Gentrification as a broad process of reurbanization - RC21 ORG ...

Judit Veres CEU Budapest
it can be of public relevance, that it can have wider implications beyond these walls.
This has happened in a wider context where arts and literature in general have lost
their former anti-establishment edge, the political dimension, the authority attached to
them during socialism. With the democratizing process artistic freedom and choice
has increased, culture has become more and more commodified, packaged for
individual consumption with the concomitant fragmentation and dissolution of a more
unified public into lifestyle groups and niche markets.
The diminished importance of Trafó in the city‘s cultural life is also due to the fact
there are increasingly more places all over the city, which offer culture in the form of
cultural entertainment for the young generation too, for people in their teens and
twenties. Many of these places are more inclusive and accessible in the sense of, for
example, making entry free of charge, and secondly by housing performances that can
be more quickly consumed and which are thought of as more cool. While talking to
the Trafó people, I was told that many of the ruin pubs pose a serious challenge in so
far as cultural entertainment there comes for free, something that Trafó cannot afford.
The place‘s credentials as a cosmopolitan urban space no doubt had to do with the
influence of foreign state foundations which appeared all over the former socialistblock
upon these states‘ embrace of the market economy. For example the role that
the Dutch Matra Fund had on kick starting Trafó (a programme of the Dutch Ministry
of Foreign Relations), Pro Helvetia the Swiss arts council, and the British Council
whose stated mission besides promoting artistic creation, and fostering cultural
exchange, has been to open up important regions as markets for Dutch, Swiss and
respectively British cultural practitioners but obviously not only for them. The Soros
Foundation had played a similar role, funding all sorts of projects, events, running
programmes that were supposed to build up an open society. If one visits these
organizations‘ websites it becomes apparent that the attention and financial support of
the respective states has moved further, prioritizing other emerging markets in North
Africa, the Caucasus for example, with China receiving increased attention. This shift
in focus can be observed in the orientation of EU-funded projects as well, where
western arts organizations are increasingly looking for partnerships beyond Central-
Eastern Europe, to regions and their markets that are of more interest now for the old
EU, like China, the Middle East, North Africa etc.
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