alliances and raise awareness in the city about
Bucharest being European Capital of Culture 2021;
Increase the visibility of the city as ECoC 2021 in
international media
Engage the city in debates on the themes in the
Bucharest ECoC 2021 programme developed under the
Invisible City concept
•
•
2017–2018
Establish relations with other
ECoC 2021 cities
Develop partnerships for policy‑led and
communication interventions
•
•
•
•
•
Communicate ECoC cities’ events and
programmes
Organise workshops and seminars
on European themes within the ECoC
2021 Programme (ARCUB Gabroveni)
and European City Residencies
Place Bucharest on the ECoC 2021 map
through networking and partnerships
•
•
•
Public institutions contacted, i.e. RATB, METROREX
Cultural organisations & institutions in Ilfov County in
particular are involved
Educational institutions, i.e. arts schools, international
schools in Bucharest, i.e. Goethe Institute, Cervantes
Institute, others
Mass media, i.e. national media channels, specialised
media channels, international media, i.e. Forbes to
follow up the selection
Business sector, i.e. companies, business organisations
are contacted to explore possible partnerships
Support the Community Outreach Strategy
Communicate and engage with communities on:
• Projects & Alternative cultural spaces (‘Re‑think space’)
• Training & volunteer programmes for cultural facilitators
(‘Build capacity’)
• Platforms to support creativity, i.e. Generator, B.Vol.2021,
OpenLab.ro, Digital Storytelling Programme
Explore and develop European partnerships
and opportunities
•
•
•
Communicate the European residency scheme to
mobilise between 100–200 people from Bucharest
and Europe
Communicate the 200 projects under the In—
visible City Concept
Communicate the European Residencies initiative
MESSAGING
INSTRUMENTS
•
•
•
•
Awareness and advocacy to engage and support ECoC 2021
programme (themes & projects)
Awareness on the broad European dimension of the city
(history, migration, Roma, politopies, refugees, other topics)
Attitude change about culture and cultural acts in the city
(culture is made by people and not a static formal offering)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
D
Interpersonal: one‑to‑one, cultural facilitators within
communities (Roma, ethnic groups, disadvantaged groups)
Community oriented vehicles: events, activations, major
programme of walks and explorations i.e. urban community
gardens, cultural caravans etc.
Engagement, i.e. Open Lab, Generator, Accelerator
B.Vol.2021
Traditional media & new media (blogs, social media)
ECoC 2021 ambassadors are recruited : celebrities, artists
Printed materials & ECoC 2021 newspaper supplement
Online information platforms, cultural online portal
Non‑conventional tools, i.e. graffiti, lighting projects as open
narratives as inteventions
European debates
uring this phase of networking and mapping, the explorative is key. The focus is on creating new
links and strategic partnerships locally and regionally, as well as nationally and internationally,
through communication partners and the Open Lab.
It is the stage of research exploration, collection of materials, trainings, identification of networks,
communities of interests, of all those groups that will form the core of culture producers (influencers,
cultural facilitators), of interconnecting with them, both locally and in Europe. The ‘make Bucharest
visible NOW’ campaign continues. The communication strategy is based on interpersonal communica‑
tion between cultural institutions and organisations, on opening communication channels tailored and
addressed to target communities (via workshops, seminars, online information resources, printed mate‑
rials, social media, others), training of cultural facilitators, visits of the international media to Bucharest,
interviews with foreign/ European partners related to co‑projects developed with Romanian counter‑
parts and partners.
The communication goal is to generate local and international partnerships and also improve and
change the perception of the national and international media about Bucharest by providing the image
of a European capital city that creates the synergy of the city's creative and cultural potential and speaks
with a single, unified, clear and firm voice about its cultural transformation programme.
84Management
AUDIENCES
OBJECTIVES
MESSAGING
Multipliers: 40% of Bucharest
population
• Frequent and very frequent culture
users (medium and high education
levels): professionals and persons
engaged in culture related sectors,
teachers, students
• Millennials
• Relevant authorities / state
institutions, local mass media,
national mass media
•
•
•
Engagement in supporting Bucharest
ECoC 2021 pre‑programme and also
in multiple messages to more passive
target audiences.
