It was absolutely predictable that we would find ourselves immersed in this cat fight to beat all cat fights which is all about the 2018 Capital City of Culture.
Our small, negligible, fledging cultural sector is, has always been, heavily dependent on government funds. And the V18 celebration promised a bonanza to beat all bonanzas of funds,
The Nationalist administration, after some hesitancy, began appointing people and endowed them with contracts and terms. The new administration clearly showed that it has a different set of priorities and we are now faced, we were told last week, with en masse resignations of the most significant persons.
They included well-respected people such as David Felice, Davinia Galea, Wayne Marshall, and Mario Frendo – all widely respected in their fields and all definitely not party people.
That countries or cities preparing for CCC status have cat fights is absolutely par for the course. Here are a few headings from the past days: Limerick City of Culture boss quit in row over €1.8m weekend; Something bad’s going down in the City of Culture; Paphos theatre roof in danger of collapse, etc.
On the one hand, we get people connected with the PN-appointees saying and writing as if this is the end of civilization and the barbarians have taken over. On the other hand, as last week on TVM, we got a programme full of high-sounding bytes but little to no substance.
I sympathise a lot with the crowd that’s now out, but it is undeniable they came from an elite environment and under them the V18 would have become an event for the elite.
On the other hand, the WardaKanta crowd (and the Carnival crowd and the Festival tal-Kanzunetta Maltija etc) had long been firmly kept to the sides and it was natural they yearned for their place in the sun.
Either side is right, and equally, either side is wrong. The solution lies in balance, which I am not seeing anywhere.
First, there are some corrections to be made to the prevalent opinions.
There is nothing to say that the funding has to come only from government and/or EU funds. Other cities I have in mind, Liverpool for instance, did a great drive to rustle up funds from the private sector.
Secondly, the CCC is not there to organize mass events only, but it does include mass events. I do not know what the previous group had in mind in this regard since theirs were early days but the present group should beware of turning V18 into another Isle of MTV.
There are past events that have taken place in the cities which had CCC in the past, and even this year and in the coming years. The events I am speaking about are definitely not commercial and quite creative. I have written in the past about the Liverpool experience where the key event consisted of a giant mechanical spider that roamed around the streets. It was a complete surprise (had been imported from France) and the people, in their vast crowds, with no advance publicity, just loved it and followed it around to see where it would go.
I maybe wrong, but my opinion, taken from reporting on the pre-2012 CCCs, was that elite events were few and far between. Then again, they did not rule out importing participants rather than going native. Liverpool, for instance, brought over the Berliner Philharmoniker for the very first time ever.
I have been saying this for many months but it would seem that the previous group was not on this wavelength. CCC comes so that cities beef up their cultural and not just cultural infrastructure. Liverpool, to be nauseatingly repetitive, managed to clean up what had been a drab and rundown city with huge social problems (remember the Toxteth riots?) into a whizzing and fascinating place to be, with gleaming wharves after restoration.
Here in Malta we began with a grandiose plan to regenerate the entire Grand Harbour area, which has vast areas crying out for regeneration and re-use but stopped short at the Upper Barrakka.
In my opinion, to speak about the regeneration of Strait Street is extremely reductive. First of all, Valletta is enjoying a regeneration, as can be seen on any evening with so many tables and chairs, buskers etc around. Strait Street is being regenerated on its own, anyway, and should not wait till 2018 till it gets going.
It is undeniable that the past months have seen a resurgence of cultural activities, of a sort. We first had Notte Bianca, then Science in the City, then the riotous Ziguzajg. None of these was, or is, in any way connected with V18, but they are all in the same direction. They all need a gentle touch to become staples of the Maltese year.
My last point on the Liverpool CCC experience was the insistence on the part of the organizing committee that each and every county had to have some sort of celebration so that everyone was to be included.
The emphasis, in other words, is on popular entertainment, which is why I sincerely cannot see all the sarcasm that has been poured on popular entertainment. It would be wonderful if the Maltese people, of all ages, were to move up the cultural league but, like many other things, this has to move at the speed of the slowest, not having the elite fly and soar and leave the hoi polloi scrounging about with festas and Carnival.
Over the past months, much has been said about the need for Malta to have a Museum of Contemporary Art and there seems to be some sort of vague idea about housing this in the old Power Station down at the bottom of Crucifix Hill. There was also talk about turning the old and mostly unused market in Valletta into a space for the arts. But that is all – just talk. We were almost going to lose the plot to turn the Auberge d’Italie into the Museum of Fine Arts.
On the other hand, and I say this conscious I will be pilloried for this, we have a new Baroque Festival that is doing well and that has grown in these few years that even the Financial Times saw fit to advertise it. Again, the Baroque Festival did not form part of the CCC plot under the old group and I doubt if it fits in the new one.
It just shows what can be achieved with determination and strategic planning, plus some help, of course. I invite those people so aggrieved they have been swept aside to turn to the private sector and come up with cultural activities that can enhance the country.
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