Concise.pdf - Brugge Plus

Jan van Eyck, Early Netherlandish Painting
and Southern Europe
© MUNICIPAL MUSEUMS BRUGES
vant Bruges tenors. After all, it will
mainly be down to them to deal with
inadequately answered questions in the
future. Fortunately the Municipal
Museums increasingly want to play a
(supporting) role in this.
A project like “WHAT A tale in free
images” may well provide us with the
best information in this connection. This
exhibition of video art in the attic of the
Memling Museum was absolutely magnificent.
It was, however, clear that such
an initiative fitted well into the Memling
Museum. This fact did not escape the
directors of the Municipal Museums.
Another tricky part of the programme is
the young people’s section. Much was
also said about this before 2002. It quickly became clear to us that young people and
children would make up a consistent component of the BRUGGE 2002 programme.
For this reason we took on three full-time employees purely to prepare the “Young people
and children” component. The result was to match. Throughout the year we were
bombarded with all manner of initiatives. Various Bruges schools ran the project
“Kunstenaars in residentie (KIR)” (“Artists in Residence”). Other projects invited
young people from across the whole of Europe for periods of varying duration to get
creative here in Bruges: this gave us “Seven Joys, Seven Senses”, “Frontsid[t]e/Back[-
]side” and “Art Connexion”. The Culture Van visited almost every school in Bruges to
stir up creative activity in children, and young people in “difficulties” received our full
attention in projects such as “Sorry dat...” and “Beet”.
We ourselves remained rather focused on the Kaapstad project. Rightly so, we are still
finding, although its full potential has not been realised. This is clearly – we can now
say – down to a number of failing organisational aspects for which our association was
responsible, and to a number of choices related to these aspects. It was not due to the
concept of the project, nor to the implementation of its content. It is regrettable that
opinion-formers, and above all the press, did not make a distinction in their perception
of Kaapstad between on the one hand the value of a concept, the content produced
and on the other the organisational flaws. Did you know, for example, that on
the Stubnitz, the extraordinary boat from Rostock, as many as 172 young groups, live
projects and DJs were able to appear and create, including 120 Belgian acts Nothing
like this has ever been seen in Belgium. The Stubnitz, which lay moored at the
Coiseau quay for four weeks, was visited by hundreds of young people every evening.
9
CONCISE
Above all it is Kaapstad, and its unjustified image of a “failed” project, that affected
the image of the whole young people component. There was clearly a problem of perception,
since in addition to all the projects already mentioned the film work of young
people is forgotten, along with their commitment to Stijlstraten, and also the culture
bag Kabba, the “Mini Story” at the exhibitions, the Monk afternoons in the Episcopal
Seminary, the children’s rights project in the Vrijdagmarktschool, the Municipal
Academy - Department of Photography with “Brugge Inside Out”, and so on.
We have achieved a lot with young people and children. But in fact, in this area there
is definitely still a demand for continuity, deepening and maximisation. And let us be
clear: this will benefit the young people of Bruges. The many projects in 2002 provided
sufficient experiences to assess how such continuity can be achieved. Let that
be the key merit of BRUGGE 2002.