Behavioural objective: shift to the
category of culture creators
Awareness, advocacy & engaging
messages on Bucharest ECoC
2021 programme and the cultural
transformation of the city
Phase 2
Pre-Programme
Communication
2019–2020
Behaviour change
communication interventions
•
•
•
Easy- Attractive- Social-Timely campaigns
targeting special groups, i.e. ‘Each month,
one performance’
Appeal to personal beliefs, customs and
social norms
Target special groups & non/low users
(Roma, disabled, elderly, others)
Engage the city (pre‑programme key projects)
Talk the City (Open City)
•
•
•
•
Upgrade ongoing debates, seminars
and annual conferences in ARCUB
with Romanian Radio (SRR) direct
transmission
Generate media coverage
(traditional & social media)
•
•
Raise visibility for 15–20 selected key projects
Engage publics & generate debate on the three
themes of the ECoC Programme: 1) Lost & Found; 2)
Peripheries; 3) Microtopias
Promote Open Lab New Calls & attract participation
Upgrade Cultural Bucharest Platform: Central Hub
(online & offline)
CHANNELS & TOOLS
•
•
•
Explore the City (Open City)
•
Education campaigns / initiatives
•
•
•
•
Target young people in schools through
micro‑campaigns, i.e. ‘Become an official
Bucharest2021 Journalist’
Organise events, distribute informative
materials
Collaborate with NGOs to stimulate a more
positive attitude towards arts
•
Communicate & promote series of
annual festivals
Launch of major explorative
neighbourhood walks
Engage residents at the
neighbourhood levels with mobile
info centres
Policy‑led interventions
•
•
Partner with public companies
(METROREX, RATB) to offer public
transport facilities
Establish unique tickets selling
point (online & offline) in
partnership with public and private
AUDIENCES
OBJECTIVES
MESSAGING
Final beneficiaries (domestic):
60% of Bucharest population
• Unaware & Non‑engaged in culture /
non- users (low education & income
levels), mostly adult (35–50) and
elderly population (50+)
• Special groups and communities:
young, Roma, pensioners, disabled
and key neighbourhoods
•
•
D
•
Change perception regarding culture
(culture is made by people)
Behavioural objective: shift from
culture non‑users (seldom users) to
active urban culture users
Inclusive messaging related to
community/ subculture/ and related
to long‑term impact of culture on
life quality, to personal beliefs, social
norms.
uring this pre‑programme phase, efforts will focus on opening broader channels of communica‑
tion and collaboration with the cultural sector, training cultural facilitators and community ambas‑
sadors to connect with local and European peers for spreading the message and developing cross-Euro‑
pean grassroots networks. At this phase, communication with public authorities is essential as to ensure
cooperative attitudes towards grassroots community projects. At the same time, this is the phase when
focus will be put on expanding the segment of the culturally active audiences in the city and at regional
level through audience development campaigns, and engaging the city in debates on the themes of the
programme developed under the in—visible City concept. It is essential to create direct connections
between different segments –between influencers (‘culture creators’) and final beneficiaries through
direct exchanges and co‑creation challenges.
The ultimate objective of this phase is to strengthen the communication platform based on part‑
nerships and significantly increase the level of cultural engagement of Bucharest residents.
85
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Online platforms (ECoC 2021 Hub &
cultural platform and newsletters)
Printed materials (event calendars,
city guides, albums, maps, brochures,
flyers, posters)
Bucharest ECoC 2021 newspaper
supplement (Romanian, European
languages, ethnic languages)
PR & storytelling
Bloggers and social media
Audience development campaigns
Artistic and cultural events &
activations
Workshops, seminars, briefings
Pre‑programme with 15–20 projects
European Debate and European City
residence
Phase 3
ECoC 2021
Communication
A. Local & National
B. European & International
Local & National Media:
• Regular media briefings
• Participation of journalists at events
• Bloggers relations and major corps of Bucharest2021
bloggers activated
• Media coverage of events on going
• Bucharest2021 Radio with dedicated radio programmes (6
hrs. daily)
• Weekly free newspaper supplement in partnership with a
media channel (various languages)
Communication interventions:
• European Media Hub (daily events calendar, updates) and
programmes in 12 languages daily updated in collaboration
with Romanian Public Broadcasting Company
• Press tours for foreign media
• Weekly video newsletters for international media in
12 languages
• Partnerships with international media (local correspondents
in Bucharest), i.e. Reuters, RFI, Bloomberg, Associated Press
• Info kits to embassies, international organisations,
international cultural Institutes, businesses, hotels etc.
