timisoara2021.ro
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timisoara2021.ro
1 timisoara2021.ro 2 Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City INTRODUCTION / GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS Why does your city wish to take part in the competition for the title of European Capital of Culture? E urope relies on those cities where little sparkles can constantly generate trans-continental transformations. For this reason, TM2021 aims to become an open experiment which overcomes the passivity in today's Europe. TM2021 stimulates the individuals’ inner energy, which can shine through and unite their community, their city and the whole continent powered by culture. What now? – Și acum? How many times have we found ourselves or the people around us asking this two-word rhetorical question? It is the expression of our passivity as a comfortable habit of shifting the responsibility to somewhere else. Unfortunately, too often we come across this attitude among today’s Europeans. The city programme for the European Capital of Culture in 2021 fights against this energy-draining apathy-inducing attitude. Passivity is a main problem in the Europe of today The gap in Europe between the poor and rich widens, tensions between religions arise, there is an increasing distrust in democratic structures and participation in political life erodes further. The disappearance of middle class values is damaging the economic, social and cultural stability of our continent. Radicalism and xenophobia appear at the horizon. Instead passivity is comforting, while in relationships with others, only the opportunity of disagreement takes the individual out of the comfort zone. It is time to reestablish a dialogue, to take a critical attitude and to decide what kind of Europeans we want to be, which are our common and specific values as Europeans. As a middle-sized city in the far west of Romania with 319.272 inhabitants, close to the border with Hungary and Serbia, Timișoara is facing the difficulties many cities in Europe are also facing, but it is ready to act. The city wants to take a chance of translating the lost values of middle class - which have always been part of its history in a contemporary scenario. The people of Timișoara have lived a life inspired by entrepreneurship, multi-confessionalism, multi- and interculturality and active civic society while encouraging their comunities to follow the same values. In the consultation process we carried out with citizens in the last years, they have expressed the longing that it is time to retrieve those values which gave the city the inspiration to be the flagship of both the Banat region and neighbouring Transylvania, carrying light throughout Romania and beyond its borders throughout the Balkans, in the south and throughout Europe to the centre, west, east and north. This application for the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) title does not want to look at the past. Instead, it is a call to action to make changes happen through culture in the Europe of today. It is culture that offers a safe place left to develop creative solutions that work on passivity and learn from each other. Therefore, as European Capital of Culture, we will offer an array of programmes founded on the inherent transforming power of each individual within their respective communities across Europe. timisoara2021.ro 1 INTRODUCTION / GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS Shine your light 2 By accepting the challenge of the Candidacy, Timișoara has asked its citizens about their current urgencies. Issues which repeatedly emerged are the lack of civic energy, intolerance towards marginalised groups, the loss of public space, the lack of an international profile of the city and of the region defined by multiand interculturality which is truly contemporary European, and the lack of a common vision. Therefore, we have chosen to design our TM2021 cultural programme around these urgencies, starting with the inner energy and inherent strengths of the individuals to make a difference within their own circles of influence, be they their close family network, their faraway facebook friends as in Addictive Lights, their neighbourhoods, their schools as in Dare to Shine, their cities, their countries and even the continent and the world like the closing event. The result of restoring this energy is the transformation of the individual into a citizen who is able to light up the city. Therefore, in relation with others, just as you have a reason for dialogue and interaction with the community, you can shine the light. If the title of European Capital of Culture is awarded to us, we intend to find more concrete reasons for the individual to go out of their comfort zone into the public space, to leave passivity behind and experience engagement through culture. Only in this common space Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City can culture generate opinions and influence decision-making. In other words, culture is the last free zone to being a European citizen. Light up your city Geographically situated at the meeting point of many cultures, from west to east and from south to north, Timișoara has a history of being cosmopolitan and ecumenical, with over 30 cultures and ethnic community groups - including Germans, Hungarians, Serbians, Bulgarians having lived alongside each other for centuries. Orthodox, Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Lutherans, Reformists and other religions have freely worshipped together. The place was an engine in the region which offered people the opportunity to move forward and let others do the same. Furthermore, Timișoara’s diaspora has spread all around the continent, having the possibility to interact with other Europeans, by facing the same cultural challenges from a different perspective. Throughout its history, Timișoara has been a city of little sparkles that started trans-continental transformations. The first city in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy to have street lights and later the first city in continental Europe with electric street lights, the first newspaper in what is now Romania and the first newspaper in German in East-Central and South-Eastern Europe, the first public lending library and telegraphic and phone service in what is now Romania, the first cinema screening, the first public swimming pool and the first football stadium in Romania, and the only European city with three state theatres in three different languages. In 1989 the sparkle of the civic revolution toppled the communist regime in the country. Shine your light - Light up your city! Nowadays, Timișoara is at the forefront of medicine, technology and IT breakthroughs in the region. Thus it is the moment to recreate the history of the city in a new European scenario and to restore those middle-class values the city has always exported, such as cooperation and harmony, tolerance and civic responsibility, in a very contemporary context where entrepreneurship is to be understood within a network, where religions learn values and spiritual energy from each other and real freedom is in culturally-diverse relationships. For this reason, the Candidacy is about the relationship with the other, about how to build the bond between the individual and the community, and how to learn to be a European citizen and light up the city through culture. For the people of Timișoara, culture is the wave to speed up change at political, religious, economic, educational and social levels. Therefore, the programme we propose for the European Capital of Culture will reach out into these areas. We wish to create a common platform for culture advocacy which facilitates rethinking of the system in terms of cultural and social engagement, acts on increasing the local authorities’ budget for cultural activities, and incorporates the creative industries in the long-term economic strategy of the city and of the region. INTRODUCTION / GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS Does your city plan to involve its surrounding area? Explain this choice. O ur approach to involve the surrounding area is not merely based on geographical criteria. Instead we are planning to involve people who feel a deeply-rooted emotional connection to Timișoara. These are people from afar - the diaspora; from nearby - the people living in the Banat region (presently stretching over three countries: Romania, Serbia and Hungary); and from here - the population of Timișoara. Since the 18th century up until the Second World War, the city was a powerhouse fuelling the economic development in the Banat region with an echo through Central and Southeastern Europe. This drive was also powered by the city’s openness to Western Europe, making Timișoara a quintessential European city. Thus, our surroundings are the whole of Central and Southeastern Europe. We approach them on three levels representing the city’s ties with Europe, the Banat region and Romania. Timișoara in Europe - Europe in Timișoara Szeged, Novi Sad, Graz, Karlsruhe and Mulhouse are among the most active twin cities of Timișoara. We have close partnerships with these cities, and exchange cultural programmes which we want to develop further with TM2021.These partnerships enable us to spread our wings from the far western to the far eastern corners of the continent. When it comes to the diaspora dispersed across Europe and the world, they still maintain their long-lasting connections with their hometown, and it is these connections we want to build upon in our TM2021 programme. Official statistics show that almost 110.112 people have left in the last 25 years, but in reality these figures are likely to be much higher. The first wave saw the emergence of the ethnic diaspora, who moved abroad in masses in the second half of the twentieth century. The socalled ‘Banater Schwaben’, more than 100.000 strong, are mainly German farmers and one of the most important communities of the Banat region, along with the Romanians and Serbs. During the communist period and after the revolution they gradually left the country. In 1992, there were just over 13.000 Germans living in Timișoara, while at the 2011 census there were 4.193. The once-thriving Jewish community numbered 13.000 persons after the Second World War, while today there are only 600. The Hungarian ethnic group also decreased from almost 30.000 people in 1992 to half in 2011. The Banater Schwaben hold regular meetings in Germany where they celebrate their common heritage and links with Romania. Every year, they return to Timișoara to celebrate traditional holidays. The German and Hungarian communities established cultural institutions like the German State Theatre, the Hungarian State Theatre, the German Cultural Centre, the Austrian Library and the German Forum. The second wave of emigration took place after the 1989 Revolution. Timișoara has seen its brightest young people and important workforce leave for Western Europe. Many Romanians from the Banat region are mostly trained professionals and skilled labourers, but also seasonal workers in Italy, Spain, Germany, and France. They will become our ambassadors for two reasons: they still maintain transnational connections with the family left at home, and in migration their local pride is reactivated and they become more civically oriented. Timișoara in the Region - Banat in Timișoara On the regional level, we have three frameworks which can help us build connections and which makes Timișoara an incubator for transnational and national collaboration projects. • Timișoara is situated in the far western part of the country, with a population of 319.272. Within a radius of 600 kilometres, there are seven major capital cities of Central and Southeastern Europe: Bucharest, Bratislava, Belgrade, Budapest, Skopje, Zagreb and Vienna. This will enable us to build valuable connections with these major cultural, political and administrative centres. • A second framework of cooperation is the Danube–Criș–Mureș–Tisza Euroregion (DKMT) of which Timișoara is part, being also the largest city. Covering 70.000 km2, this stretches over the southeastern area of the Carpathian Basin, with timisoara2021.ro 3 INTRODUCTION / GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS a population of about 5.3 million. This also connects Timișoara to the Danube via the Bega Canal, a connection the city is trying to re-establish, not just on an infrastructural level, but also on a cultural one. That is why Timișoara was the host of the third International Danube Conference on Culture entitled Danube - The River as an Experience organised in June 2015 by our Association. 4 • Timișoara is also the capital city of the historic region of Banat, which has a population of around 1.7 million. This has facilitated the Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City collaboration in many EU-funded projects and the establishment of the Regional Office for Cross-border Cooperation in Timișoara. Timișoara in Romania - Romania in Timișoara Timișoara is at the centre of one of the eight development regions of Romania, making the city an important economic and cultural hub, attracting waves of internal immigration as well. Young people from neighbouring counties move to Timișoara either to study or to work. Many of them are from struggling cities like Reșița, once a thriving industrial city, now in a constant state of decline. By involving all these people who have a close or distant relation with the city in programmes like Flash of Memory or the closing event, we are bestowing them the name of Timișoreni - citizens of Timișoara - and we welcome them to our TM2021 community, which spreads around the whole world. INTRODUCTION / GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS Explain briefly the overall cultural profile of your city. T Timișoara has a renowned cultural heritage where the arts have thrived. Experimenting with new forms of artistic expressions and the creative industries, particularly the IT&C, has contributed to the overall economic development of the city. Yet, Timișoara lacks a well-defined international cultural profile and the instrument to make the much needed connections between the local and the international contexts. Recent steps Some promising small steps to recognise the economic potential of culture as essential investment have recently been taken. First the local budget for cultural activities has trebled for the last three years. The second remarkable step was the longterm cultural strategy (2014 - 2024). Despite these noteworthy efforts, Timișoara is yet to become a progressive cultural city with an appropriate cultural infrastructure. Out of the 30.479.861 million lei (€7 million) representing the local budget for culture in 2014, a little over 12% reached independent cultural initiatives, thus inhibiting the stimulation of the local creative industries and their long-term sustainability. The situation is not different at regional (the Timiș County) level, where 85% of the budget for culture goes to public institutions and 15% to the cultural agenda. Despite this shortfall, Timișoara can pass as a very vibrant artistic city, since the yearly agenda looks impressive with around 3.500 to 4.000 cultural and artistic events. imișoara is defined by culture, experiment, innovation and heritage. Rather, for now, it is known for its IT&C and automotive industry. Shortfalls Nevertheless, there is still a lack of cultural coherence, capacity building and audience development, a lack of strategic direction and cultural innovation. Very modest, and few, initiatives have been organised in these directions. One example is Plai Festival, an international world music and art festival, in its 10th year. Plai Festival is a volunteer-run event held in the Banat Village Museum of Timișoara, which is a great example of audience development. Other examples are Ambasada as a creative incubator for cultural startups, the Museum of the Communist Consumer, and the Simultan Festival, an annual festival dedicated to media art and artistic experiment. contemporary performing art took place in Timișoara, in the ruins of what is now the restored Timișoara Art Museum, the Baroque Palace. With all its deficiencies, Timișoara is still a city where creativity, solidarity, connectivity and responsibility complement an open attitude, and this is what makes Timișoara stand out. The citizens are proud of their city and believe it needs to be maintained and nurtured for future generations. Future steps Timișoara aims to brand itself as the city where the IT world and culture meet. While the IT sector can claim a good international profile while still staying locally rooted, the cultural sector cannot claim the same. Hence, there is little evidence of these two entities working in tandem, yet. The aim is for the economic strategy to be aligned with the cultural strategy of the city and vice-versa. During the industrial revolution, Timișoara had an emerging middle class among whose values were a cultivated taste for culture. During the communist regime, Timișoara was the only city in Romania where artists were allowed to perform cultural interventions in public. After the 1989 Revolution, the first festivals of timisoara2021.ro 5 INTRODUCTION / GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS Explain the concept of the programme which would be launched if the city is designated as European Capital of Culture. S 6 hine your light - Light up your city! captures the reflection of the inner energy and the individual values into the community, followed by their dispersal over panEuropean borders from where they travel back imbued with new meanings. The purpose of our programme for the European Capital of Culture is to generate, through culture, the energy that the individual needs to rediscover the connection with the community and the willingness to take the future into her/his own hands. The concept of our programme is that by sharing your cultural identity and memories with others, or as we call it - Shine the light, you transfer human energy into the community and build a new sense of citizenship, or as we call it - Light up the city. This new sense of European citizenship is inclusive, caring, responsible and also technology-minded, competent and confident. In our work with the community during the last four years, we have identified those urgencies that reflect both the aspirations of the citizens and the problems which prevent the city from becoming the place its citizens want it to be. This includes the lack of action needed to turn change into decision-making; • • • distrust in common ownership of PUBLIC SPACE and disbelieve that public space is where changes take place. This is mainly due to commercial speculation, limited access due to bureaucracy, poor design, neglect and also vandalism; • lack of a visible INTERNATIONAL PROFILE of the city, since its enlightened identity was destroyed by the totalitarian regime, and afterwards by private interests, and has not been strongly redeveloped yet into the contemporary version of the interconnected and authentic place that used to be; • no shared VISION of the future, since there is no common understanding of the past and the present, and no trust in the democratic systems to truly implement any commonlydeveloped strategy. This also Our strategy is to work with urgencies These necessities for change give meaning to the programme: increase of EXCLUSION towards marginalised groups, namely Roma people, disabled, migrants and low-income people. Whereas in the past we were such multi- and inter-cultural society, now we have lost the cultural strengths of living in diversity and we tend to separate instead of include the other; lack of CIVIC ENERGY to speak out, take responsibility and act as citizens in the context of the community and the neighbourhood. includes the lack of awareness of the relationship of humankind with the environment. These urgencies taken separately are common to many European cities, but all together is what makes them specific to the city of Timișoara. The aim of our cultural programme is to offer in 2021 an array of interventions that throughout the cocreation of cultural contents recreate an active European citizenship. The cultural programme is the medium that stimulates and generates a proactive civic involvement. Our approach is coherent in the concept Shine your Light! is our participation strategy. It works with the principle of inspiration - a gentle push for engagement and yet, stronger than an invitation. Basically, the way we work is that artist-activists look over the shoulder of the individual to see what blocks him or her from releasing their inner energy in the community, and cocreate authentic and powerful cultural interventions that try to take away those blockages. The artistic initiatives are able to stir the status quo, highlight dysfunctionalities ignored by decision makers, and propose experimental approaches to the challenges faced by society. CIVIC ENERGY TOLERANCE Inner Light Shared Sight OPENING EVENT accelerate expose Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City reflect INTRODUCTION / GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS Light up your city is our communication strategy. Reflection is the principle that works as an echo effect, that makes the messages more intense and repetitive, sent from Europe to Timișoara and bouncing back. As people in our city tend to pay more attention to the diaspora and the international media and social channels, we will send out messages that bounce back via the European network of our citizens, with a higher intensity for the local audience. Shine your light - Light up your city! is our artistic vision. It is the overall integrating approach that initiates and accelerates the radiation from the source - the individual and her/his culture and experiences - to a target the community - with intrusive effects in society, which remove passivity and release civic energy for engagement and art. Our audience development strategy is to inspire through meaningful artistic works and projects, thus widening the individual’s perspective and accelerating the embedding into the mainstream consciousness. Our strategy is to transform individual culture and memories from isolated bubbles into growing clusters of citizen action, by working with the direct connection between active audiences and active citizenship. As there is an increasing hunger for dialogue, debate, co-creation and interaction, our artistic programme offers a response through that type of cultural participation that increases the likelihood of broader civic engagement. Examples in our programme include, but are not limited to, open and transparent consultations and decisionmaking processes for public spaces and services, a degree of trust and confidence to initiate citizen-led actions, funding mechanisms and new business models for citizen initiatives, accessibility of public spaces and services, educational programmes involving an intergenerational audience, exchanges with international art and cultural institutions. Our programme reflects the civic reality During consultations and debates with members of the local, European and regional community, urgencies have been developed into the essentials of the artistic concept. The result is that each of the five urgencies has its own strand with a flagship and main events. We envisage our opening ceremony, Light My Fire, as an event literally powered by people. The polymorphous performance, gathering a huge crowd of people and the attention of the world is meant to accelerate each individual’s longing to experience new ways of relating to each other, and show their openness for engagement in the larger community. Inner Light invites people to expose their own stories, memories and experiences to turn them into a propellant for civic action. As Europe is experiencing a digital divide between generations, the programme aims to challenge each individual’s status quo. We transform the youth’s technologyinduced trance into purposeful collaborative action, while engaging with the older generations, and creating new opportunities to make the common European heritage accessible. Shared Sight is about encouraging Europeans to reflect on and change the way they relate to each other, thus embracing the benefits of living together in diversity. Light and Dark Spaces is an opportunity to penetrate the rigid mentality which holds back many Europeans from new social experiences. People are invited to explore places they do not usually look at, because of the way they are publicly perceived. The eyes will also open to unexpected new vertical dimension of the city: the space above. Light over Borders brings onto the Timișoara stage an array of European cultural interventions and initiatives. All major cultural operators in the city, in partnership with European peers, put together an extensive programme floating downstream towards new public and networking opportunities. The abundance of encounters will lead the quest to explore diversity and difference, but also to underline basic common humanity. Towards the end of our year-long artistic programme we hope people are prepared to widen their perspective. Lightscapes shows the need to globalise our thinking in order to create thriving local communities. It also defines the vision for the future and reveals the Insights of the legacy which TM2021 leaves behind. On 20 December 2021 Timișoara is ready to re-start along with the places and the cities where the radiation of energy from Timișoara has been spread in a human geography of empathy, exchanges and interactions. At the end of that magic night all the citizens will ride A Never Ending Ray of Light rising from Timișoara in the direction of the new ECoC cities. INTERNATIONAL PROFILE PUBLIC SPACE Light and Dark Spaces LACK OF VISION Lightscapes Light over Borders CLOSING EVENT penetrate network globalise re-start timisoara2021.ro 7 1. CONTRIBUTION TO THE LONG-TERM STRATEGY 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? T he cultural strategy acknowledges the diverse and dynamic cultural activities which have taken place in the city. It realises the strong connections Timișoara has with the other cities in the region and it considers the strategic position of Timișoara in the heart of the Euro-region which includes parts of Serbia and Hungary. Timișoara is the first city in Romania to have such a long-term public policy document. 8 In October 2014, the local authorities published the cultural strategy for the following ten years after more than one year of public consultations, workshops and debates held with the local cultural sector, since this has been among the top four priorities and an integral part of the overall development of the city. The main objective is the development of the city through culture and the creative industries, by collaboration with other sectors and with other cities in the region, in the country and across the continent. The strategy draws on the analysis of twelve public policy documents (see below) which acknowledge culture as a development factor for the city and the region, as well as on numerous participative workshops, focus groups and qualitative interviews involving almost 2.000 individuals, aiming to highlight the contribution of culture to the long-term development of the city and the region. Following these consultations the strategy identifies five main directions together with their objectives: 1. Open Timișoara: cultural governance is based on participatory democracy, where the public sector creates a suitable environment for excellent cultural activities; 2. Creative Timișoara: contemporary Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City art is encouraged in an active manner with a special interest towards experimentation and interdisciplinary; 3. Involved Timișoara: cultural unity and diversity live side-by-side and the city identity, in its continuous efforts to redefine itself, is rooted in the multicultural, multilinguistic and multiconfessional profile of the city; 4. Connected Timișoara: connected to the contemporary artistic movements in Romania and Europe; 5. Responsible Timișoara: the natural and man-made heritage is protected, with good and generous public spaces offering a diverse cultural and artistic experience. Links with the economic and social sectors While the cultural sector has developed strong links with the social sector (such as the Pentru Voi [For You] organisation which promotes the social integration of people with mental disabilities), it cannot boast the same closeness with the private sector. One of the weaknesses of the cultural sector is its reliance on public funds and subsequently its inability to attract private funding. This limits its capacity to develop and engage with new segments of audiences. However, the strategy strongly suggests developing these links for their long- term sustainability. This includes a first-year mentoring scheme which would enable economic agents, and the IT sector, to help the cultural and creative industry agents to become profitable and sustainable. During the year, programmes such as Addictive Lights, Brilliant, Insights or the closing event are based on a close cooperation between the cultural sector and a variety of business representatives from technology companies to small creative start-ups. Long-term sustainability plans The vision for the next ten years concentrates on building on the inherent character of the city defined by experiment and disciplinary mix. This direction has been the key recommendation of the cultural strategy, as well as the outcome of the workshops carried out by the TM2021 Association. Among the strategic recommendations are: the creation of a cultural hub to support emerging artists; a platform for cultural startups including financial support for the first year; new spaces of artistic production and exhibition so that contemporary art is accessible in public spaces. Other long-term recommendations are: investment in human resources involved in the creative industries; stimulation of artistic mobility; developing long-term links between the economic sector 1. CONTRIBUTION TO THE LONG-TERM STRATEGY and the cultural and creative industry; engaging and reaching out to new segments of audience; developing regional and cross-border cultural networks. The document rightly notes that not only the cultural offer of the city needs to be developed sustainably but also the community itself, with a greater concern for the younger generation. The proposed institutional framework for sustaining the long term activities of the city beyond the year of the title is a shared responsibility between the Communication Department of the Municipality of Timișoara and a newlyrecommended Centre for Cultural Projects. Given the large budget it will administer for cultural initiatives, this institution is subjected to the principles of transparency and accountability, therefore any political influence should be monitored by the civil society. Through TM2021 we want to build on the good things which enrich the cultural life of the city and make them better with the purpose of developing audiences at local, regional and international level. Public Policy Documents 1. General Concept of Urban Development (Master plan) – part of the General Urban Plan, 2012; 2. The Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan – in development in 2015, with an estimated budget of €70-100 million, integrating Vision 2030 – General Development Strategy for the Traffic within Timișoara and the Metropolitan Surrounding Areas from 2008; 3. Socio-Economic Development Strategy for the Timiș County 2009-2015, estimated at around €870 million, now being continued through the Socio-Economic Development Strategy for the Timiș County 2015 - 2020, in public consultation; 4. The Strategy of the Management of the Green Public Spaces in Timișoara 2010-2020, of around €16-17 million; 5. Joint Development Strategy for the Development of the Tourist Potential of the Bega Canal in the Romanian-Serbia Area, 2014, with an estimated budget of €195 million; 6. Strategy for the Development of the Western Region 2014-2020, based on which the West Regional Development Agency of Romania has allocated €642 million of European funds; 7. IPA Programme for the cross-border collaboration between Romania and Serbia 2014-2020, with a total budget of €88 million; 8. Interreg V-A Programme between Romania and Hungary 2014–2020, with a total budget of €232 million; 9. Study of the Development Potential of Timișoara and Arad, 2013, having an estimated budget of €6.820 million; 10. Integrated Development Plan of the Timișoara City Hall 2012, of €70 million; 11. Historical Study of the Protected Built Areas – Timișoara 2011; 12. Strategic planning based on the analysis of the eligible programme area of Cross Border Cooperation Programme between Romania and Hungary. How is the European Capital of Culture action included in this strategy? T imișoara’s candidacy for the ECoC title is acknowledged in the city’s cultural strategy. It is envisaged that the cultural strategy and the TM2021 programme will work in tandem, and one should not be mistaken for the other as they are two distinctive projects which strengthen each other. The strategy supports the candidacy, providing a vision for the cultural development of the city before and after 2021. The TM2021 programme is founded on, as well as contributes to the strategy. The winning of the title is not regarded as a goal per se, but rather a means to boost cultural development and social change. The Timișoara – European Capital of Culture Association was actively involved in all stages of shaping the cultural strategy. The candidacy is analysed in terms of long-term implementation, sustainability and impact. The document acknowledges that the candidacy prompted an increase in the local budget for culture. and the programme of the European Capitals of Culture 2021-2030. The timeline of the whole cultural strategy integrates the 2021 moment as follows: • 2014-2016 - the preparation of the TM2021 bid; • 2017-2021 – the preparation of the TM2021 cultural programme (should the bid be successful); • 2022-2024 - the long-term management of the legacy of the TM2021 programme. The evaluation of the impact of the cultural strategy used the Liverpool08 European Capital of Culture, the European Parliament’s Agenda 21 In conclusion, the cultural strategy acknowledges the role which the Association will play in its long-term impact, should the candidacy bid be successful. Winning the ECoC title will revive the spirit of Timișoara, thus recovering, restoring and rethinking the identity of the city. Nevertheless, the strategy can be implemented regardless of the bid outcome, but it will probably not have the same boost. timisoara2021.ro 9 1. CONTRIBUTION TO THE LONG-TERM STRATEGY 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)? W ith a possible ECoC year in Timișoara, Europe gets an open experiment with multiculturalism, multiconfessionalism, active civic society and entrepreneurship as a basis, and can therewith engage individuals into European citizens. 