Gaining City of Culture status is more than a shallow exercise in cosmetics, says Clive Gillman, as Dundee aspires to the 2017 title.
Over the past few months it has become increasingly obvious that the relationship between a city and its culture can be a difficult thing to grasp. Cities seem to present many different faces, some only seen by insiders, others overtly looking outwards. It’s usually very difficult to be certain how the culture of a city comes to happen: whose culture rises to the surface, whose culture tells the real story – and above all whose culture gets investment. It’s also apparent that culture is inherently resistant to being directed. This is a challenge for any city aspiring to achieve some kind of recognition for its cultural profile, but even more so when factors such as economic and social impoverishment distort the surface on which the city plays out its cultural life.
Over the past six months Dundee has been engaged in thinking about these questions, exploring how a city can turn a lens on its complex cultural life in order to bring it into focus a little and to explore how to better use it. This is not easy, but maybe it can be done for just long enough to plot a course towards something which may see it develop and generate future value. This nautical analogy is perhaps appropriate for Dundee, as like many UK cities it has its roots in a maritime history. It is a city built on various cycles of sea trade, from flax to whales to jute. But today the water has become little more than an attractive backdrop to a city looking instead to knowledge and creativity to provide its new purpose.
Over the past few months it has become increasingly obvious that the relationship between a city and its culture can be a difficult thing to grasp. Cities seem to present many different faces, some only seen by insiders, others overtly looking outwards. It’s usually very difficult to be certain how the culture of a city comes to happen: whose culture rises to the surface, whose culture tells the real story – and above all whose culture gets investment. It’s also apparent that culture is inherently resistant to being directed. This is a challenge for any city aspiring to achieve some kind of recognition for its cultural profile, but even more so when factors such as economic and social impoverishment distort the surface on which the city plays out its cultural life.
Over the past six months Dundee has been engaged in thinking about these questions, exploring how a city can turn a lens on its complex cultural life in order to bring it into focus a little and to explore how to better use it. This is not easy, but maybe it can be done for just long enough to plot a course towards something which may see it develop and generate future value. This nautical analogy is perhaps appropriate for Dundee, as like many UK cities it has its roots in a maritime history. It is a city built on various cycles of sea trade, from flax to whales to jute. But today the water has become little more than an attractive backdrop to a city looking instead to knowledge and creativity to provide its new purpose.