• Partnerships with international schools and organisations in
Bucharest and Romanian diaspora
• Communication with ECoC 2021 cities and others
• Volunteer centre
Communication interventions
• Online platforms (ECoC 2021 Hub & cultural platform and
newsletters)
• Printed materials (event calendars, city guides, albums, maps,
brochures, flyers, posters)
• PR & storytelling developed around the 12 programme
themes
• Twelve key public manifestations as main (media) attractions
• Pop info points at key places and events throughout the year
• Social media
ECoC
2021
Lost & Found
CULTURAL BUCHAREST
PLATFORM (2017/20)
The in—visible city
Microtopies
Peripheries
200 projects / 10.000 Events
(50% at the periphery) / 20–50 events
per day / 50% European relevance
Post-ECoC:
the Legacy
C. Community Outreach Strategy
D. Tourist Information Interventions
•
Bucharest ECoC Information Hub (ARCUB Gabroveni)
• Information centre w. international staff/young & kids info
guides
• Ticket office for the main events
• Meeting point for guided tours
• Info materials for Bucharest2021 (brochures, travel guides,
books and albums available for sale, targeted themed
information packs, groups, i.e. alternative maps)
• Promotion of city/region with curated exhibitions,
• In—visible Bucharest Outlet: design, fashion, textiles, gifts by
young upcoming designers etc.
• European debates
• Café and networking space.
•
•
•
The programme with free events in the city becomes the
main visible marketing tool
Marketing campaign for unique selling points (online
tickets system/discounts)
Partnerships to boost cultural activity and mobility i.e.
public transportation, metro
Targeted campaigns for young people, disadvantaged,
pensioners, Roma & other ethnic- communities with
discounts, localised activities etc.
Bucharest — European Capital of Culture 2021
T
he communications strategy launches a new micro niveau based on the 12 programmes and the indi‑
vidual event clusters, which are structured through the entire year with changing focus.
The 12 flagship events of the year drive media coverage at national and international level. These are
key to attract widespread media and public attention, and to stimulate more public interest in related pro‑
jects and events. Servicing of media is key to facilitating a continuous flow of media coverage which other‑
wise may ebb due to overstimulation. The media reaction should be ‘paced’ to follow the flow of the year.
Servicing of visitors (local and international) at info points online. The ECoC Hub is key to maintain‑
ing high levels of public interaction and other info points are activated. Support to individual organisers
and producers is also a key factor to ensure a widespread coverage of media attention. Each organiser
activates their own social media network within a collective framework approach.
Motivating and engaging visitors post event to become activators and connectors is vital to achiev‑
ing optimal synergy over the year and close contact must be facilitated with visitors / audiences.
86Management
2019/2020
Pre‑program
2017/2018
Networking &
Mapping
•
Development of potential European partnerships in
the cultural sector
•
Connecting & establishing connections with
European cities — project to be launched at
conference (2017) with METREX (European
Network of Metropolitan Regions)
•
Connections with key relevant cities in Central
and Eastern Europe: Athens, Belgrade, Warsaw,
Budapest, Prague, Sofia, Paris, Istanbul, Brussels,
Amsterdam, Stockholm, Venice, Liverpool, with a.o.