10 These are central values that build stability in the turbulent Europe of today. They are values well-rooted in Timișoara’s past, and although pushed into the background during the last decades, the city currently reinvents them in a contemporary European context. As identified causes of the city’s status quo, the specific combination of our city’s urgencies have provided the underlying thread of the cultural programme. The following long-term impact is foreseen: Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City • The cultural impact is the outcome of pursuing the values of multi-confessionalism and multi-culturalism: through ECoC interventions we prove the transformative power of culture in Europe especially by addressing the urgency of increasing exclusion towards marginalised groups, namely religious (among others muslims), disabled, migrants and poor people. • The social impact is the outcome of pursuing the value of active civic society: through ECoC interventions we empower the existing social capital in Europe to get organised and act as a group especially in order to speak out, take responsibility and act as citizens in the context of the community and the neighbourhood, and to trust in their common ownership of public space. • The economic impact is the outcome of pursuing entrepreneurship: through ECoC interventions we enlarge the shared vision and strengthen European societies to share the commonly-developed motion of what their cities are about. In terms of employment our cultural programme builds competences and provides links to business development. We do so by encouraging artists, activists, citizens, media representatives, entrepreneurs, decision-makers and politicians to contribute to and build a shared vision for European cities to increase their international profile. The gradual transformative process of the individual starts with the participative strategy of inspiring him/her to engage. It continues with the communication strategy where the individual is encouraged to share their personal stories, which are then integrated and accelerated by the artistic vision, until they become a contagious radiation from the individual to the community. The audience development strategy strengthens the process, by directly connecting active audiences and active citizens. Therefore, the candidacy leaves a lasting legacy on the cultural fabric of Timișoara and of its partners, through the power of the individuals’ culture within their communities, which as a result, become cultural neighbourhoods. The European dimension frames the whole process of transformation, both of individuals and their communities, into a contemporary scenario and anchors it into today’s values and challenges. Hence, the long-term impact is structured as presented below: 1. CONTRIBUTION TO THE LONG-TERM STRATEGY European dimension impacts Addresses passivity, an energy-draining, apathy-inducing attitude Aim: active European citizen • Extended citizens’ knowledge about European issues, especially regarding young, minorities, migrants and vulnerable groups; • Acknowledgment of Timișoara’s and its citizens’ role in the construction of Europe, especially of politicians, decision makers, civic leaders, academics and media representatives; • Long lasting developed co-productions and exchanges with European artists, organisations, cities and regions. Cultural impacts Social impacts Economic impacts, including visibility Addresses exclusion of marginalised groups Addresses lack of civic energy and distrust in public-space ownership Addresses lack of shared vision and of visible international profile Aim: to stimulte multiculturalism Aim: to facilitate the emergence of an active civic society Aim: to encourage entrepreneurship • Involved citizens in co-creation and co-production of cultural experiences, especially of marginalised groups namely Roma people, disabled, migrants and poor people; • Strengthened facilities, capacity and opportunities of artistic content in Timișoara itself; • Consolidated collaborations, networks and shared structures, both within and outside the culture sector; • Continuously-developed cultural projects, unique, new, innovative and/ or experimental which offer different and various experiences for citizens and visitors; • Transformation of the image of the city; • Strengthened cultural policy of the city and the local governance architecture related. • Citizens’ sense of place and pride built through awareness of the ECoC and changed perceptions; • Strengthened facilities, capacity and opportunities for artistic community projects in neighbourhoods; • Widened cultural access and participation, addressing audiences of all ages, education, geographical origin, language, social background, digital literacy; • New audiences developed, by exposing people, who usually avoid participation, to cultural events going on in schools, churches, social centres, parks and squares; • Increased international profile of the city; • Evidenced effects on wider governance and democratic activity as a result of the ECoC process, at local, regional, national, cross-border and European level; • City’s improved tourism, economic, urban and accessibility infrastructure; • Increased tourism sector; • Developed cultural and creative industries sector and employment. • Particular groups addressed as audiences, such as young and seniors; • Developed volunteering opportunities. Urban development impacts • changed mentality in terms of habits and independent self-criticism; • understanding of the importance of public space as place for experimentation; • boost in social integration especially towards those parts of the city that suffer from exclusion; • rethinking of the consequences of design of neighbourhoods on the mobility between social strata; • optimised mobility and accessibility of employees and entrepreneurs; • shared and agreed common view on the international profile of the city; • new cultural destinations. Performance targets of the long-term impacts – and for the year itself – can be found on page 14. timisoara2021.ro 11 1. CONTRIBUTION TO THE LONG-TERM STRATEGY 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? T 12 he evaluation project for TM2021 must set up a rigorous, independent evaluation system that establishes a dialogue with the local community to create a widespread culture of transparency and accountability, helping local stakeholders to build trust in the project as a fair, win-win game and a real opportunity for human, social and economic development of Timișoara. In the Romanian context, we cannot rely on a long history of setting up evaluation systems for large cultural programmes such as the ECoC. Thus, in choosing the evaluation team, we focused on three key criteria: 1. Ensuring full independence of the evaluator subject, to guarantee a fair, rigorous evaluation and a useful basis of comparison with other ECoCs; 2. Ensuring a strong competence base, allowing an evaluation that complies with the best standards building on earlier experiences in the region as in Sibiu 2007 and Pécs 2010 - and enables a substantial knowledge transfer to the local players; 3. Ensuring an in-depth knowledge of the local context, to tailor the evaluation tools to the specificities of Timișoara and its territory. To this purpose, the evaluation team features both local players (the West University of Timișoara), and an international partner, who cooperates with a consultant that knows the region, chosen through an open call to European research institutions with a strong background in cultural evaluation. Proposals must comply with the European Commission requirements, in particular the ECoC 2020-2023 Guide for Cities preparing the Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City bid, and Guidelines for the Cities’ own evaluation of the results of each ECoC, and with the bid’s general and specific objectives. financial offer, knowledge-transfer programme for local experts and young researchers, and a programme for citizens’ consultation and involvement in the evaluation process itself. General objective A community of practice that has reputational interests in evaluating ECoCs and large scale cultural projects with a strong development focus, is made with bidding institutions that are not chosen, the Romanian and international experts involved in the evaluation of Sibiu 2007, other ECoCs in 2019-2020-2021-2023, cultural observatories (like the Budapest Observatory) and with representatives of the European Commision’s DG EAC (wherever possible and appropriate). Together they will regularly engage in digital hangout sessions and in occasional face-to-face meetings, and will accompany the development of the evaluation activity through a continuous exchange of information, opinions, and expertise, and will have a direct insight in the kitchen of evaluation of TM2021 and provide peer-to-peer review. In principle, the community of practice should outlive the ECoC programme itself, becoming a constant, long-term reference for Timișoara, and possibly for other Romanian cities, as an expert hub for cultural evaluation. We expect to learn, especially via cooperation with evaluation of culture in developing countries, such as, for example with cultureradius.co.sa from South Africa. GO1. To build cultural neighbourhoods, to strengthen social cohesion and to improve well-being in Timișoara, its region and beyond, through and by active European citizens. Specific objectives SO1. To increase tolerance, acceptance and inclusion among citizens and widen individuals’ cultural horizons, within strong multi- and inter-cultural neighbourhoods and communities in Timișoara, its region and beyond. SO2. To increase civic awareness, knowledge, commitment and initiatives among citizens, within the context of an active, large and various civic society, on the basis of common ownership of the city; SO3. To embrace and implement a shared vision of the city’s future by citizens and decision makers and increase visibility of the city’s international profile. Our choice of the international partner will be on the basis of the competences to deliver the best methodology, 1. CONTRIBUTION TO THE LONG-TERM STRATEGY In total 1% of the overall budget is used for checking and making visible the overall effects of the ECoC through evaluation and monitoring, practical working sessions with international and regional experts, public scorecards that show the progress on the implementation, data collection and tracking, ‘data war rooms’ and master classes, citizens and artists’ sessions on design, information collection and analysis-communication and involvement in the half yearly information markets that are planned. We use instruments as follows: • citizens’ focus groups involved in the design, data collection and communication of monitoring outcomes; • the ECoC Art Markets presenting the status and outcomes of the monitoring and evaluation programme; • a balance score card displayed in public space and on the web stating the latest indicators of success and their progress. Our concrete objectives are formulated with reference to the bid’s general and specific objectives, according to the methodology proposed by the international partner. We expect to measure them by means of indicators highlighting aspects such as: • the level of involvement of citizens in co-creation and co-production of cultural experiences, especially of marginalised groups, namely Roma people, disabled, migrants and poor people (GO1); • the level of cultural access and participation, addressing audiences of every age, education, geographical origin, language, social background, digital literacy (SO1); • the development of new audiences, by engaging people who usually avoid participation to cultural events, and particular sociodemographic groups such as the elderly and the teenagers (SO2); • the level of European exposure and visibility of Timișoara (SO3). The first stage of our baseline research consists of all collected relevant documentation about the European Commission guidelines on ECoC evaluation. In the second stage we continue collecting all the evaluation studies conducted by external experts on ECoC cities (including single city studies), such as the Palmer Reports and the Ecorys ex-post evaluation of the 2012 ECoCs. The third phase collects all available evaluation studies by ECoCs themselves. The fourth phase collects all the research papers on the impact of ECoCs published in scientific journals. The fifth stage collects all relevant studies on the city of Timișoara and its region, within the framework set by the Timișoara Cultural Strategy 2014-2024, possibly integrated by a new study on the social and cultural capital of Timișoara, investigating current levels of cultural participation. The evaluation team will carry out an in-depth meta-review of the first four stages, pinpointing the main methodological approaches, findings, and outstanding issues, and will analyse the fifth stage in a reference Policy Document. The European Commission has set clear standards for the evaluation toolbox in terms of General, Specific and Operational Objectives and their pool of core indicators in the ECoC 2020-2033 Guidelines. This will be a central reference for our evaluation methodology, and will be integrally adopted as a precondition for the methodological proposals of bidding international partners. that accurately reflect them and are effectively measurable on the basis of available data. We will also exchange views with other ECoC evaluation teams to take advantage of ideas about new indicators, offering full reciprocity in this respect. There are two distinct dimensions of success we are interested in: • whether or not the ECoC is able to accomplish its stated goals, which are defined in terms of target values of the chosen indicators as specified above, and to what extent; • whether the culture of evaluation itself can become part of the professional framework and background of all local players as a consequence of the ECoC evaluation process. A useful way to tackle both criteria is to combine them as an integral part of the citizens’ participation process. In particular, during the public consultation phase in the pre-ECoC years, we will spark a professionally-moderated discussion with all local stakeholders, including public administrations, companies and cultural and civil society organisations, as to what we should consider as criteria for success. We will finalise the adopted ‘success’ criteria with the conclusion of the methodological set-up phase by Q2-2018. We think that by fixing target values through a process of public consultation, we will also stimulate the local community to appreciate the importance of evaluating and benchmarking as a way to make better public decisions and to learn from experience. Also part of the preconditions for the international partner selection will be the possible formulation of additional Operational Objectives, and possibly of an additional Specific Objective, reflecting the thematic focus of Timișoara’s bid as expressed by GO1 and SO3, and to develop indicators timisoara2021.ro 13 1. CONTRIBUTION TO THE LONG-TERM STRATEGY A first workshop with citizens, prepared by experts, has already taken place and led to this first table of indicators: European dimension impacts Extended citizens’ knowledge of European issues, especially of young, minorities, migrants and vulnerable groups 14 50% of Timișoreni 55% of young Timișoreni 60% of minorities 65% of migrants 70% of vulnerable groups By 2022, 50% of Timișoreni, 55% of young Timișoreni, 60% of minorities, 65% of migrants, and 70% of vulnerable groups will know their basic human rights as European citizens. That percentage will increase yearly by at least 2-3%. Similar indicators are put in place on stability and mobility, but also on the Europe Direct contact points, for example. Methods: Questionnaire surveys among residents (city and region). Every Q4/Y19-23 Acknowledged Timișoara’s and citizen’s role in the construction of Europe, especially of politicians, decision makers, civic leaders, academics and media representatives By 2022, Timișoara will have an independent strategic civic Advisory Board put in place for representing the city’s interests in its relationship with Europe and beyond, with politicians, citizens and other stakeholders involved. Target in the long-term is to facilitate local appreciation of the diversity of European cultures, through concrete yearly initiatives. Direct contact points, for example. Long-lasting developed co-productions and exchanges with European artists, organisations, cities and regions By 2021: at least 50% of the cultural programme will be coproduced through European partnerships; directly and indirectly the ECoC cultural programme will involve at least 3.000 operators and artists from all over Europe; 100 European residence and mobility programmes will be implemented; 100 internships, exchanges and work share schemes in Europe will be offered to cultural operators from Timișoara. By 2022, 45% and in 2023 35% cross-border European cooperation from the ECoC year will still be in place, and 10 new cross-border European cooperations will be established. Target in the long-term is to maintain at least 25% of cross-border European cooperation from the ECoC year and to build yearly 5 new cross-border European cooperations. Methods: Quantitative analysis of the cultural programme. Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. By 2021 50%+ of the cultural programme will be co-produced through European partnerships Long Term 25%+ The long-term target is to maintain at least 25% of crossborder European cooperation from the ECoC year Methods: Annual activity reports. Independent experts’ reports. Analysis of local and regional public policies. Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. 3000+ at least 3.000 operators and artists from all over Europe will be involved 5+ At least 5 new cross-border European cooperations will be established yearly. Cultural impacts Involved citizens in co-creation and co-production of cultural experiences, especially of marginalised groups By 2021, 60% of the city’s cultural programme provided by the direct involvement of citizens through co-creation and coproduction of projects (in 2022 this should be 20%); 20% of the artistic programme co-designed by cultural and ethnic minorities and marginalised groups, including communitarian projects developed within neighbourhoods; 25% of the 65-80 year olds are active in transferring their knowledge of art or craftsmanship to other generations; 45% of the 20-30 year-olds are active in transferring their IT knowledge to seniors; 30% increase of digital literacy in elder population. Target in the long-term is to increase yearly by 2%. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City 60% of the city’s cultural programme provided by the direct involvement of citizens through co-creation and coproduction of projects 30% increase of digital literacy in elder population Method: Quantitative analysis and surveys on audiences and outreach (e.g. tickets sold, IT platforms traffic and up-loads, events data basis). Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. 1. CONTRIBUTION TO THE LONG-TERM STRATEGY Strengthened facilities, capacity and opportunities of artistic content in Timișoara itself By 2021, 240 capacity building and exchange programmes will be implemented for the cultural operators; 100% increase in the number of active cultural operators; 25% increase of jobs in cultural fields; 25% increase of the cultural operators’ budget; 20% increase of private funding resources for public cultural operators. Target in the long-term is to maintain the engagement level. Method: Quantitative analysis of the cultural programme. Unconventional research methods (e.g. qualitative research done by artists). Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. 245 new collaborations will be developed within and across genres of cultural operators 140 120 new collaborations with business, social and other sectors international networks that Timișoara will join and be active in By 2021 240 capacity building and exchange programmes will be implemented increase in the number of active cultural operators increase of jobs in cultural fields increase of the cultural operators’ budget 25% By 2021, 245 new collaborations will be developed within and across genres of cultural operators; 140 new collaborations with business, social and other sectors; the city and region will join and be active in 120 international networks, arising from ECoC activity and context. Starting from 2022, 50% of cultural operators will take part in two international projects each year. Method: Quantitative analysis of the cultural programme. Unconventional research methods (e.g. qualitative research done by artists). Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. By 2022, 25 original art works produced and/or commissioned by cultural operators each year, with a 5% yearly increase afterwards, and yearly implementation of 40 neighbourhood projects achieved by citizens in collaboration with public administration. By 2021, 90% of people will believe culture has a very important role in the economy of the future; 70% of people will say that Timișoara is attractive to young people; 70% of people will say that the city is an innovative and creative city; 40.000 national and local mass, social and new media articles with reference to ECoC, out of which 75% positive; 15.000 international mass, social and new media articles with reference to ECoC, out of which 90% positive. Method: Questionnaire surveys among residents (city and region). Monitoring of the European, international and national media and social media. Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. 25% Consolidated collaborations, networks and shared structures, within, as well as outside, the culture sector Continuously developed cultural projects, unique, new, innovative and/or experimental Transformed image of the city 100% Method: Quantitative analysis of the cultural programme. Unconventional research methods (e.g. qualitative research done by artists). Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. By 2021 90% 70% of people will believe culture has a very important role in the economy of the future of people will say that Timișoara is an innovative and creative city; Strengthened cultural policy of the city and the related local governance architecture By 2021, involvement of 40 public directors and officials in mobility projects and European Learning Partnerships; governance of the cultural scene, especially cross border, is focused on participation and development with the citizen; the citizen participation is secured within the Cultural Strategy institutional design (put in practice in 2016); City Council of Timișoara is actively involved in 12 relevant European cultural networks. Method: Quantitative analysis of the cultural programme. Stakeholder interviews. Analysis of strategy implementation reports and surveys. Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. Social impacts Citizens’ sense of place and pride re-built, through awareness of the ECoC and changed perceptions By 2021, 80% of citizens in Timișoara say ECoC developed more pride, joy, social cohesion and optimism for the people. Method: Questionnaire surveys among residents (city and region). Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. timisoara2021.ro 15 1. CONTRIBUTION TO THE LONG-TERM STRATEGY Strengthened facilities, capacity and opportunities of artistic communitarian projects in neighbourhoods Method: Analysis of urban development reports.Stakeholder interviews. Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. By 2021, 50% increase in re-use of empty and/or neglected industrial sites. 16 Widened cultural access and participation, addressing audiences of all ages, education, geographical origin, language, social background, digital literacy By 2021, 8 million people in Europe were contacted for co-creation projects, including via on-line platforms; participants attended 2.000 ECoC events (per type of event we will analyse demographics, e.g. % breakdown of audience by socioeconomic background - age, income, education levels, referencing European Qualifications Framework). By 2022, 30% more visits to museums, theatres, concerts, art exhibitions and literature events and 50% rise in awareness of culture for the 6-24 year olds. By 2022 30% 50% more visits to museums, theatres, concerts, art exhibitions and literature events rise in awareness of culture for the 6-24 year olds. Method: Questionnaire surveys among residents (city and region). Quantitative analysis of the cultural programme. Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. New and particular audiences and volunteering developed, by exposing people who usually avoid participation to cultural events going on in schools, churches, social centres, parks and squares By 2021, at least 65 socio-cultural operators involved in exchange programmes and refresher courses on cultural production and audience engagement; 100% of primary school children, 75% of secondary school children and 50% of high school children participate in cultural education; 25% participation from groups with traditionally little affinity to culture; each year 100 children below poverty line have direct access through facilities and subsidies to culture; 60% of citizens will declare themselves willing to do volunteer work; Timișoara will have a core group of 1500 volunteers with strong networks in culture; starting with 2021, 100 labour-learning students each year in cultural and creative sector; at least 10% of the artists will be hosted by local families. Method: Quantitative analysis and surveys on audiences and outreach. Quantitative analysis of the cultural programme. Every Q4/Y19-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. Economic impacts City’s increased international profile By 2021, 30 million people in Europe have heard about Timișoara; 90% of international visitors state that they would come back to the region for culture/holiday/ leisure; 60% of 13-20 year olds consider coming back after studying elsewhere; 75% of students at the universities in Timișoara consider staying in the area if they can find a job; increased partnerships with foreign universities, exchange students and exchange of students. By 2021 30.000.000 people in Europe have heard about Timișoara Method: Questionnaire surveys among residents (city and region). Monitoring of the European, international and national media, social media and websites. Every Q4/Y22-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. Evidenced effects on wider governance and democratic activity at local, regional, national, cross-border and European level By 2022, there is coherence between existing institutions promoting a higher quality of life (culture, sport, leisure time, science, innovation, education, economy), with an improved synergy with other EU projects. Grown tourism and cultural-creative industry sector By 2021, 1.5 million visitors in Timișoara; after 2021, increase the average time of visit by 30%; after 2021, 10% increase of tourist spending budget; after 2021, €92 million income into the regional economy through visitors. After 2022, achieve an annual inflow of 600,000 visitors to the city, of whom 50% are from abroad. By 2021, 25% increase in students for Cultural and Creative Industries sector and 25% increase of creative industry enterprises that grow sustainably for more than 3 years. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City By 2021 1.5M visitors in Timișoara Method: Analysis of the annual Cultural Agenda of the city. Every Q4/Y22-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. 30% increase in the average time of visit Method: Quantitative analysis (e.g. tickets sold, accommodation booked, flights). Stakeholder interviews. Every Q4/Y22-23; Every Q4/Y24-26. 2. EUROPEAN DIMENSION Elaborate on the scope and quality of the activities: Promoting the cultural diversity of Europe, intercultural dialogue and greater mutual understanding between European citizens. B y the end of 2021, through our artistic programme, we hope we will restore the values of cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and greater understanding between Europeans, values which once were part of the social fabric of the city and now they need a new contextualization for the 21st century. The commonly-shared European values lay at the foundation and the enlightenment of the 18th and 19thcentury middle class in Timișoara. We will revisit those values, restore them and make use of them in a contemporary context. We want Timișoara to become a laboratory for these restored values in Europe. maintain it. For example, it is normal to celebrate Easter in many ways if the members of the family follow different traditions; or the civic spirit that was also reflected during the Revolution which was started by a priest who belonged to both a cultural-linguistic and religious minority - a Protestant Magyar (Hungarian). This is what defines Timișoara. The cultural diversity of Europe For TM2021 European diversity will be a founding block of most of our programmes. For example, in the Heritage in the Spotlights thousands of heritage items are documented in a collaborative and interdisciplinary way and promoted through storytelling by trained local guides, from a variety of backgrounds, including Roma youngsters, migrants, people with disabilities, elderly; six historical neighbourhoods will become living museums with the inhabitants being the directors, curators and guides; and throughout the month of August we will organise the Mega Bega Festival, an event of European diversity. Our understanding of cultural diversity is the acknowledgment of each individual’s unique identity given by his or her cultural, religious and social background. Diversity is ingrained in Timișoara’s DNA. This is the way we are, no matter what. The city has been a melting pot of cultures for centuries, assimilating three major influences: Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and Romanian. Nevertheless, social identity was constructed in the Banat not through nationality, but through culture and heritage. Values have always been more important than ideologies. From the social behaviour perspective, Timișoara was an example of multiand inter-cultural society for three hundred years, which made it possible for the city to be integrated into Europe in the 18th century and to represent the main link between the Catholics and the Orthodox, the Christians and the Muslims, the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. The multicultural dimension gave consistency to the anti-totalitarian resistance in the 20th century. The Timișoreni are proud of this plural heritage and they want to Intercultural dialogue We cannot talk about multiculturality without interculturality. We see the intercultural dialogue as the unity which binds together the religious, cultural and social diversity of our community. This definition draws on the city’s and the region’s long tradition of multi- and interculturality based on a civic engagement from which it has emerged, what is known in Romania as ‘the spirit of Timișoara’. Timișoara’s European openness has been facilitated by the practice of plurilingualism and multiconfessionalism. At the beginning of the 20th century, Timișoara’s population spoke five languages, Hungarian, German, Serbian, Romanian and Bulgarian. The main religious affiliations were Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Greek Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran and Reformist - Calvinist*. During the Hungarian domination, Timișoara had the only multi-lingual local administration in Central and Eastern Europe. This ethos stimulated a multicultural citizenship within the Banat region long before this became a vision and a value of Europe, laying the foundation of the European Union. These features will be showcased in programmes such as Heritage in the Spotlights, Words of Light and Let There Be Light. The multicultural citizenship is characterised by an intermingling of cultures, by practices and habits based not on ethnic or religious identities but on interculturality: a high number of inter-religious and inter-ethnical marriages, schools with teaching in minority languages attended by Romanian children as well, press published in minority’s language, the German and Hungarian theatres attended not only by Germans or Magyars (Hungarians), a yearly ecumenical march attended by representatives of all Christian denominations. The political regimes of the 20th century, however, did leave scars. As the Germans from the Banat emigrated, a certain reticence towards the Roma community and towards the newcomers from other Romanian timisoara2021.ro 17 2. EUROPEAN DIMENSION regions has slowly made its way into our communities. We are going to address this issue in programmes such as Invisible/Visible and Flash of Memory. 