2 R E M I X CULTURE ESCH-SUR-ALZETTE C A N D I D AT E C I T Y E U R O P E A N C A P I TA L O F CULTURE 2022 0. INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL 2 CONSIDERATIONS 1. C O N T R I B U T I O N T O T H E 11 LONG-TERM STRATEGY 2. EUROPEAN DIMENSION 22 3. CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC CONTENT 28 4. CAPACITY TO DELIVER 62 5. OUTREACH 71 6. MANAGEMENT 79 1 0. I N T R O D U C T I O N A N D GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 2 0 . I N T R O D U C T I O N A N D GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS WHY DOES YOUR CITY WISH TO TAKE PART IN THE COMPETITION Q1. FOR THE TITLE OF EUROPEAN A CAPITAL OF CULTURE? S E C O N D G L A N C E A T T H E SECOND CITY L uxembourg 3. We can almost hear the panel’s former days of glory, but now make a rather thoughts on this. Not again… Not more of the miserable impression. same. Not so! We want to offer a very different perspective on Luxembourg. Not the interna- In the capital, smartly dressed businessmen tional fnancial centre, home to rich bankers- and and -women, along with families with their well- bureaucrats-Luxembourg. Not that. We offer a groomed children and dogs. In Esch, more col- different and, we hope, intriguing perspective ourful people drifting around, people who cannot on Luxembourg. An undiscovered “second city”, be so easily integrated into a high-performance hidden and edgy. society. Tax haven, richest country in the world (2016), In the capital, cafés and restaurants with the international fnancial centre, rich people: Lux- cosmopolitan fair of other European cities embourg’s image abroad is usually restricted with their “haute cuisine française” and Nordic to a few partly correct, but nonetheless limited design. In the south, lots of Italian and a lot more perceptions. Many people ignore that Luxembourg Portuguese restaurants offering lunch at reason- is not a city state, but a country with regions, able prices and trying to capture a little sense of which – and this is especially true of the south – their faraway homes with local television (usually usually undergo developments counter to those football!). in the capital city. The steel crisis of the 1970s and Luxembourg’s subsequent rise to an inter- In the capital, neat parks, in the south, disused national fnancial centre redistributed power in industrial land. A second glance or rather: a the country. This rise was mainly concentrated closer inspection is no doubt needed to see our in Luxembourg City with its European institutions region’s riches revealed: Disused industrial sites and banks; in the process, Esch – once a source offer space for artistic interventions, empty prop- of wealth in the country – fell behind and into its erties can be used for new purposes, people who role as “second city”. Only few people outside are still searching can more easily be convinced the Grand Duchy see this gap of e.g. 13.24% to take part in shared projects. With the Euro- unemployment in Esch-sur-Alzette compared to pean Capital of Culture we have the chance to 7.46% nationally. expand the image of Luxembourg in Europe and beyond by using the creative potential of our The fnancial and accompanying social gap region and giving Esch and the region back a well between Luxembourg City and Esch is immedi- deserved prospect for the future. ately visible. A walk through the two city centres is enough: in the capital, global premium brands A region which most of our (internationally) well- in shops with gold door handles. In Esch, many known creative people come from, can build on empty properties, whose stucco might still recall a wealth of ideas and a talent for improvisation. We see the European Capital of Culture as an 3 opportunity to transform the rather widespread ECOC AS A LABORATORY nostalgia for a glorious past in our region into FOR FUTURE SCENARIOS energy for the future by involving as many people as possible in the creative process from 2018 A social gap between two cities with a distance onwards. Using art and culture as our driving of not even 20 kilometres cannot be healthy force, we want to make it possible for the peo- for a small country like Luxembourg (or for any ple living in our territory to take a new look at other city in Europe for that matter. This polari- themselves and the region. We believe we can sation is a universal problem). For this reason only create a new cultural strength that is visible the Université du Luxembourg was located in the outside the region if we ourselves manage to see district