Romanian Cultural Institute
•
Development/ launch of European Media Hub,
European Debate and European City Residencies
programmes
•
Development of local partnerships & collaborations,
i.e. embassies of targeted European countries,
cultural institutes, foreign language high schools
•
Communication with other ECoC cities: Kosice
2013, Marseille 2013, Plzen 2015, San Sebastian
2016, Aarhus 2017, Paphos 2107, Leeuwarden
2018, Matera 2019, selected Greek city 2021
•
Communication of and via the European Mobility
Fund/Scheme with 200 European and Romanian
(Bucharest) artists/ cultural organisers
2021
European Capital of Culture (ECoC)
•
ECoC events in Bucharest deliver highlights /
narratives for potential mass media
•
Weekly international press meetings &releases
•
Participation of international partners & media at
ECoC 2021 events
•
•
•
Hypermobility and know‑how exchange laboratories
to encourage prototype solutions for the themes
under the In—visible City concept: Lost & Found,
Peripheries, Microtopias,
•
European Media Hub develop relationships with
European media and networks with potential to
reach cultural centres, universities and festivals in
key European cities
•
Start communication with 15–20 specific
projects, i.e. Redesign the Balkans, Outernational,
Conexiunea Balcanica, Re-Designing the Balkans;
•
Continuation of the ECoC network partnerships,
European Mobility Fund, and European City
Residencies programme to connect to European
media/ publics through big international festivals in
favour of Bucharest2021
•
Events, seminars, workshops in collaboration with
European partners
•
European journalists and bloggers invited to visit
the city
•
Reach regional publics through the involvement
of universities and other educational institutions,
NGOs, cultural networks, foreign language
high‑schools
2022 — Onwards:
The Legacy
•
The main themes of transformation / change /
legacy must be used to extend and even develop
the main international platforms established
•
Existing Bucharest2021 communications platforms
should be integrated into a suitable structure
•
Permanent connection with other ECoC cities 2021
to secure synergy with Greece and Serbia
•
Exploitation of European Media Centre to
•
communicate the most important European artistic
events (pan European project) — online platform
•
Cultural Bucharest Brand: PR & storytelling can be
used to create long term rebranding
Maintain use of local and foreign ambassadors
PR in international mass media
Additional tourists in 2021 will act as ambassadors
for the cultural Bucharest brand
•
Keep focus on key/ successful Bucharest2021
events, which will continue, and communicate these
internationally
•
Continue to develop cultural tourism (see p. 59)
European communication & engagement
T
he communication actions at the European level will aim to: attract European partners in the con‑
nection phase and via programmes (co‑production of projects with European partners), attract more
foreign visitors to Bucharest, generate debates on a thematic level, through a series of projects devel‑
oped under general European themes (e.g. Creation-Migration, the refugee issue, the subject of Roma
culture and population, the topic of repressed memory in Europe), improve and change perceptions of
Bucharest recorded in the international media and generate online activity.
The pillars of this communication strategy of European dimension include:
•
The European Media Hub (2017–2021) within Bucharest ECoC 2021 Hub (ARCUB Gabroveni)
•
Press tours for European journalists in Bucharest in order to generate support and promote con‑
sistent coverage of the city and the European Capital of Culture 2021 in foreign media
•
Permanent communication with ECoC cities as sources of inspiration (Kosice 2013, Marseilles 2013,
Plzen 2015, San Sebastian 2016, Aarhus 2017, Leeuwarden 2018, Matera 2019)
•
Partnerships with international media channels that have local correspondents, i.e. RFI, Bloomberg,
Associated Press or with media channels targeting a foreign audience, i.e. Forbes, Business Insider
•
Partnerships with international networks operating in Romania such as international schools, for‑
eign chambers of commerce, European cultural institutes
•
Interviews with European experts on various topics of urban culture, European curators engaging
•
Exchanges of information, conferences and exhibitions, e.g. The European City Residency pro‑
in the ECoC programming (online, TV, radio, print)
gramme 2017–2021.