18 During TM2021 we aim to enhance this intercultural dialogue and celebrate the different languages spoken in Timișoara, not only by the historic ethnic groups such as the Banatian dialect of Romanian and the Schwabian dialect of German, but also by new communities such Arabic, Asian, Italian. We will organise Words of Light, a multilingual international programme curated by Guerrilla Translation and the Fraktura Literature Festival. Greater mutual understanding between European citizens Peaceful coexistence, the acknowledgment of the diversity within the community, and the initiation of dialogue between cultures has been the norm in Timișoara since the Middle Ages. After 1918 the population of Timișoara resisted the nationalistic temptations of the interwar period. When communism gripped the country after the Second World War they retained values such as solidarity, tolerance and respect regardless of the social group the individual belonged to. The fact that the anti-communist revolution started in Timișoara is proof that these commonly-shared values of our communities could not be altered by the influences of nationalism. More recently, with the great brain drain which Timișoara has experienced, the city risks losing its identity given by these values if it does not instil the ethos within the communities of the newcomers to the city. others do the same. These values were achieved through wider access to culture and education, closing the gap between rich and poor, speaking the language of others and sharing the spiritual values of one’s neighbours. We will spread these shared values within society by producing and implementing educational projects in schools, artistic intervention of the theatre, music, film, social sciences and humanities. Circulating Skyscapes programme illustrates the deep cultural effects of individual mobility, metaphorically represented by people who lived under more than one sky and can share their enriched views further in communities. Encouraging others to reach their potential has been a core value within the Banat community, where individuals moved forward and let Elaborate on the scope and quality of the activities: Highlighting the common aspects of European cultures, heritage and history, as well as European integration and current European themes. O ur strategy is to strengthen our relationship with the enlightened cities and beyond, through artistic exchanges, co-productions and co-creations, and by doing this, create a wave that empowers us to rediscover the open-minded social fabric of Europe, the shared history and the common future. Common aspects What bind Europeans together are the material and the immaterial culture, the buildings heritage and the people (the living heritage), the past and the future. We aim to discover shared transcultural values across Europe. We do not have to look too far back in history to discover a network of Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City European cities similar to Timișoara in the way they were built and the values they promoted. Timișoara’s values need to be understood within this framework of enlightened cities: Košice (Slovakia), Novi Sad (Serbia), Pilsen (Czech Republic), Pécs (Hungary), Chernivtsi (Ukraine), Lviv (Ukraine), Kraków (Poland), Trieste (Italy), Stuttgart (Germany), Ruse (Bulgaria) and beyond. Their commonly-shared values of immaterial culture, such as cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, education-oriented, entrepreneurship, social innovation, cultural hybridity and anti-nationalistic discourses, are reflected in the elements of the material culture, the architecture, buildings, monuments, food. The fitting image to reflect this spirit is the Unirii Square in Timișoara where three places of worship belonging to 2. EUROPEAN DIMENSION three different denominations share the public space. Let There Be Light will symbolically add to these the contemporary diversity of spiritual beliefs in Europe. Current European themes European integration Misuse of public spaces is a concern for cities which inherited a lot of buildings and infrastructure from the 18th and 19th centuries. Timișoara has the oldest manufacturing district in Romania, dating 1732-1744, but also large areas of decayed socialist industrial sites. We plan to address the need to reclaim this space, rehabilitate the buildings and create neighbourhoods with a strong community spirit with programmes such as Brilliant and Inspired View. With such strong and clear values in mind, we envisage Timișoara to be the European laboratory which advocates a more tolerant, open-minded and collaboration-driven Europe. Heritage in the Spotlight contributes to the European platforms for sharing common heritage of the past, Twinkling Little Global Cities reflects the quest for a sustainable future for small and medium-sized cities while Circulating Skyscapes portrays the emerging new European that assumes more than one cultural identity. Besides sharing the heritage, history and culture, these cities also share similar current European challenges. anxiety and frustration. Labour Day Stripped to the Bone is a reminder to reconnect with those aspects that go beyond a materialistic, consumptiondriven society. Immigration is a critical issue in Europe. Timișoara hosts the first UNHCR Transit Refugee Centres in Europe. We include in our programme people with refugee / migration backgrounds willing to share their experiences and culture in safe spaces such as Chiaroscuro and Words of Light. Unemployment, is a constant worry, especially for young people, adding Elaborate on the scope and quality of the activities: 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. T We have specific educational programmes on a digital divide such as Addictive Lights, conducted by Trànsit Projectes (ES) in collaboration with the West University of Timișoara -Social Science Research Centre, and the EOS Foundation, affiliated to Telecentre Europe Network. Within Dare to Shine, the Danish Network for Children (the advisory body of the Ministry of Culture for children’s culture), CRAFTed project (IR), will be invited to offer workshops and educational laboratories, in collaboration with the local Banat Village Museum of Timișoara, and the Rubin Foundation and Street Delivery Festival, where local and visiting children and adults he whole artistic programme of TM2021 involves European partners and prioritises a stronger and more focused cooperation. create and learn together. In Blossoms and Transparent Walls we have a series of social projects for increased-risk groups and cultural activities with multiethnic or intercultural profiles, run by Opera Circus (UK), PartecipArte (IT), Métaforum (FR), Aufbruch (DE) and TeatroDentro – TransFormas (ES), in collaboration with the local The Intercultural Institute from Timișoara and independent theatre companies such as Auăleu. The creative repurposing of the former industrial estates, arranged by ZK/U Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (DE) and the French collective of architects Encore Heureux, will allow us to host our programme Space - Where Dark Meets Light, a new version of DEEP SPACE run by Ars Electronica (AT) in collaboration with the local Simultan Association and Unstable Media / Dutch Electronic Art Festival. Media artists such as Jane Boyde (GB) and Laurie Frick (USA) and interactive designers such as Sergio Galán (ES) will be also involved. We have a core flagship, such as Insights, for strengthening the link between art and management: International partners such as Conexiones Improbables (ES) and Antiheroes (NL), and artists such as the Michael Hanna (GB), will bring along timisoara2021.ro 19 2. EUROPEAN DIMENSION their experience in creating the right environment, where international creators, thinkers and also NGOs, such as Goteo Foundation (ES) and the Circular Company (NL), will recognise innovative and viable business models and up-cycling solutions for industry, by conducting laboratory activities in collaboration with the local Helion Club and Eco Stuff Timișoara. 20 From a different artistic perspective, both the Mega Bega and Baroque Reloaded programmes are about co-curation and they count with the network Corners of Europe and River of Europe, the International Danube Festival, Elias Canetti Gesellschaft (BG), Novi Sad Jazz Festival (SRB), Hungarian Limes Association for recreating local and existing festivals such as Bega Boulevard Festival, Baroque Festival, Access Art, Jazz Festival, Plai Festival, Festival of Hearts, StudentFest, International Performing Arts Festival and Ethnic Minorities Folklore Festival. All these cooperations will create conditions for sustainable development through long-lasting partnerships between creative artists and networks. Our policy stimulates transnational partnerships to strengthen the local cultural operators in the development of a good cultural offer aligned with the Timișoara Cultural Strategy 20142024. We will establish an international partnership between the National Centre of Expertise for Cultural Education and Amateur Arts (NL), the National Association of Cultural Councils (DK), the Interfolk Institute for Civil Society(DK) and the Department for Culture of Timiș County, as well as the local cultural institutions: the ‘Mihai Eminescu’ National Theatre of Timișoara, the German State Theatre of Timișoara, the ‘Csiky Gergely’ Hungarian State Theatre of Timișoara, the Romanian National Opera of Timișoara, the Banatul Philharmonic of Timișoara, Antic Music Association, House of Culture Timișoara, Timiș County Arts and Culture Center, Timișoara German Cultural Centre, Timișoara French Institute. Furthermore, within our project Twinkling Little Cities, together with the medium-sized, multilingual and multinational cities of Novi Sad, Szeged, Osijek, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Skopje, Shkodra, Ioannina, Chișinau, Uzhhorod, Košice, Graz, Brno, Bratislava, Chernivtsi and Lviv or Kraków, expanding an initiative initiated in Timișoara by the InterEst Foundation, we plan to create a mobility scheme and exchange opportunities for researchers. Can you explain your strategy to attract the interest of a broad European and international public? T he main goal of our actions is to make the city of Timișoara a name well-known within the European and international contexts, able to reflect both our local specificities and the common aspects we share with Europe. We have designed a three-level strategy: raising the international profile of the city through the Romanian diaspora; building a solid international network of partnerships; producing a participative artistic programme with a European profile and a strong communication impact on a wider public. For this multilevel strategy we rely especially on social media, on crowd sourcing and storytelling platforms, TV, radio, printed press, online streaming and global networks. Before the ECoC year the people of the diaspora, from their clusters scattered around Europe, will be the main ambassadors for our inspiring message calling for civic involvement. With their proactive storytelling, the international context they belong to will soon know about Timișoara, Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City through the experiences of real people that are international, but still retain that special bond with local specificities. audience, thanks to those projects especially designed to reach a wider public that will follow us both physically and digitally: In the meantime, most of our artistic programmes have been designed to be developed in close collaboration, cooperation and co-production with a wide European partner network of cultural institutions, artistic associations, and formal and informal civic society groups. The network will play a key role in guaranteeing the quality of our artistic offer and the interest for a European public. The consolidation of such a network will be facilitated by social media technologies for the sharing, dissemination and production of the cultural content. • with the Opening and Closing events, we start and we end with a boom. A series of emotional performances focused on the theme of light, which will awake in our European guests the passion for art and civic engagement; • with Vision, the viral nature of the data art will attract the attention of audiences thanks to its power to visualise identity and aspirations decorated with real faces, showing the differences and common aspects; During the ECoC year we will attract a large European and international • with Space - Where Dark Meets Light we organise a spectacular 2. EUROPEAN DIMENSION and futuristic larger version of Ars Electronica’s DEEP SPACE, in the setting of the derelict industrial sites situated in the heart of the city; unexpected collective performance we empathise with wide international audiences; • • with Mega Bega, we invite people to the longest stage in the world, where diverse art forms and performances are presented; • with Labour Day Stripped to the Bone, we tackle one of the main ongoing European concerns - unemployment. Through an • with Baroque Reloaded, we send our ambassadors all over Europe to invite a wider public to Timișoara, to join a multidimensional party with a contemporary and provocative reinterpretation of Baroque; skyscapes above European cities, will unite people under an unconventional sky to share stories of mobility. Each individual’s inner energy counts as we need every sparkle to accelerate the culture-led transformation across Europe - our legacy for the future. 21 with Circulating Skyscapes, an amazing exchange of depicted 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? O One of our artistic programmes, ECoC Boulevard, has been especially designed for cities that hold, or hope to hold the ECoC title. This is in open space where they can showcase some representative cultural flagships, as well as artistic manufacturing, media and visual products. Other initiatives include an ongoing artistic project, Invisible/Visible featuring theatre performance and a documentary in co-production with Kalamata 2021 ECoC Candidate city and Plovdiv 2019 ECoC, involving Roma children from Greece, Bulgaria and Romania who live in marginalised or temporary settlements. Within one of our flagship programmes, Mega Bega, we develop a project about the River as a medium for culture with other cities along the Bega and the Danube and we can count on established partnerships with other Danube cities such as Pécs 2010 or Novi Sad 2021 Candidate City (3rd party). The programme Twinkling Little Global Cities addresses medium-sized, multilingual and multinational cities in Europe, based on an existing project run by Inter:est Berlin in twelve cities ur cultural programme will develop joint projects with other former, current or future candidate ECoCs on the basis of those similarities we share with them. from Central and Eastern Europe. We want to expand the circle to new cities, including ECoC Candidates such as Cetinje 2021 Candidate City (3rd party) and Ioannina 2021 Candidate City to share a debate about the common cultural heritage. We will develop new joint projects with other ECoC candidates with the aim of exchanging knowledge, experiences and best practices in the cultural area. In particular we already have with Ioannina 2021 an ongoing collaboration between West University of Timișoara and the University of Ioannina in the field of humanities. With Larissa 2021, Rijeka 2020 and Pula 2020, all candidate cities, we have an agreement for exchanging artists and residences, and for programmes with innovative experimental art supporting the people within their own communities. Our candidature addresses educational and cultural programmes about the diversity of the Europeans, to influence long-term European policies on multicultural heritage. We envisage a cooperation with the ECoC candidates in Greece, Ireland and Croatia, sharing and developing evaluation methodologies, exchanging staff, artists, artefacts and citizens, and making agreements on how best to share countries and events. With each of them we foresee working together on EU-funding for capacity building programmes. We are interested in re-launching, continuing, or further developing projects already featured in previous ECoCs, such as Lille 2004 which presented in Timișoara the Futurotextiles exhibition curated by Lille3000, the association built to develop the legacy of the ECoC year. We plan a special event, developed with Linz 2009, which will recreate Ars Electronica’s DEEP SPACE in the post-urban scenario of the derelict industrial parks of Timișoara. Invitations and exchanges with experts, practitioners and members of impact evaluation groups of other ECoCs, such as Lille 2004, Sibiu 2007, Liverpool 2008, Stavanger 2008, Linz 2009, Marseille 2013, Wrocław 2016, Paphos 2017, have all been featured in our plans for the implementation of a solid base of skills, as well as discussing co-productions and joint participation to European calls. timisoara2021.ro 3. CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC CONTENT What is the artistic vision and strategy for the cultural programme of the year? T he artistic vision of our programme, Shine your light Light up your city! is a process of self-discovery and social transformation that brings new meanings. We want people to search for their inner light and energy, to share their personal stories and experiences and release them into the community they live in, so that the social transformation is accelerated, removing passivity and generating civic energy for engagement and art. 22 The cultural programme takes our audiences on an incredible journey, whose goal is to create inner and external metamorphoses, and to cause civic motion through emotions. For this purpose our programme for the ECoC year involves particular artistic ideas that show an intense, active connection with the spirit of the community. While Europe is facing the digital turn, which has integrated new technologies into daily life, Europeans need to rethink the relationship between culture and its audience in terms of co-creation and open access to the common European heritage. The big difference is that the newly-integrated audiences - in a social sense - are always right. In this new scenario, whereby the distinction between producers and users of content has been blurred, the very intermediary are exactly those professional artists, who make things happen in an artistic way and bring people together in a thriving community. Our strategy is summed up by seven verbs which individually are the driving principles of the opening event, the five strands and the closing ceremony, respectively: accelerate, expose, reflect, penetrate, network, globalise and re-start. They all illustrate the power of light to expose things, bring them out from the dark, penetrating to the bleakest corners, and shining all around. The process takes the individual out of Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City his or her comfort zone, by exposing his or her experiences, sharing these experiences with the others, penetrating those neglected places of the city, facilitating the networking with the other Europeans over the borders and globalising his and her vision, and finally becoming the change to re-start in a wider community of citizens. The whole process can be described as a ubiquitous dispersal of energy which is propagated from each individual, drawing on his/her cultural identity, experiences and memories which instill the flow of energy throughout the community’s space. The surrounding community is a medium affected by this energy exposure, a space which both captures the light it produces and bounces it back in the common space, and in the process it reaches those shaded and neglected spaces nobody wants to look at. The stronger the light which started with a local sparkle in Timișoara, the further it reaches over the city borders, throughout the region, the country and the continent. Once globalised, the vision has a deflection effect: it comes back again to the local community with a new breath of energy needed for a fresh re-start. The outcome of the process is the emergence of a new sense of citizenship, which is both Timișorean and European. 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. CULTURAL PROGRAMME JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC Opening Closing Inner Light Addictive lights, Vision - Post-selfie Data Fest, Ana=logic, Smartness Revealed Shared Sight Dare to Shine, Blossoms, Heritage in the Spotlights, Flash of Memory, Invisible / Visible Light and Dark Spaces Space, Where Dark Meets Light, Labour Day Stripped to the Bone, Transparent Walls, Chiaroscuro, Brilliant Light over Borders Mega Bega, Baroque Reloaded, Words of Light, ECoC Boulevard, Twinkling Little Global Cities Lightscapes Insights, Circulating Skyscapes, Solar City, Let There Be Light, Inspired View timisoara2021.ro 23 24 January 2021 LIGHT MY FIRE: TALKING ABOUT A REVOLUTION Action ACCELERATE The fundamental element for civic passion is represented in the opening event in many ways. Let’s call it light, let’s call it fire. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City City of Timișoara Starting point of the '89 Revolution Gathering points of the Opening Event Main points of the Opening Event Bega Canal 25 In January 2021, we, the inhabitants of Timișoara together with our European friends, will start with a boom: a Revolution. This only happens when ‘The time to hesitate is through’. For Timișoara, talking about a revolution is both an act of remembering our past, but also a moment of celebration of the first spark which set off the social change. The opening event is a big gala on the Bega Canal for a collective releasing of energy, designed to be in international media and reach the largest audience. This will be an event entirely powered by human energy collected and stored throughout the previous year thanks to savvy devices. Human motion installations set along the artificially-frozen Bega Canal light up a forest of lights decorating the river banks. In such a setting, live paintings of the main moments of the Timișoara Revolution realised in fluorescent colours glowing on the white light of the ice will be interposed with stories of Europeans from 1989, from the well-known fall of the Berlin Wall to the more anonymous personal stories. / Opening event Group F (FR) • Licht Festival Gent (BE) • Glow Eindhoven (NL) • Blake Shaw (US) • Dedo Barcelona (ES) • Jane Boyd (UK) • ‘Mihai Eminescu’ National Theatre of Timișoara • ‘Csiky Gergely’ Hungarian State Theatre of Timișoara • German State Theatre of Timișoara • Romanian National Opera of Timișoara • Banatul Philharmonic of Timișoara € 2.000.000 As in 1989, the Timișoreni leave their homes and follow the voices of the revolution. The accumulating flow of people wearing lights, overcoming the natural barrier of the river and walking over it, will be projected onto public buildings. All the energy used to freeze the Canal is now reconverted in The sound of the fire. From Victory Square, a DJ marathon mixes the voices of 1989 from both Timișoara and Europe in an electronic soundtrack that ignites the first night of the ECoC year. The groove culminates with a march towards the rock concert. Fire art concludes the night. We are in flame! timisoara2021.ro 26 January → June INNER LIGHT Urgency LACK OF CIVIC ENERGY Action EXPOSE Today’s fascination with technology has turned artificial light from an opportunity to a tremendous challenge for keeping the inner light visible. Inner Light will expose each individual’s stories, memories and experiences envisaging the new challenges of the digital culture. Like holding up a mirror, we will encourage people to consider their own daily cultural habits. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City 27 / Flagship Addictive Lights Trànsit Projectes (ES) • Europeana Foundation (NL) • UNITE IT (BE) • Telecentre Europe Network (BE) • West University of Timișoara • Centre for Psychological Studies and Research of the Department of Psychology (West University of Timișoara) • Politehnica University of Timișoara • Samsung Romania • Timișoara Startup Hub • CoderDojo Timișoara We will empower citizens to transform their addictive exposure to new technology into a craving for culture and digital inclusion. New technologies can keep us isolated in our own bubble, giving us a false sense of connection, but they are also a fundamental tool for cocreation and sharing of cultural contents. € 900.000 In line with European-wide archives such as Europeana, Addictive Lights aims to boost the creative use of the digital heritage to all generations of Timișoara. We create a crowd-sourced platform curated by the young and addressing the elders, for giving a new lease of life online to the cultural content we care about, and which connects us to European heritage and memories. Vision - Post-selfie Data Fest / Main event For seven days at the beginning of 2021, and continuing throughout the year, Vision - Postselfie Data Fest is the ultimate data-selfie, based on the idea that your life and your data can be turned into an artistic message. Passers-by, both in Timișoara and the other twin cities, take a photo of themselves as a backdrop and explain who they are or who they want to be. The collage of different faces from one city will be broadcast to private houses in other cities to enlighten them during the winter nights. This data will be collected, and as a semantic cloud of the most popular hashtags will be presented at the end of the festival and exported all over Europe. Thanks to this exchange, we can look at ourselves as in a mirror and find how similar and different we are as European citizens. Laurie Frick (US) • Magnum Photo (FR) • Dédale Culture Technologie Innovation Social (FR) • PanSpeech (IT) • Faculty of Arts and Design Timișoara • Simultan Association € 850.000 Ana=logic Smartness Revealed Our exposure to new forms of technology makes us hyperactive. The Ana=Logic festival teaches the young about the benefits of a lifestyle embracing slow and low-fi technologies. The event promotes exclusively analogue art and technology, such as photo, film, sounds, books created by artists and amateurs without digital processes. Moreover, the festival takes place in the meeting place for people of different ages, from senior clubs to teenager skating parks. There is a human being behind any technological advancement, whether this is an inventor, a start-up hero, a hacker, a young miner victim of the global conflict for the control of the mineral resources, a child working illegally on gadget assembly lines or an e-waste up-cycler. We will invite artists to reveal the human light behind our devices but also to remind as we all have the capacity to create things. Smartness Revealed is a celebration of the ‘Homo Faber’ across time, from the old fashion craft to the next generation maker. / ANALOGICA Festival (IT) • Notodofestival (ES) • ‘The Cultural Ambulance’ Timișoara • Timiș County Public Library / € 150.000 VivaCidade (PT) • MOB, Makers of Barcelona (ES) • MakerConvent (ES) CRAFTed project (IR) • Smart City Association Timișoara € 350.000 timisoara2021.ro February → July SHARED SIGHT Urgency EXCLUSION OF MARGINALISED GROUPS 28 Action REFLECT Culture is the ambiance to transform separate individual glitters into collective glows and initiatives. For this, we turn the mirrors around and we let the inner light reflect from one individual to another, directed from one mirror to another until it reaches every corner of our neighbourhoods. We want to spread the light and change perspectives in order to achieve authentic harmony in diversity across Europe. