The Compass, first programme Córdoba 2016

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I Basic principles page 5 II Structure of the programme for the event page 63

III Organization and financing of the event page 101

IV The city’s infrastructure page 125 V Communications strategy page 143 VI Evaluation y monitoring the event page 157

VII Additional information page 165



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Why does the city which you represent wish to take part in the competition for the title of European Capital of Culture? 1

Because, for the last ten years, Córdoba has made the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) the driving force for a city which aspires to a particular urban and social model, that of a cultural city. Given its current situation, Córdoba needs to be designated ECoC if its outlook for the future is to be assured. In bidding to be designated European Capital of Culture (ECoC) in 2016, Córdoba stands before you as a historical city currently undergoing urban, social and economic change. The Cultural Programme and the bid itself form part of a broader strategy that seeks to transform the city by exploring its full potential, to enhance its links with the rest of the world, and to foster development and employment. Córdoba is a crucial historical landmark. Its people are proud to have inherited a legacy stretching back 3000 years to the first native settlement; a legacy that reflects the influence of Mediterranean migrations since the founding, at the start of the first millennium BC, of the city that was eventually to become the Colonia Patricia of Corduba as part of the Roman Empire, and later the capital of al-Ándalus, both exponents of the peaceful existence of civilisations. This is a material heritage: it has shaped the city, and produced some of the finest buildings in the world, including the Mezquita (MosqueCathedral) and the Madinat al-Zahra complex, symbols of the joint contribution of several cultures. Yet we are aware that this historical heritage, though vital, is not everything. Córdoba also enjoys an intangible legacy, through its past as a city where culture, philosophy and the arts all flourished thanks to the harmonious coexistence of different civilisations in a single place. We are aware, too, that this hallmark symbolic asset can be projected outwards in just two words, which hold the key to Europe’s future: dialogue and coexistence.

But we have no intention of becoming stranded in History. The city hopes to learn from its history, to draw conclusions that will help Córdoba play a major role in Europe and beyond, in the course of the twenty-first century. We have sought to capture the essence of that legacy, and to infuse it into a creative, innovative city, a city fully equipped to take part in the great debates facing Europe today. We believe, and indeed our slogan proclaims, that the future has roots. The achievements of our ancestors must shape our reflections concerning our own legacy to our children. Today, Europe plans to build an identity based on respect for others, on protection of the environment, and on sustainable and creative methods of production. This bid reflects our conviction that ECoC status will provide an opportunity to forge a specific identity, to reinforce long-cherished notions of an inclusive city, to modernise the mechanisms through which people can play an active role in addressing this shared challenge, to grant the city the status that its history merits and, just as important, to improve the quality of life of local people through cultural actions which will have an impact on the creation of employment and wealth. The ECoC will entail a major new approach to the world of business and to the workforce, generating investments in the service sector and in new technologies. Córdoba is looking forward to sharing this adventure with Europe, but always on the strength of the input received from every single citizen. Córdoba has a long tradition of citizen participation in public affairs. If this bid is successful, that deep-rooted potential will be recognised in the activities organised for the European Capital of Culture in 2016. Even the drafting of this dossier, as will become apparent, was the fruit of public dialogue.