87
Communication
Engagement
of European
audiences
Social
models of
behaviour
change
Personal factors
Knowledge of events
Motivation
Personal accessibility
EDUCATION
Local environment factors
Neihbourhoods
Local cultural centres & foci
Local identity and structure
Local innovators and leaders
AMBASSADORS
Social factors
Formal and informal networks
Ethnic groups
Subcultures
Peer to peer
Group participation/inclusion
Social identity
Structural factors
Cultural Infrastructure
Public investment in culture
Cultural markets
Quality of management
Cultural Activity
Distribution of activities
Level of activities
Types of activities
Quality and relevance
Spatial Strategy
Support local community development
Invest in local facilities
Strengthen neighbourhood identity
Regeneration
C
ECoC
Programme with distribution of
activities in the whole city/region
Developing new programmes/
projects for more diverse groups
Using public space as cultural
space and many free activities
Integrated forms of
communications/marketing
Cultural Strategy
Capacity Development programme for
cultural managers / institutions
Investment in new cultural hubs
Extend grants for independent projects
Audience development and research
hanging behaviour is crucial for the development and expansion of the segment of culturally active
audiences at city and regional levels. According to our research, almost 60% of Bucharest residents
do not get involved in any active culture consumption (Roma community, pensioners, people with dis‑
abilities). For such groups, communication campaigns need to encourage and give the opportunity to
act in one of the following ways:
•
To allow an increase in the level of understanding of arts and culture in general (through benefits
and direct involvement) and allow a change of attitude towards arts and cultural events;
•
To adopt a new behaviour, such as participation in artistic events, calling upon social norms and
other behavioural change techniques;
•
To change a behaviour type from passive consumption to active consumption of culture and, in
the case of young people, to shift to creators / producers of urban culture.
Campaigns targeting special audiences will also appeal to techniques and communication tools available
in the campaign, i.e. information points, media, group leaders, cultural facilitators. However, to achieve
the objectives, concrete support by administrative and local policy initiatives is essential, i.e. partnerships
with public institutions such as public transportation companies to facilitate concrete support interven‑
tions, other initiatives identified through careful study of consumer habits and practices in those groups.
88Management
General Council
General Council of Ilfov County
ARCUB & BUCHAREST2021 MANAGEMENT TEAM:
GENERAL MANAGER: Mihaela Păun
DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Alina Teodorescu
COORDINATOR OF THE PROGRAMMES & MEDIA DEPARTMENT AND
COORDINATOR OF BUCHAREST2021 APPLICATION: Raluca Ciută
COORDINATOR OF TASK FORCES: Roxana Bedrule
COORDINATOR OF COMMUNICATION: Magda Bucur
COORDINATOR OF DESIGN & GRAPHICS: Marilena Oprescu Singer
ASSISTANT CURATORIUM: Andra Cătălina Stoica
MEMBERS OF BUCHAREST2021 CURATORIUM AND GUESTS:
Simina Bădică — head of Ethnological Archives, Romanian Peasant
Museum, Bucharest; Nicoleta Biţu — activist and founding member,
Romano BoutiQ Association; Peter Bishop — urban planner,
Professor of Urban Design, Bartlett School of Architecture, London;
Andrei Borţun — founding partner at Rusu & Borţun and CEO,
The Institute; Aura Corbeanu — executive director, National Theatre
Festival and vice-president, UNITER; Cătălin Creţu — composer and
researcher, Center for ElectroAcoustical Music and Multimedia