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City 29 Dare to Shine / Flagship This is a key programme for civic engagement, audience development and self-expression; a transformation of disadvantaged areas of the city through culture. Timișoara`s metropolitan area will become a dense network of spaces for cultural co-creation by the audience. After several years of preparation with local and international artists, the inhabitants of Timișoara can get out in the familiar space of their neighbourhood to express their perspectives in a colourful diversity of languages and forms of expressions in spots chosen by them and furnished with small cultural infrastructure. Schools and educational organisations host extra-curricular art, craft and technology projects that will be assembled in a dedicated route for children. ECoC will provide the resources to create partnerships between artists and cultural animators and similar schools and initiatives all over the world. CIVILSCAPE European network (DE) • Danish Network for Children and Culture (DK) • Kulturelle Samråd i Danmark (DK) • Oposito Company (FR) • Old School Ilica (HR) • ‘In Community’ Association • Timișoara International Street Art Festival (FISART) • Artdendum Association • Rubin Foundation • Timișoara Cultural Centre • Timiș County Arts and Culture Centre • ‘Am o Idee mai ARTfel’ Association • Cărturești Foundation Blossoms / Main event The ‘blossom moments’ of Dare to Shine will unfold many small events, performed all over the city and its surroundings, to create an explosion of self-expression opportunities. Musicians and performing artists are invited to propose European projects where the audience is the main artist. After the creation of ‘nuclei’ in as many neighbourhoods as possible, each act will come together, physically and artistically, in three large mass performances. Music composers and choir masters of different genres work with 20 to 50 small amateur groups dispersed across the town, each moving slowly, before joining together in a peak of over thousand people. Dance instructors and circus artists animate similar invasions, while the audience is invited to join the mass happy parties. Opera Cirkus (GB) • Compagnie MALABAR (F) • Fundacja Teren Otwarty (PL) • Chalon Dans La Rue (FR) • La Strada Graz (AT) • The Carabosse Company (F) • Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden (DE) • Kolben Dance (IL) • Art Stage San (KR) • Street Delivery Festival • The Intercultural Institute Timișoara (I.I.T.) • Timisens Association • Auăleu Independent Theatre • Rubin Foundation • White Steps Dance School • Mirtys Dance School • Valsport Dance Club • Bolero Dance Club • Dance Stars Club • Timișoara Circus School • Thespis Student Theatre € 950.000 € 950.000 timisoara2021.ro 30 Heritage in the Spotlights / The neighbourhoods of the city become living museums with the inhabitants being the directors, curators and guides. Tangible and intangible heritage of all ages of the city become alive and interesting when interpreted by passionate people, wherever they are in Europe. The highlight will be thousands of items (museums and private collections), buildings and immaterial heritage documented in a collaborative and interdisciplinary open source cultural database. Trained local guides from a variety of backgrounds, including disadvantaged groups such as Roma youngsters, migrants, people with disabilities and the elderly, tell their stories of heritage with support of augmented reality items created by media artists. Q21 (AT) • Voluntary Arts (GB) • LKCA • National Centre of Expertise for Cultural Education and Amateur Arts (NL) • Interfolk, Institute for Civil Society (DK) • ‘Save the heritage’ Cultural Association, Aquatim Company • Timișoara Art Museum • The Romanian Union of Visual Artists – Timișoara Branch € 800.000 Flash of Memory Invisible/Visible The city landscape is the subjective frame for millions of memories in Europe. Are there one million people to share them? User-generated stories and poetry in many languages, and visual creations, are posted on a platform that recreates the city from the subjective perspective of the memories it has sparked. Tourists and homeless people, natives and newcomers, imagine together a cascade of flashes and their reflections, spreading across the city and widening mind frames. The best stories and photos, ranked by the users, will create collective digital and printed books of individual buildings, streets or districts published under Creative Commons Public Domain. The chosen poetry is displayed on public transport information screens. How does the ‘collective eye’ choose to see or ignore things? How are interpretation and reputation created and how do these impersonal mechanisms return and determine people’s lives? / Mjestimice svjetlo (HU) • Neighborhood Diaries (IN) • Dragoljub Zamurovic (RS) • Fondazione Bruno Kessler (IT) • Timișoara French Institute • Timișoara German Cultural Centre € 550.000 This artistic project involves Roma children from Greece, Bulgaria and Romania who live in marginalised or temporary settlements. A theatre performance and a documentary will be produced and presented in each of the three countries. In Timișoara the theme continues by inviting the diverse local Roma communities to express, through visual and performance arts, how they experience ‘visibility’ and ‘invisibility’. Showing how different generations cope with living unknown at the edge of the city, concealed in the mainstream or in the spotlights of the tabloid media. / Kalamata 2021 ECoC Candidate city (GR) • City of Plovdiv • ECoC (BG) • Teater NOR (NO) • AIDROM- Ecumenical Association of Churches from Romania (Timișoara Branch) • Timișoara Roma Centre for Studies • Integration and Solidarity in the Community Development (CRISS-DC) • Timișoara Resource Center for Urban Regeneration € 500.000 Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City 31 April → September LIGHT AND DARK SPACES Urgency DISTRUST IN COMMON OWNERSHIP OF PUBLIC SPACE Action PENETRATE Whenever the light meets the dark it opens it up. We will use the power of light to penetrate the darkness, bringing forward the things and places which were once hidden and avoided. Scheduled for the summer, the strand features the benefit of shadow, understood as the physical place in which one can find relief. The aim of the project is to make the city open and accessible by overcoming those physical and mental thresholds which prevent us from seeing new dimensions of the city, neglected public space or social exclusion. timisoara2021.ro 32 Space, Where Dark Meets Light / Flagship Outer space is perceived as a dark place, but our source of light comes down from there. This project opens up the dark and mysterious ‘Space’ to the general public, to understand the meaning of Light in Europe. The post-urban scenario of derelict industrial sites host a larger version of Ars Electronica’s DEEP SPACE arena, for an audience of 1000. It will provide a new dimension of travel through space and time, the immersion into a realm of breathtaking 3D imagery and high-definition visuals in jumbo format. The project also develops detailed images of solar activity from 2016 to 2021. The industrial sites, reminiscent of lifeless planet surfaces, host two large scale mainly open air exhibitions focusing on the Moon and Mars. The opening event of the strand involves a large immersive panoramic projection and a performance by the Ars Electronica quadcopter swarm ‘Spaxels’. Ars Electronica (AT) • ZK/U - Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (DE) • Sergio Galán (ES) • Unstable Media / Dutch Electronic Art Festival (NL) • Encore Heureux (FR) • West University of Timișoara • Timișoara Astronomical Observatory € 2.500.000 Labour Day Stripped to the Bone / Main event Silent 1st May is an inverse celebration of Labour Day, while Europe is still recovering from the biggest economic crises which left many unemployed and unable to pay even for the basic living expenses. The event is a plenary collective performance lasting for one day in which all of Timișoara stops and other cities in Europe follow the example. Telephones blocked, no wi-fi, no artificial noise, no artificial light, only candles when the evening comes. Citizens perform ‘the pure nothing’, guided by meditation masters and social theatre companies working in the periphery space between the world inside and world outside, with people, such as prisoners, forced to do nothing. For those that really cannot stand still, we propose walks to reconnect with nature, whether it is Shinrin-yoku forest bath, bird watching, following animal tracks or foraging for wild eatable gifts. The event is supported by a public campaign led by the social international movements specialised in sharing act of kindness in public. Aufbruch (DE) • The Liberators (AU) • TeatroDentro -TransFormas (ES) • Cultural Camarille’ Association • Sam-Sho Club • Ecostuff Club Timișoara • StudentFest Festival Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City € 750.000 Transparent Walls / Videomapping artists and experimental theatre and dance companies are invited to visit public institutions and services - city administration, education, hospitals, the prison, the fire brigade, the water (AQUATIM) and the waste (RETIM) services - and re-create, throughout performances, the most typical scenes they see. The work is projected onto the walls of the respective places, suggesting transparency. Each representation will be followed by an open debate exploring the old and new meaning of public and community work. Public Art Lab of Berlin (DE) • The Triage Live Art Collective (EU/AU) • Visionaria Film Festival (IT) • Auăleu Independent Theatre € 500.000 33 Chiaroscuro Brilliant How could we digest topics such as the communist legacy, the enigmas of the 1989 Revolution in Timișoara, or European themes such as the Yugoslav wars, refugee crises, gender violence and so on? Galleries, cafés and unconventional spaces host theatre and contemporary dance productions, documentary films or experiential installations that immerse the audience in those human experiences where light and dark struggle to prevail. In this way we comprehend collective traumas but also individual perspectives, from common transitions such as aging or mourning, to concealed circumstances such as sexual orientation, to the stigma positions of homelessness or mental health to inescapable situations like disability or terminal illness. On a November night of 1884 the entire city of Timișoara was lit up by over 700 arc lamps. Each had the power of several thousand candles and the temperature in each arc rose to a few thousand degrees Celsius. Today we need intelligent street lighting for thousand and one nights. The project intends the simultaneous implementation in two neighbouring squares of the original arc light street lighting system (provided by the still existing Brush Electrical Machines company in GB) and of a contemporary lighting design. The resulting contrast is the starting point to reflect on the impact of public lighting on public spaces. / Empathy Museum (GB) • Cardboard Citizens (GB) • La Xixa Teatre (ES) • PartecipArte (Italy) Métaforum (FR) • EDN • The European Documentary Network (DK) • European Network Remembrance and Solidarity • Human Rights Film Network • Timishort Film Festival • Four You Association • Association for the Promotion of Women in Romania (APoWeR) • The Caritas Federation of the Timișoara Diocese • Timișoara Center for People in Need • ‘Something to Say’ Association • Timișoara Association of People with Locomotor Disability • Association for the Integration of Disabled Persons • AIDROM- Ecumenical Association of Churches from Romania (Timișoara Branch) • Auăleu Independent Theatre / SIGNAL Prague Light Festival ( CZ) • Mulhouse Alsace Agglomération (FR) • LUCI Lighting Urban Community International (FR) • Brush Electrical Machines Group (GB) • Ivan Marušić Klif (HR) • ELBA Company • Timiș Agency for Economic and Social Development (ADETIM) € 350.000 € 350.000 timisoara2021.ro 34 May → November LIGHT OVER BORDERS Urgency LACK OF A VISIBLE INTERNATIONAL PROFILE OF THE CITY Action NETWORK The Light over Borders strand sets the trend for cross-border networking. As an international-oriented programme, it aims to inspire the local cultural operators to grow out of their local and regional context and aim for a global reach. Reciprocally, we want those with an international profile to bring their cultural initiatives to Timișoara. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City 35 Mega Bega Mega Bega is the longest stage in the world. We create 21 floating stages that can go all the way to the Danube and many cultural spaces along the Bega Canal. Successful international festivals from Timișoara and abroad, including visual and performing arts, music and literature are invited to propose thematic events connected with the river. They adapt their current concept to new artistic contributions, so they can reach new audiences. Mega Bega celebrates co-curation as a base for artistic excellence, the river being the ideal medium for transnational networking. / Flagship River of Europe • D.ID Dance Identity (AT) • Pro Progressione (HU) • Nanoturism (SI) • International Danube Festival (DE) • Elias Canetti Gesellschaft (BG) • Novi Sad Jazz Festival (RS) • Hungarian Limes Association (HU) • Hungarian Cultural Institute Stuttgart (DE) • Arts Festival • International Wine Fair Timișoara • Veg Fest Festival • European Theatre Festival Eurothalia • German State Theatre of Timișoara • International Festival of Performing Arts • Timișoara German Cultural Centre • Bega Boulevard Festival • Baroque Festival • Street Delivery Festival • Jazz TM Festival • Plai Festival • Festival of Hearts • StudendFest Festival • European Festival of Performing Arts • Romanian Drama Festival (FEST- FDR) • Festival of Etnhies and Gastronomy • “Csiky Gergely” Hungarian State Theatre of Timișoara • Nautica Company • Aquatim Company • Musica Antica Association • Jazz Banat Cultural Foundation € 2.500.000 Baroque Reloaded / Main event When European Baroque was exhausted from all perspectives, the Habsburg Banat was building a new world, known as provincial Baroque. Paradoxically, for Timișoara, Baroque is the moment of historical and cultural Enlightenment. If Baroque, in pure interpretation, means blaze, fast, glossy and glamour, Baroque Reloaded is instead the celebration of the many meanings of Modernity and its legacy for the contemporary world. To celebrate the internationalism of the Baroque movement which connected a vast territory, we’ll send local artists as ambassadors performing across the continent, handing out personal invitations to the largest unconventional Baroque party of the year. Lille3000 (FR) • Corners of Europe • Dani Brazila (RS) • Akademie Schloss Solitude (DE) Fête de la musique (FR) • Close-Act Theatre (NL) • Amsterdam Corelli Collective (NL) • Le Baroque Nomade (FR) • German State Theatre of Timișoara • “Csiky Gergely” Hungarian State Theatre of Timișoara • Romanian National Opera of Timișoara • Banatul Philharmonic of Timișoara • Musica Antica Association • Timișoara Cultural Centre Heritage buildings, such as the Baroque Hall, the Evangelic Baroque Church, and the Synagogue in Fabric host contemporary performances and silent discos, while a postmodern spot such as a shopping mall is turned into a Baroque carnival, with music, costumes, classic theatreeven reinvented food and beverage recipes, to allure the contemporary consumer into both celebration and reflection on the transient nature of cultural categorisation. € 950.000 timisoara2021.ro 36 Words of Light / Words of light is a programme celebrating the languages spoken in Timișoara by the historic ethnic groups and the new emerging communities as well as those of tourists. People will be encouraged to think and speak in other languages (mistakes are allowed). Artists are invited to propose language games in the public space while cafes, hotels and hostels will offer ‘travelling books’ with stories in many languages. In a city where inhabitants used to be fluent in at least two languages, the pupils and students are developing together with the partner schools visual textbooks of ‘European urbanity’ with greetings in all languages spoken today in Europe. The British Council (GB) • Goethe-Institut (DE) • Alliance Française (FR) • Istituto Italiano di Cultura (IT) • Instituto Cervantes (ES) • The Danish Culture Institute (DK) • Kikindashort Festival (RS) • Fraktura Literature Festival (HR) • Guerrilla Translation (ES) • Dotventi (IT) • Timișoara French Institute • British Council Romania • Writers ‘ Union of Romania - Timișoara Branch • International Literature Festival in Timișoara (FILTM) • StaffeteGerman Literary Club • Association of Serbians in Timișoara • The Hungarian Women’s Association • Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania- Banat Branch • The Association of Bulgarians in Timișoara • Syrian Association from Romania • Beli Bagrem Association • Arte Factum Association • Romanian-Arab Cultural Centre • The Intercultural Institute Timișoara (I.I.T.) ECoC Boulevard Twinkling Little Global Cities The Republicii Boulevard is a cultural kilometre where people can walk, dream, shop and eat, as well as see how the concept of ECoC has evolved over time. The Boulevard will host special EcoC stations where the visitor will meet the cultural flagships and the best manufacturing products designed by EcoC cities. Each station will be marked by a representative street art sculpture and a dancing graffiti performance that transform a very neglected and unwelcoming part of the city into a creative spot. A city does not need to be a big metropolis to shine a global glamour. Many medium-sized cities in Europe are multilingual and multinational, close to new borders and in constant flux; they are places for art, full of unexpected encounters and stories. ‘Little global cities’ was initiated in Timișoara by the Inter-Est Foundation from Berlin, in partnership with 12 cities from Central and Eastern Europe. For 2021 we would like to expand the circle to new cities and uncover more old and new twinkles of their global spirit. We will propose a call for teams of the most brilliant minds of these cities, from social researchers, historians to technology geeks and futurologists that will review the common cultural and technological heritage of the “little global cities” while keeping in sight their future. The results will be brought to the public in attractive formats with potential to reprogramme the 2021-27 political agenda. / All cities that have been awarded the ECoC title before 2021 • Timiș County Arts and Culture Center € 550.000 € 100.000 / Inter-Est Foundation (DE) • Cities of Novi Sad (RS), Szeged (HU), Osijek (HR), Sarajevo (BA), Banja Luka (BA), Skopje (MK), Shkodra (AL), Ioannina (GR), Chisinau (MD), Uzhhorod (UA), Košice (SK), Graz (AT) • Ziua Memoriei (FR) • Fondazione Campus Lucca (IT) • Instytut Kultury Miejskiej (PL) • West University of Timișoara • ‘Timișoara’s Sphere’ Association • Rotaract Clubs • Rotary Clubs • Lions Clubs • Timiș Chamber of Commerce • Industry and Agriculture (CCIAT) • German Economic Club from Timișoara € 400.000 Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City 37 June → December LIGHTSCAPES Urgency NO SHARED VISION Action GLOBALISE We want the traces of the light we have set in motion to remain beyond TM2021, captured in physical and mental Lightscapes. The last strand of our programme is an invitation to globalise our thinking and create the vision for a thriving local community. The openness to the world, the collaborative society and the transformation of mistakes into unexpected solutions are some of the directions we want to explore. timisoara2021.ro 38 Insights / Flagship The last flagship programme of the year creates the environment for open laboratories of co-creation for a thriving city in a global context. The purpose is to create ‘a-ha moments’ that reveal perspectives of intricate issues, from dealing with waste or mistakes in production to dealing with social behaviour and urban development. Some examples of such laboratories are: Fuck-up nights (business and entrepreneurs present their worst professional experiences and the audience feeds back with their own creations inspired by the story); Zero waste (design and upcycling in industry); Trees please! (landscape and architecture solutions for keeping secular trees in the urban space); CoCulture now! (new models for cultural management and financing); Imaginative engineering (innovation through interdisciplinary creativity). The results harvested will be disseminated in different international contexts and networks as a basis for launching Timișoara Open Free Academy. Conexiones Improbables (ES) • NICE - Network for Innovations in Culture and Creativity in Europe (DE) • Culturing. eu (IT) • SEAD Network for Sciences, Engineering, Arts & Design (US) • EECN - Ecology, Environment Culture Network • Goteo Foundation (ES) • Ouishare (FR) • Antiheroes (NL) • Makea tu vida (ES) • Bea Johnson (US) • Circle Economy (NL) • The Circular Company (NL) • Michael Hanna (EI) • Politehnica University of Timișoara • West University of Timișoara • Timiș Agency for Economic and Social Development (ADETIM) • Let’s Do It Romania • Ecostuff Timișoara • Helion Club Circulating Skyscapes / Main event Mobility and its cultural effects become visible under artistic skyscapes. Artists from cities from all over the world are invited to depict their sky on canvases that circulate in an exchange that has Timișoara as a central point. The guest skyscapes hang above streets that become open air cultural spaces of the sending city. Here, a native Catalan living in Timișoara can meet a former exchange student and under the Barcelona sky add their favourite pictures. Similarly, Timișoara natives living in Montreal may cook their favourite food and offer it to strangers passing under ‘their sky’ in the Canadian city. The sky also unites the world in the common responsibility for air quality. We will bring this into public awareness with an exhibition of air samples sent from all across Europe and further, and their test results, with a highlight on historic ones like the cans sealed with the ‘last breath of communism’ in 1989. James Turrel (US) • DZESTRA (UA) • Metaland (PT) • Kunstrepublik (DE) • Ziva-Dvorisca (SI) • Via Rumania Cultura Association • Romanian-Arab Cultural Centre Timșoara • Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen Timișoara • French Institute Timișoara • 13 Romanian Cultural Centres and Institutes abroad Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City € 900.000 € 850.000 Solar City / Solar inspired art and technology, from prehistoric symbols and ancient calendars to contemporary installations made of solar panels will permanently decorate the city. The audience will enjoy the occasion to come together in the Solar City Centre and learn about sun in different cultures, to manipulate the interactive and opendesign installation and create their own solar powered souvenir inspired by the Timișoara ECoC logo. After an international contest the Solar City of Timișoara will be created as the long lasting remembrance of the year. Brush Electrical Machines company (GB) • Stanford Solar Center (US) • Akihisi Hirata (JP) • Bausch Foundation (DE) • Politehnica University of Timișoara • Romanian Order of Architects - Timiș Branch (OAR) € 1.500.000 39 Let There Be Light Inspired View Coming from a tradition of centuries of multiconfesionalism, TM2021 is the European laboratory to invite artists who represent the theme of light in a variety of views, independent or affiliated to various faiths. The works will be displayed in the Liberty circular square as a large installation where the public encounters all the beliefs present in the Europe of today, from state-recognised religions to paganism, yoga practice communities or pastafarians. The exhibition is complemented by a series of international conferences on the role of spirituality in bringing together divided communities. The peak moment is a collective performance in which over 25 different communities from Timișoara and their international guests will converge from different spatial directions to the Union square sharing music, light and kindness. A refreshed window view may open the appetite for a re-think of mental representations. TM2021 hosts landscape architects, designers, city planners, social scientists and street artists from all over Europe in a residence and training programme that addresses the contemporary imperative of a city to be open, accessible, navigable, explorable and determined to eliminate physical, mental and social barriers. They will also work practically with those citizens that take a conscious look around them and propose meaningful changes to the shared public space. A large exhibition, with photos and simulations, shown online and in various locations of the city will foster debates about the future view of the city and in the same time will collect the insights of the visitors of how the European Capital of Culture has altered their views. / / China Arts Entertainment Group Beijing (CN) • Kultur Bewegt (DE) • Chris Torch (SE) • Intercult (SE) • Torino Spiritualità (IT) • Terre du Ciel (FR) • Faouzi Skali (MA) • Shiva Ananda Lahari (IN) • Theatre Company Shelf (JP) • ISAO Festival (IT) • John Feodorov (US) • Philippe Morvan (FR) • Steve Buchanan (CH) • AIDROMEcumenical Association of Churches from Romania (Timișoara Branch) • The Orthodox Mitropoly • Roman Catholic Diocese of Timișoara • The Jewish Community of Timișoara • The Baptist Church • Romanian-Arabic Cultural Centre Arquitectura Colectiva (ES) • Spiekermann (DE) • Centre for Excellence in Universal Design (IE) • Romanian Order of Architects- Timiș Branch (OAR) • Angelo Roventa • Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism Timișoara • Faculty of Arts and Design Timișoara • Timișoara International Street Art Festival (FISART) € 550.000 € 500.000 timisoara2021.ro 40 December 2021 A NEVER ENDING RAY OF LIGHT Action RE-START During the closing event citizens will harvest the joy of watching how the light from Timișoara has spread all over the continent and given communities the energy to take the future in their own hands again. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City At the end of our journey we celebrate the radiating community we have built, as far as our message has reached, as much as we have contributed to mobilise people and awake them from passivity and nothingness. During the closing event citizens will harvest the joy of watching how the light from Timișoara has spread all over the continent and given communities the energy to take the future in their own hands again. / Closing event Olafur Eliasson (DK) • Little Sun (DE) • Lux Helsinki Festival (FI) • Norfolk & Norwich Festival (GB) • Zoe Irvine (AT) • Timișoara European Capital of Culture Association – Candidate City • Municipality of Timișoara € 700.000 Diaspora families, tourists who have visited Timișoara, all ECoC artists and partners, social business initiatives on alternative lightening across the world – all have been provided with solar-powered gadgets with a GPS locator that shine in the night of the closing gala. An enormous map shows with luminous points those people have been infused with our energy. People taking part in the show will create live twinning with each other, as a promise of new encounters to come. In the culminating moment, a giant ray of light rising from the surrounding area, submerges the city. People ride the groove of a soundscape concert, a symphony of natural and man-made sounds all related to the semantic of light. At the end of the night the radiance of light will travel from Timișoara in the direction of the two new ECoC cities. It is time to re-start, we are ready, don’t stop the ray. timisoara2021.ro 41 3. CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC CONTENT How will the events and activities that will constitute the cultural programme for the year be chosen? O ur cultural offer is a blend of the three types of programmes, aligned to the concept and the objectives of the Candidacy: framework, predefined and open call. The latter will be developed through capacity-building training for cultural managers. The selection will follow an open call in the format of Art Markets and an assessment process based on ten criteria. 42 The cultural programme is organised in five strands consistent with our concept Shine your light - Light up your city! Framework programmes cover a large number of smaller events and activities that fit the logic of artistic message (Light My Fire opening event, Addictive Lights, Ana=Logic, Dare to Shine, Heritage in the Spotlights, Invisible/Visible, Inspired View, Transparent Walls, Chiaroscuro, Mega Bega, Baroque Reloaded, Words of Light, ECoC Boulevard, Insights, Solar City, A Never Ending Ray of Light); Predefined programmes are opportunities for joint local-European co-productions; Open-call programmes and projects selected through the Art Markets that have an allocation of cca. 30% of the programme expenditure. An independent jury, composed of cultural managers and festival directors will evaluate and advise on the project proposals based on the folowing criteria: 1. Interdisciplinary artistic excellence with originality and/ or quality. Proposals have to creatively mix different artistic forms, but also combine arts and culture with other sectors, such as the social and economic ones. The blend of traditional art forms with Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City new, innovative and experimental cultural expressions will be encouraged. 2. European dimension which highlights the richness of cultural diversity in Europe. A vast range of possibilities will be encouraged, from creative exchanges to sustainable partnerships, and co-productions between existing initiatives, such as festivals and new partners including, but not limited to, Timișoara’s twinning and enlightened cities networks. 3. Audience development. Each proposed programme will have to address one or more levels of audience engagement: to inspire self-expression, welcome user-generated cultural content, foster co-creation or engage and train volunteers. Proposals are encourage to include vulnerable groups and/or address social issues. 4. Promotion of heritage and new technology encounters, in line with the European Digital Agenda schemes to promote open and collective cultural content platforms, and provide citizens the opportunity to acquire advanced skills for content production, access, and circulation. 5. Culture as a driver for development and innovation. We are interested in projects which promote new forms of cultural and creative entrepreneurship, new job opportunities within the creative industries sector and which contribute to the transformation of Timișoara and the Banat into a hub of cultural creativity. 6. Educational component, actively involving schools and promoting cooperation among schools from different European countries. Lifelong learning and active ageing proposals will also score. 7. Cooperation between established cultural institutions and emerging independent groups and artists, whether local or international. 8. Focus on public space and contribution to making the city open and accessible, integrating neglected dimensions. 9. Drive for the development of the tourist sector presenting attractiveness for both tourists and the local population. The locations of the events are to be both spread equally in the city and the surroundings, covering the entire region; 10.Long-lasting legacy in line with the city’s cultural strategy for 2014 - 2024. Legacy will be assessed in terms of durable cultural, social and economic impact. 3. CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC CONTENT The selection body will additionally take into account the balance between the programme strands and the diversity of cultural interventions. To be eligible, a project should receive a high score on at least four out of the ten above criteria. Artistic quality, citizen involvement and European dimension must score at least 80%. To collect proposals and elaborate projects we consider the following: In 2017 we initiate capacity-building training programmes for cultural managers with renowned European organisations (e.g. Atelier for Young Festival Managers, Culturing in Sienna). Throughout 2017 and 2018, we will organise quarterly information sessions and workshops with artists and cultural operators to raise awareness, stimulate creativity and facilitate partnerships. We will have a constant open call for project proposals at the Art Markets, to offer meeting opportunities among artists, cultural operators, project teams and possible private and/or public funding bodies. In 2019 and 2020, we will assist the teams of the selected projects in their first stages of developing their ECoC proposals. In 2020, we will organise a participative selection process for community projects in the city neighbourhoods to raise awareness and increase participation of the general public. The shortlist will be drawn by a jury specially selected for this purpose, while the final vote will be given by the general public to projects which are shortlisted. Timeline for the 2021 cultural programme development: 2015 - 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Proposal phase Development phase ECoC cultural programme Production phase Technical phase 8 information workshops; Capacity-building training sessions for cultural managers Open call for workshops with open programmes and contributions to frame programmes The 2021 cultural programme progress 6 Art Markets Logistical assistance of the initiators Concept, frame programmes and defined programmes proposed in the bid book Signed contracts All flagships are with Cultural confirmed, and Coordinator partnerships signed; and 2 local and 25% of the major international Artistic projects are Chiefs confirmed 75% of the cultural programme confirmed The entire programme is ready and made public timisoara2021.ro 43 3. CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC CONTENT How will the cultural programme combine local cultural heritage and traditional art forms with new, innovative and experimental cultural expressions? T he theme of light provides an excellent inspiration for artists and activists to deal with heritage and place it in a contemporary perspective. By challenging and debating, by analysing and rethinking our traditions within the light framework, the cultural interventions in our programme reinvent our heritage and bring it to life. 44 Timișoara and the Banat region hold an array of cultural heritage and forms of multi-cultural traditional arts which deal with the European crises and dilemmas. The rich architectural heritage – with over 14.500 historical buildings - linked to all European architectural styles of the past three centuries has often been mentioned as an urgency of the city, since most are in an advanced stage of decay. The value of the local cultural heritage and the preserved traditional arts lies not only in their physical, historic, cultural and artistic attributes that shape the local and regional identity (especially the multi- and intercultural character of Timișoara and Banat), but also in their significance for individuals, communities and different structures, the personal stories that are part of people’s identity. We address the local cultural heritage and the traditional forms of art in each of the cultural programme strands, with a variety of approaches. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City The first strand Inner Light combines the local cultural heritage with digital forms of expression which will be developed within the project Vision. In the second strand Shared Sight we use audience development tools to address the very complex situation of the heritage of decaying buildings, which has existed for decades. The complexity of stakeholders (public and private owners, tenants, authorities, specialists) and the bureaucracy has prevented them from finding the mechanisms to listen to each other and to find solutions. The programme Heritage in the Spotlights will offer to a wider spectrum of audience different ways to express their perspectives using cultural forms. For example, tenants that come from disadvantaged backgrounds will be given cameras to document and present their daily life in a decaying heritage building, they will learn about the history of the building and participate as local guides. The specialists will be invited to find creative ways to present their passion and expertise for heritage, in ways that are easy to understand by the public. The Light and Dark Spaces strand will bring innovative and experimental artists working under the Ars Electronica umbrella, to reintegrate derelict industrial sites into the public space and public consciousness. Chiaroscuro will explore what is worth keeping from the unwanted communist heritage. The fourth strand Light over Borders will put the local heritage into a European context (the past multilingual culture, the architecture, the music and the manufacturing traditions) with support from the partners in the Words of Light and Baroque Reloaded. The fifth strand Lightscapes will put the local heritage into a global context from a long-term perspective. Heritage in a variety of forms, including religious and spiritual practices like in the project Let There Be Light, will be one of the main themes for the capacity building and the exchange programme with a focus on the future and the cultural legacy of the year 2021 for the city. Additionally, the Insight project will approach heritage dealing with key aspects regarding its preservation, such as new cultural business models and decision-making processes. 3. CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC CONTENT 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. T Local artists and cultural organisations were involved in the candidacy process from the early beginnings and will continue to play a fundamental role in the implementation of the programme. More than fifty are members of the ECoC Association, another eight are part of our Steering Committee, thus they are directly involved in the decision-making process. Other cultural organisations have given us significant feedback and contributed with project ideas, while others are co-organising projects together with the Association. Last but not the least, many cultural actors supported and collaborated with us in many other ways, behind the scenes. In 2009, the idea of the city’s candidacy was first discussed within the community as a consequence of Sibiu’s success two years before. It was not by chance that Timișoara’s he TM2021 cultural programme is the outcome of our permanent dialogue with more than two hundred local artists and cultural operators for more than four years. candidacy was announced in 2010, on the occasion of the inauguration of a new theatre hall, once an AustroHungarian riding school. Later, in 2011, The Timișoara – European Capital of Culture Association was founded at the initiative of local public cultural institutions and service clubs. This ensured a good collaboration between the Association and the cultural organisations and artists from the very beginning. More than 50 of the 112 members of the Association are local cultural organisations, such as the ‘Mihai Eminescu’ National Theatre of Timișoara, the ‘Csiky Gergely’ Hungarian State Theatre of Timișoara, the German State Theatre of Timișoara, the Banatul Philharmonic of Timișoara, the Timișoara Art Museum, the Banat Village Museum of Timișoara, the ‘Merlin’ Theatre for Children and Youth (Puppet Theatre), local art galleries, the Timiș County Public Library, and local cultural figures such as the musician Codrin Emandi, actress Ramona Olasz and the writer Daniel Vighi. Representatives of local cultural institutions or organisers of major artistic events are part of the Association’s Steering Committee and thus directly involved in the decision-making process: Victor Neumann, historian, university professor and Director of Timișoara Art Museum; Levente Kozma, visual artist, co-founder of Simultan Festival; Codruța Popov, literary advisor of the ‘Mihai Eminescu’ National Theatre of Timișoara; Vlad Gaivoronschi, architect, president of the Romanian Order of Architects, Timiș Branch; Corina Răceanu, cultural manager at the Intercultural Institute from Timișoara; Norbert Tako, independent festival producer; Marcela Titz, urban planner; Ingrid Diac, cultural manager at the Timișoara French Institute. timisoara2021.ro 45 3. CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC CONTENT 46 One of our goals has been to involve as many local artists and cultural organisations as possible, to collect valuable ideas and to harmonise different points of view to one single coherent vision, so that the whole artistic community could identify with the programme. We organised workshops, information and mobilisation campaigns, and informal meetings where we invited freelance artists, or the ones acting in public institutions, cultural NGOs, and decision-makers from public cultural institutions, with whom we had lively debates over project ideas. Some of them responded to our invitation, others expressed their wish to be part in the conception process. Their role in the development of the final concept was crucial. The Intercultural Institute from Timișoara also had a key role in the conception of the cultural strategy of the city. A large group of people came with valuable project ideas: Florin Iepan, representing the Association of Documentary Filmmakers, Lia Lucia Epure representing community service clubs, Oana Borlea and Lorena Vlad from ProPhilarmonia, Marius Gaiță from Baroc Festival Association, the visual artists Gabriel Kelemen, Corina Nani, Rareș Moldovan, Dana Sarmeș, Constantin Flondor, the writers Radu Pavel Gheo, Alexandru Potcoavă, Viorel Marineasa and Eleonora Ringler-Pascu, the musicians Vlad Colar, Teo Milea, Gabriel Almași, Sebastian Spanache, Santa Csaba, Szabó Zsolt, Bogdan Nagy, Aura Twarowska, and the actors Georg Peetz, Borbély B. Emília, Baczo Tünde, Simona Vintilă, Attila Balázs, Ana Maria Pander, Iova Ionuș, Roman Ștefan, Mădălina Ghițescu Petre, Olga Török, also cultural managers Alina Cristescu, Călin Rus, Alina Baciu, Adrian Mirescu and representatives of the international community Siegfried and Geraldine Geilhausen and Jose Miguel Vinals, came with valuable project ideas. We have closely collaborated with sociologists and humanists from the West University of Timișoara, such as Bogdan Nadolu, Alin Gavreliuc and Corina Turșie. The historian Victor Neumann had a strong influence throughout the TM2021 concept elaboration process offering consistent historical elements Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City regarding the multi- and inter-cultural past of the city and the region. Social organisations had an input on the cultural aspects as well, suggesting examples and approaches for audience engagement. Special thanks to ‘Ceva de Spus’ and ‘Pentru Voi’ Associations, to Andrei Stratilă from the accessibility team and to Roma activists Letiția Mark, Valentin Pepenel, Ion Goracel, Victor and Ramona Făcăleț who have contributed to a large extent to address and raise awareness on the topics of accessibility and Roma during our conferences and workshops. The logo of the Association is the creation of the local visual artist and graphic designer Pavel Vereș, after two public calls for proposals launched in 2011 and in 2012. The logo of the candidacy, differing from the one of the Association, is the work of Ștefan Lucuț, a young artist from Timișoara. Forty-six local musicians, writers, visual artists, directors of cultural institutions are ambassadors of TM2021 and their number is growing. Their testimonials are accessible on the Association homepage: www.timișoara2021.ro. They promote the candidacy at their events. While the launching of our first two concepts - 'REVOLutionary' and 'Channel of Cultures' - took place in formal locations such as the hall shared by the Romanian National Opera of Timișoara and the ‘Mihai Eminescu’ National Theatre of Timișoara in 2012 and, respectively the Timișoara City Hall in 2014, the course of the preparation process took us closer to the alternative scenes in locations such as Ambasada Plai or the space of the Auăleu Independent Theatre. technology together in Addictive Lights, revive Ana=Logic, inspire innovation but also crafts and manufacturing with Smartness Revealed, small cultural infrastructure spread all over the city for Dare to Shine, mass celebrations in Blossoms, bring the Heritage in the Spotlights, find one million of Timișoreni in Flash of Memory, address the growing uneasiness towards the Roma with Invisible/Visible, do something unseen yet in a derelict area in Space - Where Dark Meets Light, bring bureaucracy to public debate in Transparent Walls, address painful issues like those in Chiaroscuro, rekindle historic lights and think of future technology in Brilliant, expand with vibrant projects to new spaces like Mega Bega and Baroque Reloaded, showcase the incredible linguistic and spiritual diversity of the city in Words of Light and Let There Be Light, make the pedestrian route between the railway station and the centre more attractive with the ECoC Boulevard, invest in local talents in Insights, encourage voices of returned youth contributing to a new vision under Circulating Skyscapes, promote participative city design with Inspired View, think of the future in Twinkling Little Global Cities and Solar City, make the light from Timișoara radiate all over the world in the Never Ending Ray of Light. The dynamics of the process behind our candidacy made us realise the local artist-activists are crucial to implementing a complex programme such as TM2021. The concept Shine your light – Light up your city! was tested in the summer of 2015 in 21 organised workshops and countless informal meetings with over 250 people. Most of the programmes were developed from suggestions written on post-it papers during meetings: use alternative power for events in the opening event, bring culture and 4. CAPACITY TO DELIVER 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. T he ECoC Candidacy is the city’s first community-wide project since the 1989 Revolution. Our local political support is due to the community’s great interest in the ECoC project and the direct involvement of the citizens and civil society organisations in our initiatives. Timișoara City Council’s Decisions, adopted unanimously: • No.82/29.03.2011 on supporting the candidacy. • No.250/12.07.2011 on the Municipality becoming founder member of the Association. • No.271/14.05.2013 on increasing the amount of the city’s membership fee. • No.371/01.08.2014 on including the candidacy logo on all official documents. • No.252/26.05.2015 on increasing amount of the city’s membership fee. • No.395/22.09.2015 to approve the contribution of €20 million for the case the city is awarded the ECoC title. Timiș County Council’s Decisions, adopted unanimously: • No.106/04.08.2011 on becoming founder member of the Timișoara - European Capital of Culture Association / Candidate City and the respective membership fee. • No.134/28.08.2013 on increasing the County Council’s membership fee. • 30.09.2015 to approve the contribution of €5 million for the case the city is awarded the ECoC title. This widespread appeal ensured a broad, strong and long-lasting political support, which also needs to be seen in the context of the relative nature of the political scene. Between now and 2021, there will be six elections: two locals in June 2016 and 2020, two nationals in December 2016 and 2020, the European in May 2019, and the presidential in December 2019. The broad political support is confirmed and evidenced, firstly by nine policies supporting the ECoC project which were adopted unanimously by the local and regional councils (six by Timișoara City Council and three by the Timiș County Council) and secondly, by two political agreements signed by all political leaders – first in March 2011, and reinforced in January 2014, affirming without reservations the support for the ECoC project - both their own and the support of the parties they represent. This backing is translated into the provision of public financial resources and other necessary means. It is also driven by the determined commitment and the diverse representation of the local civic community involved in the preparation. If the 1989 Revolution was a civic outburst, the ECoC initiative is a civic movement which grows slowly but steadily, turning politicians into its followers, as proven so far. We also aim to approach, as member, the recently-established Timișoara Economic Consultative Body which includes more than 40 organisations, such as business clubs, clusters, development agencies, banks, universities and diplomatic bodies. At the regional level, the Association signed a cooperation framework agreement for the implementation of the ‘Bega Canal Tourism Development Strategy’ with all local public authorities from the Bega Canal area, including the Timiș County Council, the Timișoara City Council, the Timiș Agency for Economic and Social Development, the Banat Regional Development Agency, the Zrenjanin Regional Chamber of Economy (in Serbia) and 18 other partners. Within the regional context, Timișoara has also established cultural cooperation agreements with three cities in Serbia, namely Zrenjanin, Pancevo and Novi Sad. Whithin a national context, the Romanian National Opera and the 'Mihai Eminescu' National Theatre of Timișoara are supported directly by the Ministry of Culture and are active members of our asociation. timisoara2021.ro 47 4. CAPACITY TO DELIVER Explain briefly how the European Capital of Culture will make use of and develop the city’s cultural infrastructure. T he cultural infrastructure of the city is both material and immaterial, both people and objects, both communities and buildings. While our strategy when it comes to material infrastructure is opening-up, our focus is on people as an inherent part of the immaterial infrastructure. 48 We will employ a dual approach: on one hand make better use of the current infrastructure and on the other develop new ones. When it comes to immaterial culture we are planning to work on two levels in partnership with the other cultural institutions in the city: build and train human resources and produce skills, as well as change cultural consumption pattern and behaviour. We do have a good foundation to build on. According to a study on the Cultural Vitality of Cities, in 2010, by the Centre for Research and Consultancy in Culture (Bucharest), the cultural life of our city is ranked fourth in Romania due to the balance between cultural infrastructure and creative industries, participation and human resources, and the budget allocated for culture. Moreover, according to the Cultural Strategy of Timișoara for 2014-2024, when it comes to consumption, the audiences and cultural consumers of Timișoara attend museums (38%), libraries (39%), theatres and opera (36%), cinemas (29%) art galleries (29%), philharmonic concerts (50%). Building on this asset, the TM2021 programme adopts a participatory approach, we want to open events in the neighbourhoods - not just in the city centre where most of the cultural infrastructure is. So, 80% of our events, including the opening and closing ceremonies, the Mega Bega Festival, will take place in public spaces such as parks, squares, on the street, interior gardens, the Bega Canal banks. These aims are all in line with our ‘Light up your city!’ communication strategy. When it comes to material cultural infrastructure, our strategy is to open up spaces. With programmes like Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City Baroque Reloaded we want the current cultural organisations to change their ethos of fortresses of high-culture and open their doors to the community. At the same time we want to turn temples of consumerism, like shopping malls, into new sets for participative artistic actions. Material cultural infrastructures is very diverse in Timișoara: 40 cultural institutions including 9 theatres, 7 museums, 13 libraries, 15 art galleries, 3 cinemas and an open air amphitheatre. Timișoara ranks second in Romania, after Bucharest, for the number of seats in auditoriums, with 2.900 seats. Timișoara has the largest heritage of historical monuments in Romania: 14.500 historical buildings of various styles (Baroque, Secession, Art Nouveau, Romanian Brâncovenesc and inter-war styles) from which an extremely small percentage, less than 10%, are rehabilitated, partially or entirely. This aspect is significant as most of the cultural institutions are located in historical buildings within the historical centre of the city. Timișoara’s master plan is to restore the heritage buildings, both publicly and privately owned, and the ECoC title would give a much needed boost for this process. Parks are also a real cultural asset, giving Timișoara one of its nicknames 'The city of parks'. Known as the city of parks, at one time you could cross Timișoara just through the parks. Therefore, parks have become important open spaces for cultural interventions. In 2013, green areas of Timișoara were 477.51 ha with 37,57 sq m/citizen, much more than the European Commission recommendation (26 sq m/citizen). Timișoara already has good examples of public and independent cultural initiatives of reconversion of heritage spaces. The Maria Theresia Bastion is part of the old city fortress wall which has become a cultural space, temporarily hosting the Banat Museum of Timișoara, the Timiș County Public Library, the office of the Timișoara-European Capital of Culture Association, the Timișoara Society, a jazz club and an art gallery alongside other entertainment spaces. From the independent sector, we have Ambasada Plai, a cultural hub which offers a cafe and free spaces for interaction, workshops and presentations for young independent artists, Scârț that hosts both the Museum of the Communist Consumer and Auăleu the only independent theatre in Timișoara. More such restoration and repurposing projects prove the great potential of the city’s infrastructure: the restoration of the Huniade Castle which hosts the Banat Museum of Timișoara (still in progress); the TIMCO industrial halls which have been transformed into an exhibition venue mostly for contemporary local and international artists (recently an exhibition in partnership with Lille 3000 called Futurotextiles); a derelict 18th-century army barrack - Cazarma U - which has been appropriated for the first edition of Art Encounters, a biennale of Romanian contemporary art; the 19th-century Synagogue in the Cetate [Fortress] neighbourhood, which hosts concerts, film screenings and other artistic initiatives, such as the Simultan annual festival for video, media arts and experimental electronic music; a former imperial circus and later sports hall, located in the city centre, as well the former Synagogue in the 4. CAPACITY TO DELIVER Fabric neighbourhood have both been transformed into theatre halls, making Timișoara the only city in Romania outside Bucharest, which has an alternative performing space for the Romanian National theatre. We would also like to continue using unconventional places for performances and artistic interventions, such as concerts of Banatul Philharmonic in stadium, the airport, on the Bega Canal, on building and derelict sites; street art works in abandoned industrial sites and buildings’ walls with support from the already well known International Street Art Festival, which gathers annually graphers from our country, Europe and America. 30 0K M In line with one of the city’s urgencies, we want to reclaim for cultural interventions existing public infrastructure in various parts of the city, such as the synagogues in the Cetate and Fabric neighbourhoods, churches, schools, social centres, former cinemas, derelict sites, stadiums, sport grounds. The programme Dare to Shine is to bring culture to people, so we make it accessible to all and use culture as a means for social inclusion. Our message is that culture is for all. 600KM What are the city’s assets in terms of accessibility (regional, national and international transport)? T imișoara is an easily-accessible city by any means of transport, especially by car, from many European cities, due to its geographical location and the infrastructure investments made since Romania joined the European Union in 2007. By car One of the greatest advantages of Timișoara is its geographical location near the western border of Romania, being the closest major Romanian city to Western Europe. Timiș county has two international borders with Hungary and Serbia, with which it shares three border crossings: Cenad (DN 6) to Hungary and by Stamora Moravița (DN 59) and Jimbolia (DN 59A) to Serbia. However, it is connected by highway only to Hungary via A1, the only cross-border highway in Romania, part of European Corridor 4 - TENT core. Nevertheless, this makes Timișoara very easily accessible by road from Central Europe. This highway will continue to Bucharest, thus making the connection between the western part of the country with the capital. The road infrastructure needs serious improvements and great investment, as traffic has been growing by five percent annually since Romania joined the European Union in 2007. With only one highway crossing the county, even though it is not yet completed, Timiș County is among those with the highest density of roads, an extensive network with 533 km of national and 2.368 km of county and communal roads. By 2021, we hope that the highway will have been finished, and more roads upgraded, so that the mobility of the people within the Banat region grows. Visual references to the ECoC history will be placed along the main international roads connecting Timișoara with the airport and the four borders in the region: Nădlac, Moravița, Jimbolia și Cenad. By airplane Timișoara has the only international airport in the west of the country which links it to both the Romanian capital, Bucharest and to other European capitals and major cities, including Paris, Dortmund, Munich, Frankfurt, Brussels, Milan, Bologna, Rome, Treviso, Bari, London, Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia. In total, it offers 23 direct flights to Europe, four national and 19 international, providing connections to eight European countries. The most travelled route is Timișoara-Munich. Due to this easy access route, many Romanians commute across Europe, and many Western Europeans do business in Timișoara. However, the number of passengers has dropped over the last four years due to the economic crisis. As the third largest airport in Romania, the passenger traffic is 800 per hour for international flights and 500 on national routes. It is hoped that given the economic potential of the city and the region, by 2020 that traffic will peak at 1.6 million a year. timisoara2021.ro 49 4. CAPACITY TO DELIVER The airport is located 12 km northwest of Timișoara with access via the European Road E70. The easiest way to get to the airport is by car, taxi or airport bus. The local authorities plan to build an underground train which will link the airport to the train station in order to increase mobility. 50 By bus There are several bus stations in Timișoara, located in different parts of the city, which provide regular connections to cities throughout the Banat region, as well as Transylvania. These will serve well the population from the surrounding areas who we want to attract to Timișoara during the 2021 celebrations. There are also direct bus routes from Timișoara to a many European cities, especially in Germany, Italy and Spain. By train Timișoara is well connected by railway both nationally and internationally. It has six rail stations, the main one being located in the northern part of the city, just ten minutes walk from the city centre. Timiș county has the oldest and densest rail network in Romania, covering more than 91 km per 1000 m². Timișoara is also the most important railway node from the western part of Romania, but the railway station building is in a dire condition. The National Railway Agency (CFR) plans to connect the main station of Timișoara and the main station of Arad to the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), through a modernisation project. Currently, the TEN-T overlaps with the main railway route 200 Curtici-Arad-Simeria and the 900 Timișoara-Băile Herculane; it also overlaps with the secondary railway routes 217 Timișoara-Arad and 922 Timișoara-Moravița. There are already 12 county railways connected to the Trans European Transport Networks (TEN-T). Thus, Timișoara has good connections with three capitals: Budapest, Belgrade and Bucharest. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City Visitors coming to Timișoara by train will have their first experience with the city by walking the cultural kilometre from the ECoC Boulevard. By bicycle Cycling is rapidly becoming a very popular means of transport, through the efforts of local NGOs like ‘Verde pentru bicilete’ (Green light for bicycles). This tendency is also supported by Timișoara’s municipality by constantly introducing new cycle paths. Now every road infrastructure project also includes a cycle path. A free bike-renting service was also introduced by the local authorities ‘Velo TM’ . Timiș county has recently opened the longest paved cycle route in Romania. It is 37 km long and connects the city of Timișoara to the Serbian city of Zrenjanin. Similar to this route, there are plans for a route that connects Romania to Hungary. Although cycling is being embraced as a pastime and a number of cycling routes are being developed within the region as part of the eco-tourism strategy, there is no EuroVelo route crossing Timișoara yet. There are three routes not far away from the city which passes through Szeged, Belgrade and Novi Sad. By water Bega Canal is located in the western part of Timiș County and is one of the few artificial waterways in Romania. It is 44 km long in Romania's teritory and was the first navigable canal built in the country. The navigable part of the Bega Canal starts in Timișoara, then flows to south-west, crosses the Romanian Serbian border, and continues 72 km in south-west direction, to the river Tisza. In an effort to make the Bega Canal navigable again, the municipality has invested more than €20 million in the appropriation of the banks, some of the funds being provided by the EU. Currently, within Timișoara city limits, with the exception of several small and leisure boats, only the dredges of Banat River Administration are moving on the Canal, with the purpose of cleaning it. Consideration has been given to the idea of connecting Timișoara to the navigation system Rhine-Main-Danube, which connects the North Sea with the Black Sea. A smart, efficient and ecological way to travel Given the recent high rise in the use of personal cars, we want to change the general perception that this is the most efficient way to get around the city. In order to achieve this change in behaviour, we need to start with making the authorities aware so every new urban redevelopment does not plan the city for cars, but for people and public transport. This will make the public transport more efficient which will convince people about the advantages. This will build on Timișoara’s well-known association with promoting public transport, as it was the first city to have an electric tram. Even now, the tram network is the biggest in the country after Bucharest. 49% of passengers use the tram. The Solar City Centre will host an international exhibition of solarpowered vehicles. Disabled access Frequent consultations with local associations advocating for accessibility, the creation of a dedicated working group and the jointly drafted report Access and participation to culture of disabled people in Timișoara, lead to careful assessment and preparation of the city’s cultural, touristic and mobility infrastructure to be free of any barrier. Consideration will be given equally to wheelchair users, people with limited walking abilities, sightless and partially sighted, hearing impaired and mentally disabled people. Actions related to infrastructure will be complemented with measures to make accessible the cultural content, where possible, and the publication of a guide dedicated to disabled visitors of the ECoC. 4. CAPACITY TO DELIVER What is the city’s absorption capacity in terms of tourists’ accommodation? T If you want to visit Romania, Timișoara might not spring to mind as ‘the first place to see’ on your list. But it is about ‘old novelty’ and that is what the city as a whole is offering. The Victory Square, in the city centre, shielded by the Romanian National Opera of Timișoara and the ‘Mihai Eminescu’ National Theatre of Timișoara at one end and the Orthodox Cathedral with its eleven towers at the other, was the most visited urban place in Romania in the summer of 2015. This is just an appetiser of the city’s great potential for tourism, and this is before the restoration of the historic city centre Cetate (The Fortress) is finished, in 2016. Nevertheless, due to the lack of tourism strategy for the city and the region, so far Timișoara has proved to have limited success in attracting Romanian and foreign tourists, with an average of only 27% of its capacity currently used. Despite this modest occupancy, the number of visitors has significantly grown in the last ten years both in Timișoara and Timiș County, most of the visitors coming from Romania. The offer for foreign tourists needs to be developed so that more Europeans, and others, consider this region and city as tourist attractions. imișoara’s accomodation capacity has nearly doubled within the last ten years, while the number of visitors has significantly increased too. In terms of accommodation, the number of visitors grows every year seeing a 25% rise in the last five years while Timișoara’s capacity has also nearly doubled within the last ten years. The number of beds in the Timiș County has grown by 63 % reaching 151 accommodation facilities. Considering the relevance of tourism as a driver for economic growth and social innovation, we will mobilise not only the local authorities and the stakeholders in the tourism industry, but also the entire local community, in order to facilitate real interaction, on the one hand between tourists and residents and on the other hand between the city and its surroundings. We will encourage a more experiential link with the place and the people through smart hospitality, a new concept in the Romanian context, like in the programme ‘Heritage in the spotlight’. The ECoC will add value to the current policies by promoting new forms of urban thematic tourisms with memory and religious tours through our recent history, and for the Banat region, experiential services such as eco- and agro-tourism, health and adventure tourism, and enogastronomic tourism promoted by a specific Mega Bega flagship programme. We will also exploit the potential of the IT&C tools and platforms we are currently developing within our cultural programme to make these facilities more visible to the tourists. The city has 23.875 beds for visitors. New accommodation facilities, from hostels to four or five star hotels, have been built, catering to a wide range of tourists, from budget travellers to well-off visitors. The American publication, The Huffington Post, has listed Timișoara - the only Romanian city - alongside other cities in Spain, Portugal or Bulgaria in their top ten high-value affordable destinations, with 18 four-star hotels, three of them part of international hotel chains, for a total of 3.860 beds. In addition, the existing number of accommodation facilities include a camp site, with 260 spaces including small cabins, zones for tents and caravans, the seven hostels offering a total of 348 beds, the 39 guesthouses offering 857 beds, 5.450 beds in boarding schools, and the 13.100 beds in student halls owned by the four public universities, which can be Total number of visitors to Timiș County: Foreigners used during the summer by youth and budget travellers. New accommodation facilities will be tested in cuttingedgeprogrammes such as Solar City. Total number of Romanian and foreign visitors: Romanians Timișoara 300.000 Timiș county 300.000 35% 34% 33% 31% 32% 31% 29% 19% 28% 20% 20% 19% 22% 32% 150.000 19% 20% 18% 18% 150.000 67% 65% 66% 68% 68% 69% 69% 71% 72% 80% 81% 80% 78% 82% 81% 81% 80% 82% 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 timisoara2021.ro 51 4. CAPACITY TO DELIVER 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? O ur plan in connection with the ECoC action is to turn Timișoara into a place where people are the core of the infrastructure. What really matters in our programme is to have a city which is intensely lived and experienced, in cultural, urban, touristic terms, by both its inhabitants and visitors. In this sense, the city’s infrastructure is to be open, inclusive and friendly in order to transfer people’s energy into the community, thus facilitating an inclusive and fresh sense of citizenship. 52 Infrastructure intervention The amount (EUR) Notes Description CULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURE Art-Technology-Experiment Centre 12.000.000 Main objective of the City of Timișoara Cultural Strategy. Financing: City Budget, and EU funds (Guaranteed in the Cultural Strategy) A centre open to experiment and innovation through art and technology both as methodologies and artistic expressions. A place for artistic production with integrated educational and artistic research facilities. The new German State Theatre Hall 1.500.000 Financing: City Budget. Design in progress. Completion: 2017 Celebrate the multicultural ethos of the city, this is a conversion of an industrial building into a cultural centre. Mărășești Culture Centre 5.000.000 Design in progress. Prepared for ERDF funding The Oldest Public Hospital (1745) in Eastern Europe will become the largest cultural facility in the city, hosting the Intercultural Institute from Timișoara , the Timișoara German Culture Centre, the Timișoara French Cultural Institute, the new Fortress Museum and many other small cultural initiatives. The Synagogue Culture Centre (in Cetate/ Fortress neighbourhood) 2.500.000 Design in progress. Prepared for ERDF funding With a capacity of 3.000, the 19th-century synagogue will be transformed into a concert hall and culture facility. Rehabilitation of the Palace of Culture 15.500.000 Re-design in progress. Work partially completed. Funding secured through national and EU funds A complete restoration of this iconic building which currently hosts the Romanian National Opera of Timișoara, the National ‘Mihai Eminescu' Theatre, the German State Theatre of Timișoara and the 'Csiky Gergely' Hungarian State Theatre of Timișoara. The Museum of the Romanian Revolution 3.000.000 Design in progress. Funding secured by the Ministry of Culture A new building for the Museum of the Romanian Revolution is planned, where the story of the Romanian Revolution will be told in a modern, creative and innovative manner. It includes a centre for education and research. Creative conversion of old cinemas into cultural/art centres 2.000.000 Design in progress. Funding secured from the Municipality budget Nine former cinemas which will become part of the municipal patrimony in 2015, will be converted into cultural centres such as theatre studios, art cinemas, art galleries etc. The restoration and repurposing of the Huniade Castle, the home of the Banat Museum Timișoara The rehabilitation of the Banat Village Museum of Timișoara Subtotal culture infrastructure 11.000.000 Design in progress. Funding: City Budget, County budget and ERDF 3.000.000 Financing: City Budget 55.500.000 Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City Situated in the heart of the city, the restoration is an important investment in the cultural heritage of Timișoara with great tourist potential. Investment which will transform the museum into one of the biggest attractions in the region. 