BALKAN
CULTURAL
CO-OPERATION
CULTURAL
CO-OPERATION
Belgrade Guests: Marianne Moeller
Openness to others is more important than maintaining national glamour
Ms. Marianne Moeller, Counselor for culture in the Nordic Ministerial Council, headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, visited Belgrade several days ago. Ms. Moeller is a dramatist and a theater expert from Finland. She visited our country at the invitation of the BalkanKult,an association for regional culture based in Belgrade.
The purpose of her visit was to meet and talk with regional experts, cultural practitioners and artists as well as with the representatives of some cultural institutions in order to work out a program of future cultural Nordic-Balkan cooperation in the spring of newt year. In addition to meetings with the BalkanKult experts and its Director Mr. Dimitrije Vujadinovic, Ms. Moeller visited the Gallery of frescoes, where she got acquainted with the work of conservation school, the Film Institute where she met with the director Miroljub Vuckovic; she also visited Bitef Teatar, Painters’ Workshop “Remont” of painter Uros Djuric, the first private museum – Serb Museum of Bread in Pecinci, In the Museum of Modern Art, she spoke with the Director Branislava Andjelkovic and in the Rectorate she spoke to Milena Dragicevic Sesic, the Rector.
The Nordic Ministerial Council initiated the future cultural cooperation with the Balkans. What does this institution mean for culture and for the life of the Nordic countries in general?
It all started back in 1952, when the Nordic countries came to realize that they had to cooperate in all areas and when the Nordic inisterial Council was established. First, they had to harmonize the constitutions of come countries, and then in 1957, a single labor market was created enabling people from different countries to get employment in neighboring countries without any problems. The systems of social insurance were also harmonized to he followed by cooperation I education and all other spheres of life, such as traffic, health-care, justice… However, culture and education are the most important and major portion of the budget has been allocated to finance them.
We are talking about exchanging all kinds of artworks, exhibitions, and cooperation among institutions: theatres, ballets, operas… The idea was to make all works of art created in one center and in one Nordic country available to all other people, equally in all five Nordic countries. In the 1980ies, the emphasis was placed on developing and exchanging art and culture for young people and children. At that time, TV sneaked in our lives, and as much as 80 per cent of the programs were Anglo-American! The Nordic Ministerial Council realized that it was important for the children and young people to get to know the films and works of art of neighboring Nordic countries, not onlyAmerican. That is why they wanted to do and succeeded. In the 1990ies, the political situation in the Baltic countries changed, new States emerged – Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and the Nordic cooperation opened fro the Baltic cooperation. We realized that it was more important than maintaining national art glamour!
It was then that cooperation with out-of-the region countries was also initiated?
We started with major exhibitions. The first one was in Japan and we presented the paintings of the Nordic countries from the end o the 19th century. We presented our cultural heritage. In 1997, we embarked upon a great cooperation project with Poland, and then with the Republic of South Africa: the cooperation lasted 18 months and included more than 100 projects! The Nordic experts from the SmithsonianInstitute prepared a big exhibition for America on the arrival of the Nordic people on the American soil 500 years before Columbus. It was actually an anthropological exhibition seen by five million people, which shed a completely new light on the American history. We currently have a cultural project cooperation with Great Britain, Scotland and Ireland in particular. The reason is that all of us go to London, and almost no one is ware of what is going on in modern art, literature, ballet, music in Scotland and Ireland. On the other hand, they are interested in how cultural autonomy is functioning in small countries such as Nordic ones… In 2003, we are going to organize a major project in European capitals devoted to design – but not to works of art themselves but to the use of design in everyday life.
What do you expect from cultural cooperation with the Balkans?
The idea was initiated last year and I am here to see what concrete steps need to be taken to initiate such cooperation and what strategy has to be embraced. We are opening inter-regional cooperation in culture in which everybody, all countries will take part. The role of the Nordic countries is only to initiate and financially support this cooperation, most of all among institutions and professionals in all fields of culture, without seeking to interfere and guide it. The first phase is getting to know each other, the second phase is to create certain projects and the third phase is their selection and realization.
You met and talked to many experts, artists, directors of cultural institutions. What are your impressions?
Creative potential of the entire region is obvious. However, we do not know much about the organizations. Our knowledge on how cultural life in the region is functioning is insufficient, or on institutions for that matter, to be able to translate our ides in life. This is where the BalkanKult is going to help us, as a focal point for all we want. The former Yugoslav republics, now new States, cooperated in the past mostly with big European countries and the cooperation with the Nordic regions is really something new. Actually, for the first time the Balkans as a region will cooperate wit another region – the Nordic one.
Ms. Moeller emphasized the need for cultural cooperation with small places not only with cultural centers.
Why? Because we are also a periphery. And periphery ahs always looked upon to a center in the past. We now want to change that, first of all to avoid uniformity. The Nordic concept is – regional breakthrough, followed by individual cooperation.
When will it start?
It should take place as early as the end of the year. We need to prepare a database and define the entire project, to assess the situation and identify who is going to be responsible for the job. In spring of 2003, we shall define the program. We hope that in 2004 and 2005 the cooperation will continue, but most importantly, we have to identify the professions as proponents of this cooperation and have them start the cooperation. You have the same situation when you write: it is always important to know what story you want to write and for whom!
Here, we have untold stories of the North and the South.
Danica Radovic
Published: 2003-08-20
Updated: 2006-05-09
Copyright © 2003 BalkanKult. All Rights Reserved.
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