Cultural interventions in cities

- resilience in connections of policy and micro-innovations

Oleg KoefoedAction-philosopher

Cultura21

City-Link CongressHamburg

September 2014

Swimmers jump in the harbour, Copenhagen, January 2014 – Sharing Copenhagen 14

Pre-face: 5 fields of recirculation through culture

Time

Matter

Space

Work/Bodies

Knowledge

Out of Marketand...Swap

Give awayCo-produce

Buy, invest, shareNew modelsParticipating

Etc..

Resilience in CPH – climate threat

Violent material Flows = possible collapse

Collapse? Not here!

Inertia + good life beats deep changes

But CPH = city of good life

Money for building, roads, canals, metros.. culture?

Man watches Lyngbyvejen after rain, Copenhagen, July 2013

Macro (top-down): investments, sales, branding, marketing, clients, stakeholders..

Micro (bottom-?): experiments, connecting, citizens, spaces, places..

(..and cultural agents struggling to survive while doing this of course)

Sharing Copenhagen 2014

Bike bridge over Copenhagen Canal, near Islands Brygge – Sharing Copenhagen '14

An Open City? core values in CPHGrowth: population, entreprises, economy ← Attraction!

Sustainable city: CPH 2025 + CO2 neutral by 2050 (possible clash with 1)

Livability: democracy, culture, green&blue, clean

Active citizenship and citizen-driven innovation (or inclusion)

About 42 % of Copenhageners ride bikes to work – beware of traffic jams!

Policy agendas in CPH

Paradox 1: established status vs difference through innovation?

Promoting success of Copenhagen → growth by green

Branding the city → attraction by consumption

Paradox 2: enabling cultural and innovative agents – service / seduction?

Enabling citizen choices for sustainability: Agenda21

Paradox 3: public servants serve their decision makers, rather than citizens?

Copenhagen hosted a fashion summit for sustainability this year in April.

Relations of macro and micro

Power – core values, policies, instruments

Institutional – departments, companies, micro-agents, networks

Instruments – economic, political, social, natural, cultural

Discrepancies between strategy, policy, and instruments?

Copenhagen municipality at Islands Brygge – technical and environmental dept.

Resilience is about avoiding or handling release!

Intermezzo: the adaptive cycle

Gunderson et al, 2002 – read more here

The power of Cultural interventions

Culture is a field of big investments

Culture increases intimacy

High complexity makes it difficult to calculate cultural effects

Blurred trajectories A-B-C-D?

The Eurovision contest ended up wit a deficit of app 15 mio Euro. - who will pay, and why?

The creatives in Copenhagen

Rise of maker class

Everyone's an instrument!

Highly adaptive

The temporary – neither nor

Optimism and efficacy

Advocates of the good life? - or of Community building?

Relaxing on Paper Island / Copenhagen Street Fodd

Resilience = capacity to turn threats into resources + absorbing change

Cultural intervention can INCREASE or INHIBIT this (?)

Resilience and culture

“World's longest lunchtable”, Odsherred Kulturefestival 2013

World view of an average Dane: resilience?

“Together we stand”

“The good life” “Beyond the tipping point”

“The new life”

GROWTH RELEASE

CONSERVATION

REORG

ANIZATION

A B

CD

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF CULTURE? WHAT DO YOU DO?

Micro-innovations: Vild Festival – a taste of urban nature

Wild food in the commons – hedonism + hip + education

Partnership + support + pay for food = viable

We are having fun – but where are the masses?

What is culture? What is its role? Its effect?

http://www.resalliance.org/index.php/adaptive_cycle

Vild Festival, Sharing Copenhagen 2014

Micro-innovations: Innosite/Into the Wild – tamed innovations

Lack of intimacy // lack of challenge // blurred aim // sympathetic but shallow

Entry for Innosite competition “Into the Wild”,2014

Micro-innovations: Eco Island Amager – slow innovation

Linking to places and people

Results can take years

Transmission of agency and identityEco Island Amager, Cultura21 & Sharing Copenhagen, 2014

Sustainable Cultural Policy / Culture of Sustainability

Makers and other creative agents.. how much do they care?

Workers.. solutions.. brands like match.com..

Precarious labour – of course!

Bridging interest gaps between short-term economy, cold-headed arch/planing, sust demands and cultural intervention-intensity

Interest from e.g. Nordic Council → next step?

Or should we forget about culture and just do it?

Too many questions and not enough answers..

..and everything else is business-as-usual

Instrument or movement?

No one floats freely – we are all instruments

Intimacy makes a difference

Wind power off the beach on Amager, Copenhagen July 2014