4. CAPACITY TO DELIVER URBAN REVITALISATION The rehabilitation of the public spaces in the Fortress neighbourhood - phase one 12.000.000 Financing: EU funds. In completion Covering 9 ha, the area consists of 4 squares and 9 streets which will become exclusively for pedestrians’ use. The rehabilitation of the public spaces in the Fortress neighbourhood - phase two 11.000.000 Design in progress. Prepared for ERDF funding Phase two extends phase 1 by adding an additional 11 streets covering an area of 8 ha. The pavement will be completed and will become exclusively walking areas. Rehabilitation of the urban public infrastructure for Bega Canal Waterfront 12.000.000 Financing: EU funds. In completion Using the great potential of the riverfront for becoming a central green axis in a new and articulated public space, with 18 new km of bicycle and pedestrian paths, 10 ha of new green areas and parks, new cultural event spaces, as well as the first water public transport service in Romania. Rehabilitation of the Urban Ensemble 'Corso', part of the national heritage 10.000.000 Design in progress. Prepared for ERDF funding Local financial support programme for private owners of historic buildings 9.000.000 Mixed financing: City budget, Private funds Open Ville - urban regeneration project 220.000.000 Private funding, secured Subtotal urban revitalisation 274.000.000 The heart of the city and the setting for many major cultural outdoor events, the ensemble includes some of the most important cultural edifices of the city. The intervention will include new pavement and green areas. Increase the architectural quality of the 14.500 historic buildings by restoration. One of the biggest urban regeneration projects in Romania (594.000 m2), completely privately funded, converts a central industrial area into a 'lifestyle' space. It will also include a Centre for Technological Innovation, the second one to be opened in Romania by Ness. ACCESSIBILITY INFRASTRUCTURE Development and extension of the Timișoara Airport Timișoara-Moravita (ET Banatica) - Euro-trans - the European road to Belgrade Bike sharing system in the City of Timișoara 138.350.000 Feasibility study: 2015. Execution: 2016-2018. Funding secured: National Transport Masterplan A new passenger terminal, a new cargo terminal and a multi-modal connection to a new Bus Terminal, as well as to a Railway Terminal. 59.000.000 Execution:2017-2018 Funding Secured: National Transport Masterplan This road, part of E70 European Route, is the southern connection from Timișoara to Belgrade. The Romanian sector Timișoara-Moravița is proposed to be modernised, with completion by 2018. 1.600.000 Completed 2015 - extension until 2020 through EU funds ERDF-funded, the project was completed in 2015 and created the first public free bike sharing system in Romania with 300 bicycles at 22 public transport stations, along with 25km of cycle lanes. Timișoara Detour (City Belt) Southern sector 59.520.000 Execution:2017-2018 Funding Secured: National Transport Masterplan The Detour will create an alternative for heavy traffic in the direction to Serbia, decreasing the traffic through the city and allowing better mobility in Timișoara. Timișoara-Arad railroad speed increasing project 28.270.000 Execution:2016-2017 Funding secured: National Transport Masterplan Part of TENT Core railway corridors, this project will more than double the speed of rail transport. It includes railroad interventions, new trains and other measures. Infrastructure projects for completing Timișoara transport rings 1, 2, 4 (bridges, roads, bicycle lanes, pedestrian, underground passages) 50.000.000 Execution 2015-2020 Funding: ERDF funds, National Budget, City Budget The 5-year infrastructure programme will complete Timișoara transport rings by building 4 new bridges, 2 underground passages for cars and public transport. The programme is part of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan to be approved in October 2015. Subtotal accessibility 336.740.000 TOURISM INFRASTRUCTURE The rehabilitation of the school camps infrastructure In calculation 2014 - 2020 The project is part of the city’s Strategy for the Youth. Water Universe – theme park 18.000.000 2014-2020 The initiative is part of the strategy for attracting more tourists in the region. Science and Technology Museum In calculation 2014-2020 Subtotal tourism infrastructure TOTAL A place where local and regional technological and IT innovation is showcased 18.000.000 €684.240.000 timisoara2021.ro 53 5. OUTREACH 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? I ntensified contacts during the last five years have led to a deep civic engagement which is the stepping stone for the next five years of our work in and with the community. 54 In numbers: • 13 local civic initiators*. • 63 founders, including: • 16 cultural operators, • 28 personalities, opinion leaders and citizens, • 7 businesses, • 2 local authorities. • 112 current Association members. • 160 volunteers, since 2012, out of which: 63% are pupils, students and postgraduate students, 35% are employees from 15 different fields, 73% women. • 1.100 contributors to the concept and cultural programme. • 1.300 - 1.500 visitors per month on our website. • over 30.000 likes on Facebook. • 114 twitter followers and • 53 instagram followers. • 36.000 stickers, 25.000 flyers in 5 languages, 7.000 citizen brochures, 1.000 business brochures, 1.400 pens, 840 posters, 1.300 T-shirts, 2.000 bracelets, 500 cups. • 727 articles in the local media. • 18 articles in international media. • Exchange of experiences with 9 ECoCs. • 153 institutions and more than 5.000 citizens took part. Cultural Academic Foundation of Timișoara, ‘Mihai Eminescu’ National Theatre of Timișoara, Bega Foundation, ‘ProPhilarmonia’ Association, Timișoara ’89 Foundation, Timisiensis Association, four Lions Clubs, three Rotary Clubs * Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City Citizen participation 2010-2015 Citizen participation 2016-2020 Throughout our five-year history, we have gone through waves of enthusiasm and fierce criticism, high and low energy, high hopes and bitter scepticism. In the run-up to TM2021, we will ensure that the citizens of Timișoara stay informed and get involved in the planning of the neighbourhood cultural infrastructure for 2021 foreseen in Dare to Shine. We provide tools for collaborative projects such as Flash of Memory, learning opportunities with local and international artists preparing Blossoms or Chiaroscuro and a voice in the selection of open projects and activities to be added in the final programme. The population of the city has been continuously informed about the initiative and the bidding process, which translated into the engagement on a scale not known before in our city: online networks, mass-media, seminars and especially many face-to-face street events. In the shaping process of our concept we have emphasised the meaning of the ECoC and the transforming role of culture for the city, thus correlating the candidacy with the city’s current urgencies. We set up a call of workshops to find out the unique traits of the city and we established the city’s key urgencies that shaped our candidacy concept. We have also run workshops for project ideas with stakeholders to debate the artistic programme strands and projects. Because of our purposeful approach, the ECoC community has grown each year. During 2021 The entire programme is built as an audience-development tool, with various levels of engagement: as new public, as contributors to collaborative projects, as amateur artists or as involved volunteers. After 2021 After TM2021, the ECoC year citizens of Timișoara will be the main voice in the evaluation of the ECoC process. In the long-term the city will have new mechanisms for cultural management that involve the local population in decisions and co-creation of cultural content. 5. OUTREACH Our timeline showing the civic involvement 2010 • Civic engagement led to the first declaration of the then city’s mayor on the ECoC; • Community clubs organised the first debate with creative industries and young people. • Signing the ‘civic engagement agreement’ by local NGOs, cultural operators, artists, public figures, business and mass media; • City and County Councils’ unanimous support, in less than 21 days from the ‘civic engagement agreement’; • Founding the civic Timișoara - European Capital of Culture Association, Candidate City with financing based on private sponsorships and the membership fees. • Strengthening the funding and the logistics support from the local public authorities and private sector; • Running a large awareness raising and information campaign about the ECoC programme and its benefits; • Running a pilot project to promote Timișoara’s major festivals in the country and abroad; • Reinforcing the political support of all political parties, all public and private universities, all public cultural institutions and all the city’s ethnic minority groups and associations through signed declarations; Learning best practices from other ECoCs: Liverpool 2008, Stavanger 2008, Linz 2009, Marseille 2013, Paphos 2017. • • • Launching the TM2021 Volunteering programme and continuing the Ambassadors programme; Conducting sociological studies on the citizens’ support and what best represents Timișoara. • Launching SWOT analysis, debates on the ’REVOLutionary’ concept; • Pilot audience development project The memory of my neighbourhood – professional visual and performing artists working together with citizens in the 6 historical neighbourhoods of Timișoara; • Learning from other ECoCs: Lille 2004, Sibiu 2007, Pécs 2010. 2014 2013 • 2012 2011 • Continuing in-depth debates on the 'Channel of Cultures' concept, and participating to focus groups within the Timișoara’s Cultural Strategy development process, for 2014 – 2024; Initiating debates and workshops on accessibility and participation to culture of disabled citizens. 2015 • Continuation of debates and workshops on accessibility to culture with other vulnerable groups, especially refugees and migrants, and people suffering poverty; • Running consultation campaigns and workshops with the artistic, cultural and social sectors; • Shine your light - Light up your city! final concept launched and programmes defined; • Running participation campaigns in the community, being present with info points at various public events, and applying open-doors policy in the TM2021 candidacy office; • Mapping international contacts of the local population and civil society. timisoara2021.ro 55 5. OUTREACH 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. T hrough our Shine your light – Light up your city! cultural programme, we create the path that turns disconnected individuals into engaged citizens of Europe. This applies especially to the young in search of a vision, the volunteers willing to offer their energy to the community, the elders preserving values and heritage, the vulnerable groups holding important perspectives on our society. 56 The overall strategy can be summed up by the following seven verbs, which also apply to the social transformation process we set in motion. … accelerate slow processes such as accessibility of public cultural infrastructure; … expose the inner light of everyone joining in, including the marginalised and disadvantaged; … reflect the kindness and togetherness beyond people’s abilities, religion, race or culture; … penetrate rigid mentality that excludes, segregates and pushes vulnerable people on the brink; … network and globalise as opportunities for personal growth and fulfilment for young and senior alike; … re-start as empowered individuals in a transformed community, keep on shining and lighting up the city, and beyond. We believe that building trust is a key element to ensure that the citizens of Timișoara will attend and, ideally, participate in cultural activities, by: Offering a wide range of locations, we build trust by ensuring that the ECoC programme is not just another party in the city centre, but an opportunity for each and everyone, whether they live in concrete blocks Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City of flats, in crumbling old buildings, in villas from the new residential areas unreachable by public transport, or in night shelters run by social services. With the project Inspired View, together with teams of young architects, we are planning a detailed mapping of the city, seen not as districts divided by streets, but as neighbourhoods naturally formed around points of interaction with small-scale infrastructure and events; Proposing a vast array of artistic forms and languages which will address audiences of all ages, education, geographical origin, language, social background, digital literacy; Addressing accessibility as one of the most important topics on the ECoC agenda for Timișoara. This is understood in all forms: physical, visual, auditory, use of simple language and signs; Preparing our programmes carefully and strategically with the support of social and artistic animators who will be able to inspire trust through their own passion and talents, and to encourage everyone to join in. We specifically take into account vulnerable groups. An unacceptable large number of people with disabilities live very isolated lives, both because the city fails to provide an accessible infrastructure and because of overprotective families. Elderly parents of young people who migrated abroad live alone and isolated, disconnected from technology, mediated communication and social interaction, fearing they might die and not be noticed for days. As in many European cities, families with very young children hardly get out of their homes as childcare has become an expensive service instead of a gift among extended family. Vulnerable children and the elderly are sent around the cafés in the central areas to beg from tourists. Benches in public spaces disappear at the request of residents disturbed by homeless people sleeping on them. The team preparing the ECoC has paid special attention to understand these complex issues. We have asked ourselves “How can we prepare a programme which will not be a mere attraction to be watched by many, but which actually engages the widest possible audience and leaves a legacy beyond the year 2021?” We have heard many voices during the concept-testing phase and we let them tell us how they understand the opportunities created by ECoC. 5. OUTREACH Raluca is a young activist for accessibility. Since attending her local nursery, and all the way to university graduation, Raluca, together with her family have fought constantly for her right to be part of the community as any other person. She sees ECoC as an opportunity for improving accessibility throughout the city, for changing the general negative perceptions of disabled people, as well as changing perceptions about her own abilities and about the participation of disabled people. Therefore we will create facilities which will enable her to attend each and every activity of 2021, and not just basic ramps but also with small podiums where she and other wheelchair users can enjoy the same view. She speaks excellent English and if she wishes, she will train as a city guide, and will take international tourists to those places which she could not access before. She also has a wonderful voice and will be more than happy to attend open-microphone events around neighbourhood stages in the Dare to Shine programme. Ana is a young single mother full of energy. She cares for the environment and is concerned particularly about oil polluting the water resources. She organised a bike pick-up service for jars of used oil, while campaigning for a more serious involvement of the public administration on this issue. Before 2021 she will have the opportunity to choose from many training programmes for event organisers, local guides, story tellers and social animators. During the ECoC year she will collaborate with international artists and activists, joining the wide European movement for sustainable cities featured in Lightscapes. Rodica joined the TM2021 volunteer team with the hope of creating a more attractive city for her emigrated son, so he can return home. She takes pleasure in learning new things but technology is still somehow scary for her. Addictive Lights is one of the programmes that will give her the opportunity to join the growing European network of online senior users. Edith is one of the volunteer guides trained by the Timișoara Art Museum. Her age and Parkinson condition did not prevent her from learning new skills and enthusiastically present the art works in several languages. Elders like her will add the special touch to programmes such as Heritage in the Spotlights, Flash of Memory, Baroque Reloaded or Words of Light. Eleonora grew up in an orphanage and is labelled as having an ‘intellectual disability’. She taught us that accessibility to public space refers, not only to the physical space, but also to use of simple language and orientation signs. She is currently working with a cartoonist on a visual book of her life story, and in the next years we will give her and many other young people the opportunity to explore other artistic languages, such as film and forum theatre. Her experience of being frequently checked by security guards who suspect her of stealing because she is Roma is one of those many examples of every-day labelling and exclusion that we keep in mind for the Invisible/ Visible and Chiaroscuro programmes. Andrei is a young drummer. He taught us what needs to be done for a city to be friendly and accessible to blind people. We will follow his recommendations for any infrastructure to be set up, for the way we will design our website and online presence and for inviting local and international artists to explore and create multisensory works. We will make sure he has access to a community cultural space where he can practice with his bands. In 2021 we hope he will play in our concerts and share the stage with his favourite international musicians. Chris came to Timișoara from Nigeria and is very much looking forward to 2021. The African continent is little known in Central and Eastern Europe and he is ready to become an organiser for multicultural events. He is also interested in the topic of so-called ‘Fortress Europe’ as migrants from other corners of the world are not as welcome on this continent as they once were. Lights over Borders is the strand through which we will invite artists and activists to cover highly-debated international themes such as refugees, migration and human rights. Valentin is an activist for Roma minority rights. He thinks the discussions should be about the relationship among different groups and the mechanisms that create conflict, stereotypes, social stigma, exclusion, or trans-generational poverty. Besides Invisible/Visible and Chiaroscuro, we will make sure that the Roma culture and language are present in all programmes on diversity and community relations: Heritage in the Spotlights, Mega Bega, Words of Light. His very dear dream for TM2021 is to attend a theatre play or a film, in Romani language with subtitles in Romanian and English. There are a considerable number of individuals who stay anonymous online, but who are very vocal with extremist messages such as ‘Timișoara - capital of rich and shameless ‘gypsies’, or ‘No to Islamisation of Romania’ when referring to refugees. We are concerned as well but for a different reason. These voices bring Timișoara into the shameful top of European cities with extremist voices. Light and Dark Spaces is one of the strands which tackle such attitudes. We hope that with the support of international artists our city will become a place where people learn to deconstruct labels and prejudices. timisoara2021.ro 57 5. OUTREACH Explain your overall strategy for audience development, and in particular the link with education and the participation of schools. T he audience development strategy is summed up by the Shine your light call and is built on principles of Culture 3.0. TM2021 will inspire and engage the public in meaningful artistic works and projects that enlarge the view, awaken potential, transform individual culture and memories, from disconnected individual flashes to a radiating glowing community of engaged citizens. 58 Following the third line of the 2024 Cultural strategy of the city, ‘Involved Timișoara’ and the European practices for audience development, the ECoC programme will contribute to the audience development through the following approaches: ‘Bring culture to where people are’ We envisage cultural activities to take place in a wide network of locations close to where people live: schools, churches, social centres, shopping areas, parks and squares. ‘One event - many types of audience’ The cultural experiences in the ECoC programme will be selected based on their potential to attract a variety of groups and segments of the population. ‘Focus on public engagement’ Each programme will have to address one or several levels of audience development: inspire self-expression; welcome user-generated cultural content, foster co-creation by engaging volunteers. With this approach, we aim to change the cultural demand and create a new culture of cocreation where the artists and activists facilitate collective journeys. The long-term benefits will be the strengthening of our city’s neighbourhoods and communities, full of self-expressing citizens who communicate and create together a city-wide European laboratory for peaceful social transformation through culture. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City The educational institutions will be both the main partners and beneficiaries of this approach. More specifically, starting in 2017, each educational establishment (all ages and levels) will be supported in terms of logistics and capacity building in three directions: Build capacity for quality partnership with cultural operators (local and international) that will lead to the complex activities of 2021, especially those under the strands Inner Light, with the project Smartness Revealed, under Shared Sight with the project Invisible/Visible and under Lightscapes, with Solar City. Extend the diversity and approach of extra-curricular activities. Currently many schools, in both Timișoara and across Europe, focus on a limited array of topics that are perceived as important for ‘success’. The ECoC 2021, with programmes like Dare to Shine and Words of Light will be a laboratory to experiment with new approaches to redefine education as attractive for children, and relevant to the present challenges of our society. Children of all ages will be given the opportunity to express their extraordinary capacity for innovation and creativity, and thus go beyond the pressure to achieve, boredom and the negative labelling, which have devastating long-term effects. Extend the quality, the audience and participation in educational facilities. Although the ‘community activities’ are part of the strategies of many local schools, very few actually manage to truly attract an audience larger than their own pupils and immediate families. ECoC will offer them the motivation and the means to dissolve these borders and make schools the heart of their neighbourhoods, open to everyone, part of the larger communities in the city. In the long-term we aim to decline education drop-outs by redefining learning through cultural selfexpression. 6A. MANAGEMENT / FINANCE City budget for culture 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)? The city budget for culture has almost doubled over the last five years. This budget is one of the most stable budgets in Romania and was raised as a consequence of the city master plan where the cultural strategy has a crucial role. The extra funds are used to extend cultural activities to the surrounding areas for audience development, especially in local culture and tourism, and to strengthen creative and cultural agents. Expenditure for the preparation of the ECoC application (not in the table below) slowly increased up to the current 2% of this budget. Year annual budget for culture in the city (in euros) annual budget for culture in the city (in % of the total annual budget for the city) 2011 4.048.400 1,4% 2012 4.393.400 1,6% 2013 6.084.100 2,2% 2014 6.969.800 2,5% 2015 7.395.000 2,6% 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. For the ECoC project the city has created a special budget line that is provided via the central budget. Via a contract with the Association and following the approval in the Timișoara City Council of September 2015, arrangements are made how this amount is transferred to the independent Timișoara - European Capital of Culture Association which prepares the bid and implements the programme in case the title is awarded. Therefore, the ECoC project has no effect on the annual budget for culture. Of course, during the ECoC years, the municipality can choose to allocate some funds from the cultural budget for their own activities which are ECoC related. These activities would be aligned with the indicators of the cultural programme. The city’s contribution to the ECoC amounts to almost half the total cultural income from the public sector over the next 6 years. Which amount of the overall annual budget does the city intend to spend for culture after the European Capital of Culture year (in euros and in % of the overall annual budget)? Along the lines of the cultural strategy, it is planned that the city will spend 4,1% (€11.661.346) annually on culture in the years following the ECoC year. This is an established policy and is needed to maintain the events delivered by the ECoC, such as a stronger international profile (including a major event each year), artists with strengthened competences and international contacts, and a cultural and creative scene that is vibrant and internationally connected. timisoara2021.ro 59 6A. MANAGEMENT / FINANCE Operating budget for the title year Income to cover operating expenditure: 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. 60 The municipality can bear the largest part of the costs since Timișoara is among the top three stable local authorities in the country. We are experienced in successfully building and executing projects of the size and scope of an ECoC, and understand the importance of financial stability. For this reason, as of 2011 the municipality has set up a budget line so that money is earmarked each year for the preparation of the candidature. Unfortunately it is not possible to treat the budgeting as an investment according to Romanian law but our arrangement concerning the budgeting 2017-2022 is as close as possible to treatment as a would-be investment via a contract with the Association in legal terms. This means a multi-annual plan, with key organisational, governance and staffing issues arranged, and financial commitments fixed until 2022. Clauses are in place so that it is not possible to change either the scope or the purpose of the budget. In a possible second round the municipality and the county will ratify their respective contracts. We work specifically with a model where there is high expected income from the private sector. This sets the interest to make the ECoC a success in the regional context, and places the Association on a national platform. Total income to cover operating expenditure (in euros) From the public sector (in euros) From the public sector (in%) From the private sector (in euros) From the private sector (in%) 48.500.000 44.000.000 91% 4.500.000 9% Income from the public sector: What is the breakdown of the income to be received from the public sector to cover operating expenditure? The municipality and the county (region) have both secured their funding contributions. Funding from the national government will be arranged with contracts for specific activities, thematic projects and events. Others are public institutions who are members of the Association which already pay annual fees, and municipalities from the region and cities in the Danube region. Income from the public sector to cover operating expenditure in euros % National government 12.000.000 27% City 20.000.000 46% County 5.000.000 11% EU (with exception of the Melina Mercouri Prize) 3.000.000 7% Others 4.000.000 9% 44.000.000 100% 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? Negotiation with the government on this funding has started and the amount will be announced in Q2 2016. The Timișoara Municipality and the Timiș County Council (region) have already voted to the financial commitments to cover the above-mentioned operating expenditure through the Local Council Decision No. 395/22.09.2015 and, respectively the County Council Decision of 30.09.2015. The outcome of these decisions will be laid down into legal contracts with the Association, valid until 2022. These contracts are the strongest possible guarantee under Romanian law. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City 6A. MANAGEMENT / FINANCE What is your fund raising strategy to seek financial support from Union programmes/funds to cover operating expenditure? Our team includes experts who have experience totalling more than 50 years working with projects funded by European institutions. They are the foundation of our strategy. Furthermore, we have already carried out a first scan of the programme to confirm that we include activities eligible for funding, such as stimulation of traditional and cultural tourism, participation and development of transnational cultural networks, people-to-people projects in relation to the Bega Canal, capacity building and exchanges of citizens, artists and students, and cooperation between Serbia-Romania (IPA) and HungaryRomania (INTERREG). EU funding for regional development which will jointly be applied for by the Municipality of Timișoara, the Timiș County Council and the other municipalities in the Banat Region is taken into account during the preparation for a possible ECoC in Timișoara in 2021. The budgets will include funding for cultural and public space projects, amounting to between €15-20 million. in the last four years of the Creative Europe programme, mainly concerning film and European platforms and networks. Partners in the region have been trained and stimulated to join in European applications. This has led to four applications. Also funding opportunities are followed from PROGRESS concerning support for the social dialogue programme, Horizon 2020 concerning the Open Innovation 2.0 programme, the Smart Cities programme and the Erasmus + for the Youth Partnerships programme (especially for capacity building). Concerning EU funding directly from Brussels, monitoring has been done 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? Source of income for operating expenditure 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 ECoC year 2021 2022 EU 0 450.000 450.000 450.000 570.000 900.000 180.000 National government 0 0 480.000 2.520.000 3.600.000 4.800.000 600.000 City 0 1.600.000 1.800.000 3.600.000 5.400.000 6.000.000 1.600.000 County 0 400.000 750.000 1.050.000 1.250.000 1.250.000 300.000 Sponsors 0 0 225.000 585.000 1.575.000 2.025.000 90.000 Other 0 200.000 480.000 680.000 1.040.000 1.440.000 160.000 0 2.650.000 4.185.000 8.885.000 13.435.000 16.415.000 2.930.000 The rationale behind this table is done on the basis of studying information on funding of ECoCs of the last five years. In this study we have found that many ECoCs depend heavily on pre-finance provided by the municipality and to a lesser extent by the county. EU funding in the first years of the preparation is to be arranged via EU applications directly from Brussels. We factor in funding from the National Government only in a later stage due to its project-based funding. timisoara2021.ro 61 6A. MANAGEMENT / FINANCE Income from the private sector: What is the fund raising strategy to seek support from private sponsors? What is the plan for involving sponsors in the event? 