of Esch-Belval (a former mining and steel- Esch and the region in a different light. works site) transferring departments from various different districts of the capital together on one EUROPE IN A TEST TUBE campus in Esch. The message is clear: the future is being invested in here. Like no other institution I n the whole country the average of non-Luxem- in the country, the Université du Luxembourg bourg nationals is around 47%. In the south, represents the sought-for transformation from a especially in Esch and Differdange it is over 54%. (post-)industrial society to a knowledge society. Our region, with its multiculturalism, its multi- lingualism (we use French, German and Luxem- One answer to the question of where Luxembourg bourgish as well as English and many migrant will go in future – even if it ceases to be attractive languages in our daily lives), its multiple borders as a fnancial centre – might now be found in the and the ease with which they can be crossed, is country’s south. There is free space here, both a “Europe in a test-tube” and has the potential physically and in the minds of its people. to grow a multicultural ecology for the future of a united Europe. This is exactly where our candidacy must pick up; not just to give culture a wider-reaching role It is Esch’s and southern Luxembourg’s industrial than it has previously had, but also to use culture heritage that made the region a place of encoun- to create social consensus and the innovative ter for people from all over Europe. Here, north- impetus to formulate a sustainable future for our ern and southern Europe converge and continue city and our region. Thanks to its small size and to meet. Due to its location at multiple borders closely linked community, our region lends itself Esch has always been a gateway. Still for many as a laboratory, in which artistic means can be people today Esch is the frst stop-off point when used during our year as European Capital of Cul- entering our country. Waves of migrants from ture to formulate and test out scenarios for the Italy especially, then Portugal, and increasingly future – and to share them with other like-minded from countries beyond Europe, have unmistakably European cities. shaped the region into a multicultural society. The largest possible diversity in the smallest possible space truly is an image of “Europe in a test- tube”, a laboratory for Europe’s possible future – even more signifcant now against the backdrop of current nationalist tendencies. Against this background, the multicultural structure of our city and the accompanying “normality” of crossing borders is a highly fragile resource that can serve as a best practice example for many other cities in Europe. Europe only has a chance if it follows the maxim of the greatest possible mixture of European cultures, but more importantly, non-Eu- ropean cultures too. We want to deal with the associated challenges through art in our ECoC year. This is also refected in the title of our candi- dacy: REMIX CULTURE. 4 0 . I N T R O D U C T I O N A N D GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS KÄERJENG 10 257 PÉTANGE 18 202 MONDERCANGE SANEM 6 695 16 113 DIFFERDANGE 25 375 BETTEMBOURG SCHIFFLANGE 10 730 10 370 ESCH-SUR-ALZETTE 34 367 RÉDANGE KAYL RUSSANGE DUDELANGE 8 851 20 453 THIL RUMELANGE VILLERUPT 5 519 AUDUN-LE-TICHE CPHVA OTTANGE 27 500 AUMETZ BOULANGE GERMANY BELGIUM LUXEMBOURG ECOC TERRITORY 2022 5 DOES YOUR CITY PLAN TO Q2. INVOLVE ITS SURROUNDING AREA? EXPLAIN THE CHOICE. T he invisible is what defnes our ECoC terri- A T R A D I T I O N O F tory. It is buried unseen beneath the earth: CROSSING BORDERS Europe’s largest iron-ore deposit is located between Belgium, Luxembourg and France M igration has been a constant in our historical covering an area of 120,000 ha. The cross-bor- development for more than 120 years. It der industrial region of “red earth”, the “Terres occurred from the start of industrialisation on Rouges” or the “Minett”, gets its name from the either sides of the borders. Often, a part of the bright red iron ore that frst made the success of family moved to France, the other to Luxembourg, the steel industry in Luxembourg possible. Today a third to Belgium. Moreover, movement within too, the “Minett” is a unifed natural area and the region, from mine to mine, from country to landscape, which is criss-crossed underground by country, from work to home is also a constant, a network of corridors, tunnels, geological faults evident today more than ever, not least in the and sediments.