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9 publications found
It may be a bit awkward to stick with a borderless concept, while Europe seems to be going in the opposite direction. It only took a couple of covid weeks to dangerously shift the European political thought toward self-suficiency, economic isolation and nation-first politics, causing new tensions and forms of mistrust. In the midst of what appears to be the dreaded second wave, we do not know what the post-pandemic economic situation will bring: it may cause a lowering of standards in human rights and social welfare or a backslash on sustainable politics, bringing back the “profit before environment” paradigm. Our dream, a transnational European city, a place where people and ideas are treasured and respected regardless of their cultural, national, linguistic or any other background, today seems even a bigger illusion than a year ago.
Bid book Slovenia English
Our goal is to design a programme that will relate to our city and region, based on centuries of stories and myths, telling our tale in our language, which will also be of interest to European audiences. ECoC Ptuj 2025 is an opportunity to present culture as a universal, attractive, and important activity that enriches our lives and our community for all residents and visitors, even for those segments of the population that are not otherwise involved in cultural events. We understand the European Capital of Culture project as a complex motivational activity, and the programme will be designed to foster a positive attitude among all audience groups towards culture and the arts, encourage involvement in cultural activities and event attendance, including for those among vulnerable social groups.
Bid book Slovenia English
Solidarity will be the nexus of all our production processes as well as our culture and arts programme. Each project has been reviewed and re-founded on at least one of the six pillars of solidarity that we have sketched out for LJ 2025: accessibility, inclusion, security, climate justice, equality, and the European dimension. These
are also the foundations of our artistic vision, which is focused on a humanist relationship
to people and the environment and strives towards establishing new communities in a time of widespread restrictions to intimacy – new communities based on solidarity. Because without solidarity, there can be no Europe.
Bid book Slovenia English
Our concept, indeed our intention, is to be part of a Wave of Change which transforms Europe into a place ready to reconfigure its relationship with the environment. We will examine the relationships between culture and climate change and weave together a series of participatory processes and creative adventures to create a ‘big picture’ depicting the interdependence between ourselves and our natural world. Being a coastal community we know that water ab/uses are matters of significant ecological, economic and security concern.
We make this bid not despite of COVID-19 but because of COVID-19 as it is yet one other manifestation of our broken relationship with our environment. COVID-19 has forced us to reconsider the way we breathe, travel and touch each other. It has also made us acutely aware of the complexity around the issue of borders: geographical, emotional, mental.
Report Slovenia English
The year of holding the title of culture capital brought a new period and new experience to Slovenia, the East Cohesion Region, Maribor and the partner towns. The Maribor 2012 institute carried out the biggest European cultural project on behalf of Maribor, Murska Sobota, Novo mesto, Ptuj, Slovenj Gradec and Velenje. The candidature for the ECoC project was lodged by the country on behalf of these cities and towns. And from that time onwards, we can witness the biggest opportunity for establishing relationships and co-operation between the city, the region and country. Uncertainties and lack of clarity regarding the selection of the appropriate organizational form at the beginning also demonstrate the fact that something new had started to happen. That we stood for a project that exceeds the boundaries of the typical practice of cooperation in Slovenia. A long-drawn-out search for solutions and the selection of an inefficient organizational form for the biggest and most recognizable European project in the Republic of Slovenia contributed to the uncertainty of execution of the year of holding the title. Unclear expectations of the stakeholders and at the same time, only a year before holding the title, the many changes in the organization have presented many doubts of how the Republic of Slovenia, the region and the city and towns would be able to justify the acquired title of the European Capital of Culture. What is more, personnel changes in almost all the Institute’s bodies, even just a month before the beginning of the ECoC year, caused confusion regarding the execution of the project. In 2011, an independent Brussels commission at the European Commission registered office verified the reality of execution of the project for the last time and the guarantees that were given by cities and the country. With a team of Maribor 2012 institute’s co-workers, we managed to persuade the independent commission, regardless of all the uncertainties, that we will be able to qualitatively realize the biggest European cultural project with the support of the cities and the country in 2012.