62 The sponsorship strategy has a multilevel structure: we will work with media partners, key partner sponsorship, sponsorship of specific events (from individuals to national companies, the lottery and with international companies - with offices located in the region), royalties from productions generated by programmed events, copyrights on products of the ECoC, and other traded income generated by events and in-kind support. This will also include projects stimulating creativity in companies (in product design and development, reorganisations and internal problem solving, marketing and sales). Eastern Europe. For example, at our airport, important companies have already arranged visibility for the candidature throughout the bid book preparation phase. This strategy emphasises the opportunities in Timișoara and the Banat region, in terms of highly-educated people combined with conditions for a highquality lifestyle. Association members have contacts at national level which have also been approached. We have already received, or have been offered, financial support from international companies with a local office, and from local companies, such as Continental, Bega Group, Timișoreana, Staropramen, Hella, Elba, Kathrein Romania, Green Forest furniture and Refurbished Computers. We will put out a call for cooperation with companies to involve their clients, customers and suppliers, to develop together events and exhibitions that strengthen the experience of Timișoara as a tourist and business destination. The key element in the sponsor participation is the on-going extensive marketing campaign which positions Timișoara as the tourist and technology place to be in Central and South- For the ECoC a group of entrepreneurs has been approached and they have already registered as members of the Association. The president of the board is an entrepreneur. The board and the First initiation contracts are expected to be signed in a possible second round. For the moment a collaboration is already taking place on the development of ‘Addictive Light’ on the use of digital devices with Samsung Romania, of ‘Brilliant’ on development of solar energy for street lightning with ELBA lightning company and of ‘Circulating Skyscapes’ on awareness of pollution with Continental tyre factory. The private funding follows the following structure: Funding Type of cooperation Potential sponsors €350.000 Main partner 5-7 International and national operating companies with large presence throughout the region and Europe-wide. €80.000 Partner 20 small and midsized businesses. in kind Depending on volume Contribution via European and national co-branding and shared campaigns, hosting in terms of nights and beverages, materials, IT solutions, expertise and time. This is especially important from the qualitative perspective. €50-20.000 Supporter Crowd funding by organisations or people interested in specific events, especially important for the Timișoreni’s living abroad with families from the region. Operating expenditure: Please provide a breakdown of the operating expenditure. The bulk of expenditure is allocated to the programme budget. 15% is allocated to promotion and marketing. The breakdown of expenditure for communication is at the high end since it contains cultural projects that are mainly focused on awareness, (international) engagement and communication. The ‘other’ represents 6% reserve to be allocated for contingencies, and to have flexibility, so that when at the last moment a young completely unexpected person walks in with an idea that has to take place, there is space in the budget to manoeuvre. The allocation of €33,95 million for the programme budget allows for a significant spend on the key cultural activities. Programme expenditure (in euros) Programme expenditure (in %) Promotion and marketing (in euros) Promotion and marketing (in %) Wages, overheads and administration (in euros) Wages, overheads and administration (in %) Other (in euros) Other (in %) Total of the operating expenditure 33.950.000 70% 7.275.000 15% 4.365.000 9% 2.910.000 6% 48.500.000 Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City 6A. MANAGEMENT / FINANCE Budget for capital expenditure What is the breakdown of the income to be received from the public sector to cover capital expenditure in connection with the title year? Those parts of the cultural infrastructure and the urban revitalisation that are relevant to the ECoC’s cultural programme, and in need of modernisation, are in the planning stage and most of the funding is guaranteed. The mentioned expenditure consists of the public-funded parts of the cultural infrastructure (from Q3 and 4 of 2016 and later) and urban revitalisation only. Projects that are only in the ideas phase, for example the privately funded beer experience centre connected to the Timișoareana brewery, which will be important for tourism, are not yet taken into account. Income from the public sector to cover capital expenditure in euros % National Government 87.000.000 20,8% City 82.350.000 19,7% 2.000.000 0,5% 210.000.000 50,2% Other 37.000.000 8,8% Total 418.350.000 100% County EU The connections with major European corridors via air, rail, water, highway, national roads and ring roads are undergoing modernisation and construction. These major projects will be completed from the end of this year onwards and will all be finished in 2020. This makes Timișoara and its surroundings the best connected part of Romania by road and places them in the country’s top 3 bestconnected regions by air. 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? In the table at page 52 on city’s investments plan, the capital expenditures and the status of the funding are notified per infrastructure intervention. According to this, 90% of funds on cultural, urban and accessibility infrastructures (which are by far the largest part) are approved and fixed. What is your fund raising strategy to seek financial support from Union programmes/funds to cover capital expenditure? The main capital projects are in the National Transport Plan, in line with TEN-T, which have EU funding via the national authorities. Our fundraising strategy is to use the ECoC programme that is complementary with ERDF and cross-border Romania-Serbia and Romania-Hungary funding 20142020 EU. Concerning EU regional development funding, since 2010 the regional and local authorities have been aware of the planning, and have demonstrated how the ECoC programme is complementary to the ERDF regional priorities, and have identified the ECoC’s ability to support strategic investment in the regional development. timisoara2021.ro 63 6B. MANAGEMENT / ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE What kind of governance and delivery structure is envisaged for the implementation of the European Capital of Culture year? T he governance envisaged for the implementation of the ECoC year builds on the ‘community-led’ spirit of Timișoara’s candidacy, not explained since the ’89 Revolution. 64 The delivery structure is rooted in the members’ civic energy and power, the ECoC Association being completely independent from local public authorities and political or private interests. The delivery structure stands on four pillars: General Assembly – the highest decision making body, Steering Committee – the governing body, Honorary President – the ambassador and key mediator, Audit, Monitoring and Evaluation Committee – the guardian of values and good governance. The founders’ composition is: Our guiding principles on governance are: openness and participation, representation and legitimacy, and artistic and cultural free expression. Through them, we aim to build trust, engagement and a free exchange of ideas, within the Association’s members and within other communities, from near neighbours through to local, regional, national, European and even global communities. 25% public and private (1) Through the principle of openness and participation we aim to develop and consolidate the grassroots establishment of the Association, formally set up in September 2011. We maintain the spirit of openness to the community, in its broadest sense. Every person interested, whether representing an organisation or as an individual, public or private, irrespective of citizenship or nationality, public authorities and politicians, all are welcomed as new members. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City 3% the 2 local authorities: the Municipality of Timișoara and the Timiș County Council; cultural operators; 2% Universities; 14% NGOs; 11% companies; 45% personalities, opinion leaders, journalists and citizens. The membership has increased each year, at the moment comprising 112 members. Special attention will be given to extending the membership in Serbia and Hungary and among ‘Timișoreni’ diasporas, serving the Candidacy’s aim to reach audiences and develop communities within the historic Banat region and beyond. Participation means that each member can and will be stimulated to be involved in the Association’s life. Informal leaders will initiate informal meetings among members, not only on specific concerns, problems, initiatives in arts and cultural sectors, but also on topics regarding the social and economic agenda. All such proposals are analysed and debated by the Steering Committee and, afterwards, proposed for approval to the General Assembly. Another layer of members and community involvement and participation are the Art Markets, organised by the Association, twice a year, in spring and autumn. Their scope is to spark ideas, bind partnerships and share experiences. Within six weeks after the Art Market, the General Assembly meets for its ordinary sessions, approving strategic objectives and directions, activity plans and budgets, public affairs and public relations frames, monitoring and evaluation reports, membership flows and election results and also debating 6B. MANAGEMENT / ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE and deciding on the results of the informal members meetings and the Art Markets. The General Assembly represents the civic energy put on the ECoC promise and will be the main driver in the journey to it. We have already begun to raise attention and to debate issues such as new meanings of the ECoC’s outreach, in terms of cultural cocreation and co-production. Special attention in our workshop discussions was given to the understanding of the European and local identities. Last, but not least in our concerns and debates was and is the ECoC’s legacy issue, emphasised in almost all our meetings with other host cities. (2) By the principal of representation and legitimacy we aim to set in place an even more stable and powerful governing body, rooted in our diverse organisational membership and their authentic involvement within the community. Therefore, the elections for the Steering Committee positions will be made in accordance with a welldefined composition, in order to reflect the Association’s member structure, as well as the stakeholders around an ECoC. The new defined composition includes representatives for the following seven seats: • two for the two local public authorities – the Municipality and the County Council; • one for the representative of the local academic field; • one for the representative of the local business with international perspective; • one for the representative of the local civil society; • one cultural expert that has deep understanding of international artistic excellence; • one for an ECoC international expert with day-to-day management expertise, and experience in at least 3 cities that hosted the title. The Steering Committee cannot contain more than two non-members, nor can it contain more than two politicians. There will be no more than three public sector representatives. The Steering Committee members are elected by the General Assembly, but with their legitimacy strengthened through criteria of eligibility, as detailed in the internal regulations of the Association. They elect among them the President of the Steering Committee. The possition is currently held by Mr. Emil Cristescu, a business person with international outlook and experience, involved in many social and cultural initiatives in the city of Timișoara. Assembly, at the moment he has only a mandate of representation. This role will be supplemented by the mediation role, having the right to chair each of the governing bodies of the Association and to break or create a tie. For monitoring, controlling and evaluating the Association’s activity and the ECoC programme, the General Assembly elects an Audit, Monitoring and Evaluation Committee. The Steering Committee implements the General Assembly’s decisions. Now it has eleven seats, for a three year mandate. In the first General Assembly after the final selection of the ECoC competition, we will reduce the number of positions to seven, in alignment with the above. The scope is to gain efficiency and effectiveness in the decision making process and, also to expand the trust, expertise, connections and decision power within the ECoC project. (3) By the principal of artistic and cultural free expression and mutual enlightenment we look for the content’s independence, quality, diversity and balance between areas such as professional, amateur and community projects, high versus popular, traditional versus contemporary, established institutions and independent groups, internationals and locals, usual and new activities. The Honorary President is the key mediator between various interests and potentially opposed views, creating and facilitating institutional relations, raising awareness on sensitive issues. The position is currently held by Mr. Ioan Holender, born in Timișoara, former General Director of the Vienna State Opera for 19 years, and Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival, an outstanding personality, internationally recognised for his life work in culture, with an impressive network of artists, imposing the utmost respect in all areas of life and community. Elected by the General timisoara2021.ro 65 6B. MANAGEMENT / ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE 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? T he management structure has a well-thought-through framework set in place, with clear responsibilities on everything that supports the creativity outcomes, but also flexible channels for stimulating creativity and involvement. As the gravity centre of the ECoC project, the General Director has the final responsibility for global leadership. 66 The management structure has to respond to challenging expectations, from different perspectives: a. a diverse, non-hierarchical membership, such as the governance structure itself, with their specific expectations and with whom it needs to work for building the trust and cooperation attitude; b. the immediate outputs expected from the ECoC year by the main stakeholders, including cultural excellence, enlarged outreach and participation, national and international attention and visibility, high economic impacts, efficiency and cost-effective expenditures; c. the long-term outcomes and legacy of the ECoC year, namely the longevity and the sustainability of the projects pursued during the ECoC journey. Therefore, the management structure will have strong reference points shared with the governance structure and the communities beyond it, in order to favour, motivate and encourage emerging views, feelings and thoughts, which will then lead to cohesion and its own organisational culture. The General Director is appointed by the Steering Committee, on a clear set of criteria. He/she is responsible for the overall coordination of the ECoC year. The Chief Treasurer is appointed by the General Director. His/her responsibilities are budgeting, executing and overseeing operations, from a financial opportunity and cost-effectiveness points of view, being under the supervision of the Audit Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City Committee. The Artistic Chiefs are experienced curators, experts and/or cultural advisors with international track records. They need to combine competences relative to: the international expertise and experience, solid expertise and experiences on local particularities, fresh and new ways of experimenting arts and culture, and rigorous, structural way of thinking and working. Cultural Coordinator is responsible for delivering the concept and the artistic vision, as developed by the Artistic Chiefs. He/she works closely with the General Director, on an operational level, and with the Artistic Chiefs, on the cultural programme’s objectives, indicators, contents, partnerships, capacity building needs and targeted outreach and participation. He/she collaborates directly with the Networks Coordinator and Operations Coordinator. The Cultural Division teams consists of strands clusters, which include concept developers, artistic producers, project managers, independent artists and creative entrepreneurs working with their relative stakeholders and communities. Networks Coordinator is responsible for reaching people, as audiences, participants, tourists, visitors, volunteers, sponsors, within the scope of building networks and communities. He/she works closely with the General Director, on an operational level, and with the President, Steering Committee and the Association’s members for local, national and international potential connections and collaboration, including public authorities and other institutions and bodies. He/she collaborates directly with the Cultural Coordinator and Operations Coordinator. The Network Division teams consist of a marketing and communication team, including online specialists and TV and social media experts, outreach and participation team, artistic and public relations team, including protocol, hospitality and exchange programmes, and the tourism and sponsoring team. Operations Coordinator is responsible for legal compliance in all forms, organisational cohesion and resources’ efficiency allocation. He/she works closely with the General Director, on an operational level, and with the Chief Treasurer and Audit Committee on strategic integration and overview. He/she collaborates directly with the Cultural Coordinator and Networks Coordinator. The Operations Division teams consist of an accounting and finance team, including acquisitions and controlling team, legal and fundraising team, and human resources and big data team. The management organisation chart is solid and robust in structure, but dynamic and flexible. In order to be able to quickly adapt and respond to dynamic changes it is analysed and reevaluated every six months. Behind our management structures are status quo challengers, self-critical thinkers and changing believers. We will grow these values in all our people. Our philosophy is to grow the technical expertise and good practice experiences, therefore each high professional or coordinator has his/ her ‘twin junior’ and his/her volunteer crew. Tourism and sponsoring team (4) Marketing and communication team (12) Cultural Coordinator Strategic projects and PR team (4) Chief Treasurer Outreach and participation team (10) Audit, Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (3) GOVERNANCE General Assembly Networks Coordinator MANAGEMENT Cultural Programme baseline team (60) Art Markers team (3) Honorary President Opening and Closing team Lightscapes team Operations Coordinator Light over Borders team Light and Dark Spaces team Shared Sight team Inner Light team HR and big data team (5) Public fund-raising team (6) Accounting and financial team (8) 6B. MANAGEMENT / ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE 112 members Steering Committee (7) GENERAL DIRECTOR Artistic Chiefs (3) timisoara2021.ro 67 6B. MANAGEMENT / ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE 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? W e believe that the human resource is the most valuable one. Therefore, we acknowledge the importance of having the right people, at the right place, at the right moment, especially as the gap between a larger talent demand and a rigid labour offer is very wide. Bearing that in mind and the fact that through our ECoC project we will create a talent demand, our human resources strategy will strive on attracting, maintaining and growing talents. 68 For the top and middle management level we will target talents with international proven track records in similar positions. For baseline management positions we will search for talents with proven track records at local level. In order to generate qualitative pools for selection of such talents, we will apply complementary recruitment methods, such as open international and national calls for applications, as well as specific head-hunting tools. The selection process will have three different phases. For the first selection phase, out of a minimum pool of at least 100 candidates, an outsourced specialist HR agency will filter the best 40 candidates for the job. This phase is based on the evaluation of the candidates’ portfolios corresponding to prior established profiles for the job. In the second selection phase, two international experts in the field will interview and assess candidates and select the best three for the job. The final selection is made by the Selection Committee, which includes: the General Director, one Steering Committee member, one representative of the General Assembly, one external expert and the HR agency representative. The General Director has the final decision. This selection procedure is applied to all key decision positions as presented in the table below, except the General Director and the Artistic Chiefs, which follows a particular selection process. For all the other positions we will Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City keep the three steps procedure, with a selection committee established within each specific department. We will develop, for each job welldefined roles and responsibilities, with its relative indicators for overseeing, monitoring and evaluation. By growing talents we intend to encourage career development in almost all areas, from volunteers to the artistic chiefs. We will put emphasis on real life situations and challenges and on culturally-mixed teams. The real life situation builds real skills, in conceptual and critical thinking, planning steps, dealing with uncertainty, solving problems and mistakes, and dealing with team conflicts. It is about learning by doing, including making mistakes and solving them. The culturally-mixed team changes perspectives and paradigms of each member’s team through culture, opening windows for new, innovative, creative ideas and solutions. Special projects for attracting volunteers are prepared, based on mobility and experience exchange. After the ECoC year, the core team will remain for at least another 6 month to assume and implement the project’s legacy strategy and facilitate the knowhow transfer and sharing. 6B. MANAGEMENT / ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE The structure of the Association is envisaged with the following levels of management, responsibility and accountability: Position Selection procedure General Director Selected by the Steering Committee through an international open call for applications The leader of the Association Skills Experience Excellent interdisciplinary skills in leadership, communication, public relations, diplomacy, management and networking, team player, and coach A proven international track record in leading large impact international projects and/or organisations Artistic Chiefs The Artistic leaders of the Association Selected on the three steps procedure, through international open-call for applications Excellent artistic and/or technical knowledge and skills in artistic and cultural fields, in new creative emerging fields and in specific sciences, conceptual thinkers, international networkers, inspirational leaders A proven international track record in the respective field, (arts managers, curators, founders of festivals and large scale events) Coordinators The middle management level Selected on the three steps procedure, through international open-call for applications Excellent interdisciplinary skills in leadership, communication, management and networking, team player, and coach Relevant experience in developing large scale programmes, at least at the national level Directors The baseline management level Selected on the three steps procedure, through national open-calls for applications • Theme Directors • Opening and Closing Director • Art Markets Director • Team Directors in the Operational Division (3) • Team Directors in the Networks Division (4) Excellent leadership, communication, team player, coaching and management skills Relevant experience in the respective field Project Managers Selected on the three steps procedure, simplified and reduced to the department level • Flagship Managers (5) • Event Managers (around 30) • Specialised managers within the other divisions Project management skills, in resource allocation, budgeting, planning, information correlation, quality outputs, leadership and communication skills Relevant experience in working with and leading different teams How will you make sure that there is an appropriate cooperation between the local authorities and this structure including the artistic team? T he cooperation with the local authorities will be framed within a Memorandum of Understanding on clear roles, objectives, tasks, indicators, reporting procedures, plans, budgets and responsible persons, on a multiannual basis. A similar framework will be enforced in the relation with the national authorities, respectively with the Government, through the Ministry of Culture. The ECoC Association ensures a correct and suitable cooperation with the local authorities, through three complementary channels: 1. strategically, by reserved seats for each of the two local authorities in the Steering Committee; 2. at management level, through regular reporting and evaluation meetings of the General Director with the Mayor, Timiș County Council President, the counsellors and County and Local Councils; 3. at operational level, on a daily basis, through a specifically appointed public servant, charged exclusively for the relation with ECoC project. timisoara2021.ro 69 6B. MANAGEMENT / ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE 70 The Municipality of Timișoara and the Timiș County Council, as two of the founders of the Association, with relative rights and obligations, are also Steering Committee members. After the final selection round, a well-defined composition of the Steering Committee, as detailed in the governance details on the ECoC structure, will be proposed to the General Assembly for approval. Based on this, local authorities will have their reserved seats, 2 out of 7, and therefore will be part of all strategic decisions regarding the ECoC project, as they have been since the establishment of the Association. At the management level, the General Director reports on a regular basis, through dedicated meetings, to the Steering Committee, to the Mayor and the Timiș County Council President, as well as to the Timișoara City Council and Timiș County Council. This kind of customary meeting for keeping the local authorities connected with the ECoC project’s steps, accomplishments and future actions have been in place since 2011. At an operational level, both the Municipality of Timișoara and the Timiș County Council will appoint a public servant within their Cultural Departments specifically for the relation with the ECoC Association. There is already in place such a public servant, but until now it was not seen as exclusively dedicated as they had other assignments at their respective institutions. The scope of such a direct and continuous connection with the local authorities is to facilitate a smooth cooperation during all phases of the ECoC project. These two public servants will start their tasks at the beginning of the preparation period, in 2017. The Memorandum of Understanding with local and national authorities clarifies common objectives and expectations and, also, protects the project from political debates. We will sign a separate Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Culture, on clear roles, responsibilities, budgets and targets, including details on concrete funding and relative projects, with their expected results. 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? W e build teams and communities on values such as integrity, professional attitude, highest standards and sustainable efficiency. Therefore, in our strategy to attract and maintain talents we target and search for the quality in people, from this perspective. People who strive for quality empower through their passion, leaving their values as a timeless legacy. You recognise them through their work transformed into benchmarks, through their relations transformed into networks and communities, through their legacies transformed into social and paradigm changes. The arrangements under which the three Artistic Chiefs (and, if the case may be, the General Director) are to be chosen include an international outsource agency, experienced in working with ECoC projects, or similar tasks, with the final selection to be conducted by the Steering Committee and an international expert. Our top level talents are to be these people, confirmed by their works, relations and legacies. These are our criteria in choosing the General Director and the three Artistic Chiefs. The Artistic Chiefs will take up their appointments gradually, upon the specific necessities of the ECoC phases. They will be responsible for the development of the project concept and its translation into practice. The General Director has already been chosen, since 2013, under the values and criteria described above. She is responsible for the global leadership of the ECoC project. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City We believe that a good-work experience equates with well-trained skills and practiced knowledge and, ultimately, with a pro-active and growing attitude. Therefore, our criteria for selecting staff reflect the worth we put on professionalism and high-quality work. Work experience in relevant fields is also essential, as are the legacies and relations left behind at past working places, in terms of recommendations and good reputation. For the General Director and the three Artistic Chiefs we look for proven international track records in relevant, but also various other significant fields. Simona Neumann was selected by the Steering Committee as Executive Director (later to be General Director) in January 2013, following a headhunting procedure. 6B. MANAGEMENT / ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE She was selected for her excellent interdisciplinary skills in leadership, communication, public relations and diplomacy, as well as for qualities of being a good team player, coach, manager and networker. The appropriate experience for the job was considered to be a proven international track record in leading large-impact international projects, within various cultural contexts. Simona Neumann has sixteen years work experience in international affairs and relations, in executing, coordinating and managing different Romanian and international organisations. In 2009 – 2012, she worked at the European Commission, Directorate General for Enlargement and Neighbourhood, in Brussels, managing a complex programme of reconciliation, building trust and developing civil society, cultural and academic exchanges and information about EU public policies, within the highly sensitive Cyprus’ political context. In 2004 – 2009, she worked for the United Nations Development Programme, in Bucharest, managing a project of Romanian public administration reform. Her international work experience includes an assignment in the well-known public diplomacy programme of the USA Department State, namely the Fulbright Program, at Council for International Exchange of Scholars, in Washington DC, USA (2001). She holds a PhD in Public Diplomacy, at Babeș-Bolyai University in ClujNapoca (2011), a Master degree in European Studies at West University of Timișoara (2000). She attended an Executive Education Programme in the Strategic Management of Non-Profit Organisations at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, specialisations in International Relations at Romanian Diplomatic Institute of the Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry (20082009) and in European Security and Diplomacy at the Centre for Security Studies and Diplomacy, University of Birmingham (2005). Other fields of specialisation include: international public law, human rights, EU laws. The three Artistic Chiefs need to have excellent artistic and/or technical knowledge and skills in artistic and cultural domains, in new creative emerging domains and in specific sciences, with proven international track records in their responsible field, being proved as high performers, managers, curators, experts, founders of festivals and/or large scale events. They also have to be great conceptual thinkers, inspirational leaders and international networkers. The optimum combination of the three would be: a strong, young local profile, an outstanding international profile and an art manager profile, all experienced and known internationally. First to take up his/her appointment would be the Artistic Chief with strong local profile, who will start part-time at the beginning of the preparations period, until 2 years before the ECoC year, when he/she will be fully engaged. We look for a young profile in arts and culture to connect the ECoC project with new, innovative and experimenting ideas in all fields. The strong local profile means a very good understanding of local particularities in arts and culture, of specificities of the city, of the cultural operators sector and the cultural independent sector. The Artistic Chief with art managing profile will start two years before the ECoC year, on a part-time basis, and then with full engagement within the last year before the ECoC starts. He/ she will bring rigorous planning and monitoring methods to support the cultural programme implementation. His/her main field of action will be the technical phase, overseeing all details needed to get the events and actions planned, developed and produced. The selection process of the Artistic Chiefs will assume the three phases of evaluation. The HR agency which coordinates the selection process will be required to have international experience. The final selection is made by an international expert who has been involved in ECoCs, together with the Steering Committee. Throughout our arrangements in choosing staff members we emphasise our commitment to attract and link talents, best professionals and committed people, in order to build creative and efficient teams. His/her main field of action will be in the development phase, putting the concept into practice, with more concrete detail on each project of the baseline cultural programme, including building administrative and funding frameworks. The Artistic Chief with the strong international profile will start at the beginning of the preparations period, but for 2 or 3 days per month, until the year before the ECoC starts, when he/ she will be fully engaged. He/she will make use of his/her wide international exposure, openness to extended networks, and potential key sponsors. Also he/she will support and develop the capacity building projects and exchange programmes. His/her main field of action will be in the production phase, getting all strategic partnerships signed in order to start producing the contents. timisoara2021.ro 71 6C. MANAGEMENT / CONTINGENCY PLANNING Have you carried out/planned a risk assessment exercise? W e had specific working sessions with local, regional, national and transnational policymakers and representatives of the city and region in EU organisations in Brussels, to mitigate risks and to prioritise the regional development of activities and investments which align with the potential of an ECoC project. 