Measuring the economic benefit of arts spending is a notoriously inexact science
RAIN SPITS down as daylight fades over the bald hills and silver lakes of Connemara in County Galway, a coastal area in the west of Ireland. “This is like summer for me,” Kari Kola, a Finnish artist, says cheerfully as the squalls driving across Loch na Fooey herald the arrival of Storm Ciara from the nearby Atlantic Ocean. Mr Kola, who lives north of the Arctic circle in Finland, is no stranger to challenging climate and terrain.
The European Capital of Culture scheme began in 1985, with Melina Mercouri, a Greek singer-turned-politician, one of its prime movers. From the start, it sought to address the European Union’s perceived weakness in enthusing citizens’ hearts and minds—rather than just cool economic heads—about its processes and ideals. Athens, predictably, took the first accolade. Early title-holders tended to be visitor-friendly cultural citadels such as Amsterdam and Florence.
Local authorities vie for ECC laurels not merely for the feel-good effect of a year-round festival but to encourage longer-term investment. . A thorough report for the European Parliament on ECC outcomes warned that “claims to economic impact have been at times over-inflated or lacking in robust evidence”. However, researchers found much solid data about upward trends both in tourism and broader socio-economic health.
“The contrast between the city itself and the Gaeltacht could hardly be more marked,” says Helen Marriage, the creative director of the ECC programme. Her packed calendar of events—divided into the pagan seasons of Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasa and Samhain—will endeavour to balance urban and rural, local and global, as it fulfils the mission to promote “the shared values of Europe”.
Norge Siste Nytt, Norge Overskrifter
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