Evaluation Slovenia English
The estimation of economic effects of cultural events is a topic that stirred a lot of debates in cultural economics. Economic impact studies, measuring the short-run spending impact are the tool still used the most, despite being subject to fierce critiques (e.g. Seaman 1987). The answer that is most commonly provided for estimation of economic effects of cultural events in cultural economics has been contingent valuation. To our opinion, the answer to the methodological dilemma is very simple, while not frequently discussed in cultural economics. Instead of performing economic impact studies, which are evidently misplaced and bring controversial results, and contingent valuation studies, which answer the inappropriate questions and suffer from numerous critiques of their own, one can perform ex-post econometric verification to get much more credible numbers about economic effects of a cultural event.In the article we therefore use as an example the project European Capital of Culture (ECoC) Maribor 2012 and perform all three types of methods to estimate the economic effects and »value« of the event. In the first part of the article we present results of economic impact study, deriving from the survey about spending among visitors to ECoC in Maribor and the multipliers calculated on the basis of input-output tables of Slovenia for 2009. In the second part we present results of ex-post econometric verification, to study the effects of ECoC in Maribor on revenues of local firms, new employment, average monthly wages of firms in the area, tourism visits and visitors to cultural venues. The results show that there exist significant differences between results from impact studies and ex-post verification analysis. Finally, we also performed contingent valuation following the approach in Hadker, Sharma, David & Muraleedharan 1997; Verbič & Slabe Erker 2005; and Srakar 2010. We conclude by reflection of the condition of the studies of economic effects of cultural events in cultural economics.
Maribor-Economic-Effects.pdf551.55 KB
Other Slovenia English
The European Capital of Culture (ECoC) is a cultural political initiative of the European Union and is perceived as one of the most prestigious events in the community. Existing studies have neglected the political effects of hosting ECoC in terms of engendering regime change in host cities. The present study therefore tries to fill this gap and demonstrates how the cultural policy of Maribor 2012, including its implementation, impacted on local citizens’ communication and political activities and contributed to regime change in the city at the end of the cultural year. The paper employed document analysis, participant observation of all the main processes of ECoC Maribor 2012 and in-depth interviews with man- agement, programme organisers, cultural operators and participants. It shows that through the empowerment of local citizens by means of bottom-up initiatives in the effective planning and implementation of ECoC, they challenged the regime and neoliberal system of Maribor.
Maribor-Political-Impact-SZZF.pdf346.06 KB
Other Slovenia English
Cultural tourism is with time increasingly gaining on importance and has a great influence on regional development. From the destination management perspective is the European Union action »The European Capital of Culture« of significant importance. The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union for a period of one calendar year during which it is given a chance to showcase its cultural life and cultural development. The significance and impact of European Capital of Culture is primarily in terms of sustainable development and all studies are showing it has a direct as indirect impact on destination. One of the most important impacts is the economic benefit, as European Capital of Culture event presents a tool for economic regeneration of the destination. One of the financial sources presents tourism expenditure. Despite the fact that ‘cultural tourist’ are willing to spend more on cultural goods, are, because of the popularisation of culture itself, general tourist in majority,. A 7P’s model of service marketing mix is showing how to make European Capital of Culture city attractive to visitors, which subsequently leads to increased consumption. The objective of all European Capital of Culture cities is to experience the increased consumption not only in the year of holding the title, but in following years. We will test the model on Maribor city example, which will be the European Capital of Culture in 2012.
Maribor-Tourism-Expenditure.pdf398.13 KB
Bid book Slovenia English
If Slovenes and Italians in the Goriška region, heirs of bloody battles and vi- cious hatred, can go borderless, well, then everybody can do it. There are no excuses. This is the story that Nova Gorica and Gorizia can tell Europe.
The ECoC is our chance to create the first cross-border city in Europe. Nova Gorica together with Gorizia. Slovenes with Italians. It is time to live together in two cities that are organized and lived and shared as one. A Europe- an dream come true.