72 In order to acquire a realistic overview of the ECoC process and to assess judicious risks related to it, we applied a holistic approach, starting with a participatory SWOT analysis, as an integrated part of the strategic planning process. To sharpen the concept, the stakeholders were assisted technically by 7 renowned European cultural and ECoC experts, including exchanges and workshops with 9 other ECoCs, over a four year period. We identified three particular risk categories: • Risks related to the civic nature of our project might surface because of the limited knowledge of the EU, and because principles like transparency, accountability and citizen’s rights are very little understood and barely practiced (Romania scores 90, on a scale of 100, on the power distance dimension of Hofstede’s model). Civic risks are mitigated through the very core of our concept. • Risks related to the decisionmaking and overseeing process throughout our project. Organisational risks are minimised by clear terms of reference of everyone involved. The General Assembly, composed of Association members, oversees, through the Audit, Monitoring and Evaluation Committee, the decisions of the Steering Committee, which, in turn, monitors the General Director’s decisions. Moreover, the presence of the local authorities in the governance structures of the Association is limited. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City • Risks related to cash-flow, mainly from the Municipality as the main financier. Cash-flow risks are mitigated by allocating funds as if it were an investment and by putting in place a contract between the Municipality and the ECoC Association. We have also taken into consideration the following general risk categories, specific to ECoCs. • The political risks, the possible lack of support, are mitigated by already signed commitments by all political parties. Political interference in the decision making process is mitigated by the independent nature of the Association (97% of the founding members are non-political entities). Therefore, the project does not depend on any political entity in particular, but enjoys cross party support. • Public procurement and legal risks are mitigated by working closely with public servants on all levels, a practice that has been in place since the establishment of the Association. In order to avoid contingencies when producing public events, we will involve public servants working in the communication, culture and tourism departments, and other authorised entities. Partnership risks are controlled through legal agreements and also through developing back-up lists of partners. • Changes in the city’s priorities and investment plans over the next five years might be possible, especially given that the local administration might change twice. In order to mitigate this we will have a back-up plan for all in-progress investments that might affect the ECoC project and we will advocate this to our community members in order to ensure legacy and future investment commitments related to it. • Staffing risks due to a lack of the appropriate specialised competences and skills, at both decision-making and executive level, can be very serious for the organisational cohesion and for the team's stability. By being aware of it, we will develop open international calls for all our key positions, supplemented by capacity development and training programmes. • Legacy and outreach risks are mitigated by a series of pilot projects throughout the preparation period, in order to feel and test people’s energy and find appropriate ways of reaching them. Strong focus will be put on exchange of artists, activists, artefacts and citizens programmes. • As for EU funding and bureaucratic risks, we already have staff who, collectively, have more than 50 years of experience with EU funds. The risk assessment exercise will be reviewed and strengthened yearly. 6C. MANAGEMENT / CONTINGENCY PLANNING What are the main strengths and weaknesses of your project? W e are facing empowering strengths which give us a solid foundation for our artistic programme, as well as challenging weaknesses which raise the opportunity to address the real sensitive issues of our city throughout TM2021. 73 1. The community-led spirit of the project: the Association has 63 founding bodies and members, together with the two local authorities of the city and the county; 25% of our members are public and private cultural operators, and 45% academics, media representatives and opinion and business leaders; 2. The community’s confidence in and commitment to the project: by the end of 2013, before launching the awareness and information campaign,78.2% of Timișoara’s population was aware of the city’s candidacy and 93.8% perceived cultural activities as being important for the welfare of the city, according to sociological research done by the West University of Timișoara; 3. The ownership, distinctiveness and coherence of the concept within the city’s spirit and the citizens’ aspirations: more than 5.000 citizens and 153 institutions have been directly involved in raising awareness, mobilisation and participation campaigns, as well as in the elaboration of the concept and cultural programme. Our candidacy concept was developed progressively between 2011 and 2015 and went through three phases: from 'REVOLutionary', through 'Channel' of Cultures, finally reaching Shine your light Light up your city!; 4. The participatory dimension of the 2021 cultural programme: it had benefitted from over 1.100 direct contributors: artists, academics, NGOs, neighbourhood representatives, organisations dealing with disabled persons, the social sector, minorities, migrants, seniors, students, pupils, volunteers, sports and business people; 5. The full support of the local and county administrations, which ultimately led to cross-party political support taken as a whole; 6. The sustainable and long-lasting legacy which is based on the transformative power of individuals’ culture within their respective communities, and which, as a result, will become cultural neighbourhoods; the candidacy is already leaving a lasting legacy on the cultural fabric of Timișoara and its partners. 1. Disengagement of a few public cultural operators at institutional and top management level, due to their concern that the public funding for their institutions would decrease in the event of this award; this is on top of their expectant attitude towards the ECoC and their wish to preserve the status quo, convenient to them; 2. Opposition of a few private cultural operators, who feel that the project is competing with them on the same share of market and public resources; for this reason we intensified our cooperation with the creative industries; 3. Disparaging comments and trivialisation from some of the local mass-media locked in political interests during election time, making it open to different inputs and messages, from politicians and the project’s opponents, influencing the vulnerable general public; 4. The European dimension of the project and the diverse range of partnerships envisaged, still leave room for dialogue and reflection, as Europe and its values are not well known by large numbers of people at the grass-root level. timisoara2021.ro 6C. MANAGEMENT / CONTINGENCY PLANNING How are you planning to overcome weaknesses, including with the use of risk mitigation and planning tools, contingency planning etc. T he association has strong independence and transparency systems in place from the beginning. Continuous monitoring and evaluation allows us to adapt the activities and the planning to the changing situations in the field. 74 Following the SWOT analysis we conducted with stakeholders in the community, we reached the conclusion that we are not facing easy challenges, but neither are they insurmountable. One of the challenges is disengagement on behalf of a few cultural institutions. The public cultural operators are the most difficult to motivate to become more involved, because for them it is about a change in the way they think. To overcome this, we have built our project on sharing and collaboration principles, thus motivating these stakeholders to bring to light their true assets and potential. We continue to build trust by having face-to-face discussions, explaining the ECoC programme and what their role can be, and by encouraging grass-root level support. We have experienced that by repeatedly explaining the ECoC selection criteria and then the title’s benefits for the city, and by giving concrete examples of successful ECoCs, we have increasingly gained the support of key people in the community. Moreover, emphasis on the long-term impact will convince the project stakeholders about the title’s opportunity for the city, rather than its potential competitive nature with their respective organisations. Our strategy is to wait for our citizens till ‘the project wave’ will be big enough to encourage them to ride it, and to Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City leave behind the status quo. We use the same strategy with mass-media, but in a more personalised communication manner. The project’s independence and neutrality is well balanced since the concept and artistic vision might seem too different from the current cultural life of the city and the Municipality’s cultural policy. Hence, there is a risk of interference from the local authorities and some of the public cultural operators. Nevertheless, by foreseeing these risks, we already mitigate them through: 1. co-creating the cultural programme with the emphasis on individuals’ own personal contributions, 2. structuring the cultural programme on multiple complementary layers and 3. establishing the evaluation criteria for the cultural project overall. In terms of material cultural infrastructure, although we lack large indoor facilities, we plan to compensate this by maximum usage of outdoor public spaces such as parks, square, streets, or unconventional spaces such as derelict industrial estates. We use the Project Management Cycle, which enables us to manage multiple projects and offers flexibility and learning opportunities. Equally important is the standardised approach with standardised tools, combining flexibility with rigour, used for improvement of the management process and quality of the implementation. Moreover, the envisaged organisational structure will contribute to overcoming challenges by strong staffing at both governance and management level and by strong and sustainable partnerships. Considering our local context, we will focus on good reputation, international recognition and career perspectives that come with working in an ECoC project. 6D. MANAGEMENT / MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION Could your artistic programme be summed up by a slogan? SHINE YOUR LIGHT – LIGHT UP YOUR CITY! Light played a key role in the history of Timișoara. In 1884 it became the first city in continental Europe with street lighting. So there is no surprise that light will also play a key role in our TM2021 programme. Shine your light – Light up your city! is the slogan that reflects the journey from an individual to a European citizen who is guided by cultural interventions. It consists of two calls to action which are connected in a causeeffect relation. Firstly, Shine your light encourages individuals to find their inner energy with the aim of sharing it with their close circles of family and friends before this light propagates further. Each individual’s light reflects his or her social background, knowledge, experiences, memory, relation to the city, and attitude which he or she will share with the community. The second part of our slogan Light up your city! expresses the capacity to shine, to turn the darkness into light and to make a difference, a civic process fuelled by culture. This takes place only when the individual connects with the community. Through cultural interventions, this interaction will expand knowledge, open minds, generate tolerance, and produce harmony. The logo of our candidacy with its chosen colours – yellow and black - is 75 a matching messenger of our slogan. We have developed it drawing on the most primary representation of light which is a yellow sun as energytransformer, light-provider and life-giver. The difference is that our sun has 21 unequal rays that form various angles. Like the rays of the sun, every individual’s capacity to shine is different, yet important to the overall power of radiation. As the rays radiate away from the centre, they symbolise sharing. The angles are the meeting points and fields of exchange between two individuals where learning, transformation and interaction take place. The logo was developed by a local talented young artist Ștefan Lucuț. What is the city’s intended marketing and communication strategy for the European Capital of Culture year? (In particular with regard to the media strategy and the mobilisation of large audiences). L ight up your city! is our communication strategy. Reflection is the principle that works as an echo that makes the messages repetitive and more intense, from Europe to Timișoara and back. Concept As people in our city tend to pay more attention to the diaspora and their international media and social channels, we will send out messages that bounce back via the European network of our citizens, with a higher intensity for the local audience. The communication strategy for TM2021 is to actively promote the values underpinning our five strands of the cultural programme, based on the city's urgencies: civic involvement, social harmony, claiming public space, cross-border understanding and balanced lifestyle. These are values which resonate with all Europeans, so we want them to identify with us during 2021. Strategy Our communication strategy is to start from general to more targeted campaigns, from big-scale to smallscale. More specifically, in the run-up to TM2021 we will start building a positive international profile in the European media. The reason for this approach is that the Romanians are very receptive and conscious about their reputation in Europe. Therefore, timisoara2021.ro 6D. MANAGEMENT / MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION 76 we react promptly to whatever the European media says about us. Since joining the European Union in 2007, Romania has received a lot of negative coverage in the international media. These reports have always prompted further coverage in the Romanian media but also on social media channels, thus creating a transnational media coverage flow and a lot of emotion-driven online debates. The mechanism works the other way around too. Issues taken up by the diaspora mobilised people at home to act and bring about change, such as the Presidential Campaign in 2014, the gold exploration of Roșia Montană in 2012, or more locally, the redevelopment of the Liberty square. We will use this already-established process of story exchange, reaction generation and information flow for two purposes. Firstly, we want to spread our feel-good stories, and secondly, we want to raise awareness of the issues we will tackle in our programme. So we will run a media campaign in tandem with an online campaign. Our aim is to clear the slate of any negative perception in the next five years, so we can draw and build a new value-shaped image of Romanians with TM2021. This positive shaping of the international profile will also boost the confidence at the local level. At the small-scale local level we will build on what we have already achieved and the awareness we have already raised. Through our participatory approach, we have already built bridges with local stakeholders, i.e. cultural institutions and organisations, economic agents and local authority. We will make use of the already created cultural communications channels which will facilitate the sharing between the individual and the community, and further will help change the cultural consumption behaviour and establish in the public consciousness the values we want to promote. Objectives The core objective of our communication strategy is to use shared human values to connect people from different generations, Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City backgrounds, social status and locations, through our programmes. More specifically, the objectives are: • to change the general negative perception of Romanians at the European level; • to restore our multi- and intercultural international profile in a contemporary context; • to push onto the European agenda the issues we address with our concept: civic energy for engagement and art; • to communicate effectively the TM2021 programme at local, regional, national and international level; • last but not least, to promote the values of the European Union. Communication Approach Our approach is to identify the value-based stories within various groups and generate media-worthy content. We will actively identify specific groups and involve them in our communications, such as active diasporic groups, young and old, minority groups, professionals. In our communications, we will be using the traditional methods (marketing and media campaigns) and the more cutting-edge, technologydriven ones. We consider this approach crucial in order to reach out to as many individuals as possible, from the ones who will be of retiring-age by 2021 and for whom technology is a later addition to their lifestyle, to the child who is born this year and will be 6 years old by 2021, for whom technology will be a way of life. Audience Target We have identified three main audience groups which require different levels of engagement. Each group comprises specific target groups: (1) The citizens of Europe and their specific groups: • tourists: this group are those who have never considered Timișoara as a destination for their holiday, cultural citybreak, or business expansion. • • For this purpose we will specifically target cities in Europe with more than 100.000 population which begin with letter T (26 cities) or M (23 cities). We will create a map of Europe covered with the symbols of Timișoara TM. In this way we build connections with all European countries. Romanians who live abroad but still call Timișoara home: we want to find the city in Europe. We want to encourage these people to rediscover their connection with Timișoara and become our ambassadors in the places they now live and work special interest groups: business persons, scientists, sports persons, professionals, etc. (2) The citizens of the Central European regions: • the citizens of the seven European capitals within Timișoara’s proximity: Budapest, Vienna, Bratislava, Zagreb, Belgrade, Sarajevo and Bucharest • the citizens of the cross-border region of Banat: the Romanians, the Hungarians and the Serbians who share a common history. This includes all the potential visitors to Romania and their direct networks interested in our topics. (3) The Timișoreni (the population of the Timișoara and the wider metropolitan area). This group will be the most engaged in our programme and will benefit the most from the longterm implementation and the legacy of TM2021. We will also give special attention to networking with local economic agents in order to establish partnerships and sponsorships which will support our TM2021 programme. We also include citizens of the other historical regions of Romania, such as Transylvania, Crișana, Oltenia. 6D. MANAGEMENT / MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION Timeline until 2021 2017 -2019: • Arrange journalists’ visits to Timișoara and place articles in various European publications by themes: business, education, arts; • Invite all communication managers of ECoCs in the last 5 years to a conference in the city or organise Skype calls and ask for their databases; • Develop packages for entrepreneurs that travel to explain what TM2021 is about; • Build partnerships with Romanian diasporic media (diaspora fashion shows, cooperation with transport and travel companies to organise events where there are Romanian clusters, sell merchandising in Romanian shops abroad, interactive screens in railway stations in Belgrade, Budapest, Bucharest where one can get free tickets to Timișoara); • Create online forums and platforms which will support the media coverage; • Create partnership with tripadvisor. com, booking.com, airbnb.com, blablacar.ro; • Strenghten the partnership between the TM2021 team and the Tourism Deptartment of the Municipality. 2019 -2021: • Negotiate partnerships with selective European media outlets and Eurovision; • Establish partnerships with European cultural centres; • Negotiate with tourism operators and attend the ITB (The Europe's Leading Travel Trade Show) in Berlin with info-packages and carrying bags; • Launch of merchandise - every object has a story connected to light; • Formation of businesses for cobranding; • Launch of the game ‘The Lion and Tarzan 2021’ as Johnny Weissmuller, the actor who played Tarzan, was born in Timișoara in 1904; • Participating to the Venice Biennale; • Set-up partnerships with the Romanian Cultural Institutes around Europe; • Set-up in the respective contracts that every project is communicated via TM2021; • Motivate artists to use their own networks to communicate the TM2021 brand and their project(s) inside; • Prepare the advertising campaign and the big bang; • Create synergies and alignment between our communication strategy and the communication teams of other cultural organisations, as well as the ones from the local authorities; • Organise press conferences and install viral content producers; • Set the timetable of the openingclosing events and key projects in a communication-friendly calendar; formulate and communicate messages accordingly; • Organise interviews and articles with hot shots to promote the topic, organise debates on TV and radio broadcasts about passivity and light; • Build partnerships with national tourism organizations; • Release the cultural programme in three stages: launch a light teaser in 2019, publish the cultural programme in November 2020, and as of January 2021 update the website daily. Deliverables We aim to produce the following deliverables of our communication campaign: (1) Media coverage. We aim to build long-term partnerships with the media to communicate the values of our programme. A detailed media campaign planner 2016 to 2021 will include dates for press conferences, press releases, media debriefings, journalists’ visits, subjects for various types of media. We will identify stories relevant to various types of media, from business to tourism, from education to culture. (2) Online reach. The online campaign will include the production of an interactive, user-friendly website, a social media campaign and the production of supporting apps for mobile devices. The aim of the online campaign is to create a virtual community, a virtual Timișoara, larger than the physical city. A Timișoara around Europe. (3) The promotional campaign will include well-produced, well-thought out materials, from street banners to posters, flyers and merchandise. Each travel entry to the city (railway station, airport, roads, river) will be marked with TM2021 and Shine your light – Light up your city! slogan. We will partner with neighbouring districts and countries to promote the programme. Each customs entry from Serbia into Romania and from the Timiș and Arad Counties will be also marked. The aim of the promotional campaign is to provide a coherent visual dimension of the TM2021 programme and to raise awareness and communicate effectively with increased segments of the audience. timisoara2021.ro 77 6D. MANAGEMENT / MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION How will you mobilise your own citizens as communicators of the year to the outside world? O ur citizen mobilisation strategy is built on a general communication campaign supported by meaningful actions proposed to anyone assuming the identity of the city and an indirect movement interlinked with the audience development strategy. Together they target several distinctive groups: the outside visitors who physically come to the city, potential visitors that find out about TM2021 in contexts outside the city and potential visitors from personal networks of the communicators. 78 The general campaign will make use of a mix of mediums and tools made available to those who voluntarily choose to disseminate the messages. The mobilisation factor is linked to meaningfulness and relevance for the communicator. For this reason, the final list will be decided through consultation workshops and street events, similar to those that have constructed the cultural programme. Possible examples include, but are not limited to, multimedia elements co-created with the public for online dissemination; promotional items that have a practical use for traveling communicators (solar powered lamps, bags, tents); highly-creative visuals that motivate mobile communicators to display them. The indirect movement is linked to the various levels of audience engagement to be reached through the cultural programme. The opening and the closing events and programmes like Mega Bega or Baroque Reloaded attract new audiences motivated to share in their personal networks the intensity of their experience. Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City Contributors participating in programmes such as Addictive Lights, Vision, Flash of Memory will have additional motivation to communicate cultural content that includes personal inputs or details, not only in the personal networks but also in unfamiliar contexts such as collaborative platforms or the projection of a selfie with a hashtag on the walls of a building. Co-creators involving themselves in experiences such as those spawn by Dare to Shine, Blossoms, Smartness Revealed, Chiaroscuro or Circulating Skyscapes will be in the situation to transform personal stories and experiences into cultural content. These people will be both stirred emotionally but also in a state of vulnerability. Their acts of communication will be restrained to closer circles but their capacity to inspire will increase vigorously. The deepest level of engagement will be through volunteering. Several programmes are designed to include volunteers willing to devote time and energy to interact systematically with the public, whether local, from Romania or abroad. They will participate in general communication training, especially designed for TM2021. The simplest way to get involved will be through wearing a solar powered visual that will be literally shining and indicating that the wearer is open to interact with strangers and offer basic information about the city. More examples of learning opportunities motivating volunteering: Heritage in the Spotlights - local guides blending local cultural content with personal stories and augmented reality or other types of multimedia content displayed on smart devices; Dare to Shine - cultural animators linking outside visitors with amateur artistic activities in local neighbourhoods; ECoC Boulevard and Solar City – guides and animators communicating specialised information such as concepts of cities previously awarded the title or sun-related artistic and technology content. 6D. MANAGEMENT / MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION How does the city plan to highlight that the European Capital of Culture is an action of the European Union? T he programme for TM2021 encapsulates what the European Union stands for - democracy, human rights, initiative, diversity, participation, unity. We, therefore, as organisers, will endeavour to transmit these values so that every citizen who attends our activities or visits the city will assume some of them. Through our campaign we will inform the citizens about the positive contribution the European Union makes at a local level through such initiatives as the European Capital of Culture. values of the European Union. We will inform them about the European Union’s initiatives for their sector, as well as show them how the European Union aims to be a union of people celebrating diversity through unity. The cross-border network-building initiatives encouraged by the European Union will also be incorporated in our programme. We will involve the twin cities of Timișoara, the network of enlightened cities (as listed in ’common aspects of European cultures’ section), and other European Cultural Capitals in our programme. Our communications will also incorporate the visual elements and branding identity, such as the logo of the European Union, on all our printed materials, in our online campaign, and in our communication with the press. Whenever TM2021 is promoted or communicated, the European Union will also be featured. Every media picture will have the European Union flag in it. The TM2021 programme has three levels of engagement: at grass-roots level, at institutional level and at political level. Whenever any actors from these sectors are involved in our programme, we will also develop, with the support of the West University in Timișoara, training programmes targeting both adults and children to educate and inform them about what the European Union has particularly done for them. Representatives of the European Union will be invited every year in the run-up to 2021. Needless to say they will also be the guests of honour at many events throughout the year. Representatives of Timișoara will also travel to Brussels to showcase our TM2021 programme and what we stand for. Our aim is that by the end of 2021, people who will have participated in our programme, will have had more than a mere cultural experience, they will have instilled in them the timisoara2021.ro 79 7. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION In a few lines explain what makes your application so special compared to others? Within a 300 km radius from Timișoara, there are six countries (Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia) which are now on the migrants’ route from Asia and the Middle East through Europe. An hour’s drive from Timișoara, Hungary is building a fence to exclude the refugees. Our concept and artistic programme goes against this attitude of rejection and closedown. We propose a bid which draws on the values of multi-confessionalism and multiculturality, civil society, and entrepreneurship in the context of the 21st century. This is the transforming mindset which Europeans need nowadays. 80 Our ECoC journey started early in 2010. In the process of the bid book preparation, we have also undergone a transformation. We came a long way from self-sufficient local pride to an honest look at the city. Sometimes it has hurt. We had to go deep into pessimism and to face the urgencies hidden below the shiny surface of local patriotism. Courage was generated with the help of many citizens, activists, artists and experts. We have spent more than four years, testing three concepts, meeting in bigger or smaller groups, talking to people in the streets, conducting information and participation campaigns, in the quest for a concept that would truly make it possible: that culture transforms a city, a country and a continent. This is what makes our project special compared with others. Add any further comments which you deem necessary in relation with your application. The bid book team and helping volunteers are ready to light up the city! Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City 81 timisoara2021.ro 82 Timișoara 2021 European Capital of Culture / Candidate City