UNMB; Andrei Crăciun — sociologist and researcher, Vira Association;
Svetlana Cârstean — poet and journalist; Codruţa Cruceanu —
consultant, Education, Cultural Projects, and Communication
Department, National Museum of Art of Romania; Trevor Davies —
urban planner, cultural innovator, co-founder of KIT: Copenhagen
International Theatre; Simona Deaconescu — choreographer, artistic
director, Tangaj Dance Collective; Philipp Dietachmair — programme
manager, Tandem Cultural Managers Exchange, R&D European
Cultural Foundation; Ekmel Ertan — founding member and artistic
director amberPlatform, Istanbul; Teodor Frolu — architect, founding
member and manager, DC Communication; Celia Ghyka — associate
professor, ‘Ion Mincu’ University of Architecture and Urbanism,
Bucharest; Xenia Kalpaktsoglou — curator, co–founder Athens
Biennale; Vasile Leac — poet and curator; Cosmin Manolescu —
choreographer, executive director, Gabriela Tudor Foundation;
Irina Paraschivoiu — president and co–founder, Creative Room
Association and co-founder, UrbanINC; Robert Praxmarer — artist,
researcher, head of Augmented Reality and Game Development
Department, University of Applied Sciences, Salzburg;
Christian Potiron — executive director, The Foundation — Centre for
Contemporary Art, Bratislava; Ioana Păun — performance artist and
director; Antigona Rogozea — programme director, National Museum
of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; Pierre Sauvageot — composer,
director, Lieux Publics; Anne Schiltz — filmmaker and researcher
in visual anthropology; Alexandra Ștef — founder, HeyMărie!;
Sevdalina Voynova — programme director, Sofia Development
Association; Anamaria Vrabie — urban economist, co-founder of the
Creative Room Association and MKBT
EDUCATION TASK FORCE:
Oana Borș, Prof. Alexandru Ciprian — Ecologic University,
Prof. Ella Magdalena Ciupercă — Mihai Viteazul National
Intelligence Academy, Prof. Cătălin Creţu — National University
of Music Bucharest, Zomir Dimovici, Lect. Mihai Dinescu —
Mihai Viteazul National Intelligence Academy,
Prof. Roxana Voicu Dorobanţu — Academy of Economic Studies,
Prof. Eugen Gustea — National University of Arts,
Prof. Ardian Kycyku — Gheorghe Cristea Romanian University
of Sciences and Arts, Prof. Alexandru Lucinescu — Spiru Haret
University, Prof. Nicu Mandea — I.L. Caragiale University of Theatre
and Film, Prof. Veronica Mihalache — Mihai Viteazul National
Intelligence Academy, Prof. Dana Mos — National University of
Music Bucharest, Iulia Niculae, Prof. Dorel Paraschiv — Academy of
Economic Studies, Prof. Florin Pelin — National Academy of
Physical Education and Sport, Prof. Luminiţa Pistol — Spiru Haret
University, Prof. Andreea Popa — Ion Mincu University of
Architecture and Urbanism, Prof. Bogdan Ovidiu Popescu —
Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy,
Oana Răsuceanu, Prof. Laurenţiu Rece — Technical University
of Civil Engineering, Col. Prof. Marian Stancu — Carol I National
Defence Academy, Col. Prof. Eng. Tudor-Viorel Ţigănescu —
Military Technical Academy, Chief Comm. Prof. Daniel-Costel Torje —
Alexandru Ioan Cuza Police Academy
COMMUNITY TASK FORCE:
Sasha Ichim, Alexandra Scânteianu, Alexandra Ștef
COMMUNICATION TASK FORCE:
Cătălina Rousseau, Alexandra Mihăilescu, Raluca Costache,
Petruţa Petcu, Dana Tudor, Sorin Agachi, Dan Mandiuc,
Tudor Stan, Ana Boariu (BDR Associates Communication Group),
Cristian China Birta, Andrei Borţun, Magor Csibi, Dana Deac,
Bogdan Dinescu (Macanache), Mircea Kivu, Doris Mircea,
Volker Moser, Răzvan Orășanu (Communication Consultative Group),
Magda Bucur, Iris Opriș, Cristiana Tăutu
TOURISM TASK FORCE:
Cătălina Buduluș (Cultural & Tourism Direction, Bucharest
