Concise.pdf - Brugge Plus

Neighbourhood and world
More than any other cultural projects, participation-based projects are open to involvement,
dialogue, interaction, time intensiveness, and a faltering search for balance between creativity,
quality, involvement and accessibility. Despite a lively neighbourhood and community
life in Bruges on the one hand, and a solid package of cultural and artistically minded
initiatives on the other, the two worlds seemed to exist disassociated from each other. In any
case, participation in the current sense of the word was not very noticeable in Bruges at the
end of the twentieth century.
It was very much BRUGGE 2002’s intention to make socio-artistic projects possible
within its field of action. To this end a full-time programme employee was recruited.
BRUGGE 2002 was on the one hand fearful of a superficial and quantitative participation
discourse and on the other hand of the detrimental side effects that all socio-cultural
or socio-artistic initiatives that are of an overly one-off or short-term character
leave behind in community life. Therefore dialogue and confrontation were by no
means avoided. What was actually done with the projects at the end of the day
depended as much on the effort put in in the field as the work done by the BRUGGE
2002 team. It has always been our conviction that there is no point at all in setting
up projects in which there is no basic dynamic among the organisations or in the
neighbourhoods themselves. And fortunately we were never averse to a generous
dose of festive content.
37
CONCISE
Under the title “Neighbourhood and World” we can distinguish three kinds of project:
• BRUGGE 2002 initiatives in which co-operation was sought with neighbourhoods
and cultural partners (“Wijk-Up” [a play on words with the English, using the
Dutch word “wijk” meaning “district”], “Streets of Style”).
• Initiatives originating from middlemen, often action groups or amateur companies
developing a large-scale event in dialogue with BRUGGE 2002 (Bridges with the
South, Solidarity Day, Amateur Art Week, Assebroek Totaal, Dance schools, etc.).
• Initiatives for which organisers sought co-operation with BRUGGE 2002 in order to
go about thinking and working on the basis of participation and reflection (’t Kl!kt,
Oral History, Congress “On soon… and now”).
Most of these projects were very successful and
moreover mobilised thousands of people. As
regards participation and action to break down
barriers, this is certainly of importance. Via these
projects, for example, many hundreds of people
came into contact with the Concertgebouw, the
Public Library or one of the many BRUGGE 2002
initiatives.
© JEAN GODECHARLE
The most all-embracing project was certainly
Wijk-Up. In three Bruges districts – Sint-Pieters,
Zeebrugge and Sint-Jozef – a genuine festival was
organised, lasting five days in each case and
including a whole host of activities. Some were
organised in the three districts, whilst others were
specifically organised in and by a particular district.
The Escale Circus Tent was the constant feature,
travelling from one neighbourhood to another.
The “Cinemobile” was also deployed three times.
The (e)migrants