Municipality), Călin Ile, Răzvan Pârjol (Bucharest Tourism Board),
Anamaria Ravar
BUSINESS TASK FORCE:
Gabriel Aftenie — Babylon Consult, Dragoș Anastasiu —
Eurolines, Hildegard Brandl — Unith2b, Alin Caraman — K Group,
Sebastian Hubati — RBL, Magdalena Lupoi — Noerr, Petru Păcuraru —
HPDI, Răzvan Pîrjol — BTB (Romanian Business Leaders),
Șerban Alexandrescu — Cărturești
PROGRAMME & PROJECT PARTNERS ARE LISTED IN
THE CULTURAL & ARTISTIC CHAPTER
BUCHAREST OPEN LAB:
ARCUB OPEN CALL: 111 Film & Entertainment, 4 Culture Association,
Arhitext Design Foundation, Art Conservation Support,
Art History Association, Art in Dialogue Association, Association for
Contemporary Arts Promotion, Association for Culture and Tango,
Association for Romanian Film Promotion, Association for
Theatre and Books Neagoe I. Camelia, Association in the Attic,
Beneva Association, Centre for Historical and Architectural Studies,
Cinemascop Association, Creative Cultural Industries Association,
CubicMeter Association — Resources for Culture, Cultural Association
for Education through Art, D’Aya Theatre Company Foundation,
dramAcum Cultural Association, DU-NE Cultural Association,
Elite Art Club Unesco Association, FORMAT Foundation,
Igloo Habitat and Architecture Association, Institute for
International Relations Association, Ion Mincu University of
Architecture and Urbanism, Isvor Cultural Association,
Jamais Vu, KALELARGA Association, Labyrinth Theatre Company,
Link Centre, Löwendal Foundation, META Cultural Foundation,
My Dear Bucharest Association, Punctart Association,
Replika Cultural Association, Rokolectiv Association,
Salonul de Proiecte Association, Secţia de Coregrafie Association,
ShortsUP, Metropolis Cultural Association, SINAPTICA Association,
Society for Classical Music Association, Tangaj Dance Association,
Theatre 2.0, UCIMR, Union of Romanian Artists,
Voci Strămoși Foundation, Volum Art Association,
Zeppelin Association, We Are Basca
ACCELERATOR OF IDEAS:
Arena Association, Centre for Documentary Photography,
Global Shapers Bucharest Hub Association, Indie Box,
Paradaiz Association, ODD Association, The Plan, Reper Atelier,
Romanian Association for Performing Arts Promotion,
Romanian Organization for Users’ Rights Association,
Save or Cancel Production, Sorina-Adina Vasilescu
MICROGRANTS:
Bucharest Community Foundation
EXPLORATOR:
ARCEN, Cultour Association, Interesting Times Bureau, Make a Point,
My Dear Bucharest Association
VOLUNTEERS:
Monica Alexe, Alma Andreescu, Cristina Bădescu, Patrick Brăila,
Lia Bojan, Andrei Bordeianu, Stela Chiorea, Iulia-Maria Constantin,
Bianca Florentina Cirtala, Georgiana Constantin, Bianca Ceica,
Mădălina Chihaia, Catinca Duran, Elena Enache, Ioana Gonţea,
Veronica Guelmane, Cristina Honciuc, Ioana Iordache,
Orit Itzikovich, Alexandru Ivanciu, Ina Laurenţiu, Alexandru Lefter,
Veronica Linguraru, Cristina Lungu, Nicoleta Manusaride,
Monica Magaon, Corina Moraru, Cristi Mihăilescu,
Alexandra Mitelschi, Nicol Mureșan, Mi Ru Na, Daniel Nedelea,
Mia Olteanu, Mirona Oprescu, Luna Popescu, Gabriela Preda,
Flavius Raicea, Robert Radoveanu, Daniel Rizea, Grigore Rosnitche,
Cristina Rotaru, Alexandra Sava, Teodora Savu, Miruna Sile,
Ioana Simion, Ionuţ Slabu, Angelica Stan, Lăcrămioara Stan,
Bianca Stancu, Monica Stănescu, Alexandru Ștefan, Alina Tudor,
Daniela Vlăsceanu, Isolda Zăvoianu
CULTURAL STRATEGY TEAM:
SENIOR CONSULTANT (2015): Corina Șuteu
CONSULTANT: Oana Radu
EXPERTS: Sabina Baciu, Ioana Tamaș
ASSISTANT: Mirona Radu
ARCUB
84–90 Lipscani Street
030034 Bucharest, Romania
+40 21 795 3602
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.arcub.ro
www.bucuresti2021.ro

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