In 2002, when the city’s institutions – at the behest of civil society – decided that Córdoba should bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2016, they were in fact reviving a long-held aspiration originally formulated in the 1980s, at the time of Córdoba’s bid to be named ECoC for 1992, an honour that eventually went to Madrid. The bid was seen, from the outset, as a way of helping the city to think about itself, to regenerate and modernise its identity as a model of European culture for the twenty-first century; as a springboard for bringing about the transformation of the city; and as a tool for reshaping its relationship with Europe. Since then, all the city’s efforts have been directed towards that goal. More and better facilities and infrastructure have been installed, new cultural initiatives have been created with the involvement of local people, and the ability of culture to generate added value in the tourism and services sectors has been enhanced. The European Capital of Culture has provided local people with a shared mission, and with an opportunity to improve the situation of the local economy, which for years has been eroded by unemployment and the closing of businesses. In that sense, 2016 is more than just a date: it is chance to improve future prospects for our young people. Today it is evident that the Córdoba 2016 project has already borne fruit. Over the years, the process in itself has benefited the city by fostering cultural projects, prompting the provision of new infrastructure and galvanising the people. Without the 2016 project, none of this would probably have happened. The result is that this historical Southern European city has been seized by an ambition for renewal and leadership. A city that refuses to remain anchored in a splendid past, but instead seeks to breathe new life into the key values which, in their day, contributed to the forging of the ideas and values that are the hallmarks of present-day Europe. Córdoba’s ECoC bid has set in motion institutional, economic and social synergies. For almost a decade, we have seen a constant process of negotiations, of seeking, developing and finally executing visible urbanregeneration projects, which have quickened the city’s cultural heartbeat. This process has enabled Córdoba to make Europe fully aware of its immense cultural legacy; it has generated a new approach to the management and governance of the city’s heritage; it has drawn all the local players together in a shared project; and it has helped to generate a lively and attractive image of the city, both for visitors and for residents.

At the same time as prompting a far-reaching process of negotiation and involvement, the Córdoba 2106 project has been a challenge, a stimulus and a channel for the urban regeneration strategy launched by the City Council, which includes the rehabilitation of the river and the riverbanks, and the planning of the facilities and infrastructure required to enhance economic and knowledge-transfer activity. The infrastructure plan has also served as an incentive for the creation of pedestrian precincts and sustainable transport systems (there will soon be 35 kilometres of bike lanes, and a tram system is being planned) intended to improve links between the metropolitan area and the rest of the province. Details of the infrastructure plan are provided in the following chapters. Cordoba’s ECoC bid has also fostered a rethinking of the city’s identity, and a renewed pride in belonging. Córdoba and its projects have joined global networks, giving local people access to art movements that seek to link modern culture with traditional cultural resources. Good examples are the recent international contemporary art exhibition, in which works of art were installed in local patios, displays of public art in local heritage settings, and cultural events involving highlytraditional local arts: flamenco festivals, an international guitar festival, poetry weeks and gastronomic events.



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Explain the concept of the programme which would be launched if the city was nominated European Capital of Culture 2

The dialogue between cultures and civilisations, the city’s location at the crossroads of civilisations and religions, and the extensive involvement of its people in local events are, to a large extent, the defining features of Córdoba’s past and of its potential future. They are part of the city’s cultural DNA, and may become distinctive characteristics of Europe’s identity in a whole range of fields. However, the ECoC project would not be complete without reference to two further features which also figure high on Europe’s cultural agenda: creative innovation and the sustainability of cities, and more specifically the role of innovation in fostering the creation of a real culture of sustainability. These four areas of action, which aim to bring about the enhancement of cultural development as a way of building and projecting the city, have been given concrete form in the main themes and content of the programme, which have been arranged around the concept The Constellations of Córdoba, a kind of celestial vault reflecting the diversity and interconnection of Europe’s cities and citizens. This concept is structured as follows. Theme I: Córdoba in the World highlights the links between the city, its immediate surroundings and its wider setting, underling its historical heritage and what that heritage can contribute to contemporary society. This theme comprises three sections: 1 The Córdoba Paradigm: focuses on tolerance, human rights, and respect for others; it reflects on those events where it is essential that dialogue should prevail over violence. 2 Córdoba routes: will explore the relationship between the city and other cities around the world that bear the same name, highlighting Córdoba’s importance in the Discovery of America, and the significance of exile and immigration.

3 Córdoba-Poland: a set of programmes produced jointly by the candidate cities of the two countries. Theme II, Culture, the European common denominator, refers to the fostering of dialogue and the enhancement of contemporary culture in all its different forms, as a shared link between the countries of Europe. It comprises four programme areas: 1 The Word: devoted to cultural activities seeking to explore the word in its broadest, polysemous sense: spoken, written, sung; language, publishing, translation. 2 Art and the Senses: a set of highly-contemporary projects; bold, multidisciplinary, multisensorial. 3 Science and Conscience: examines aspects of reason, faith and science within the ECoC programme. 4 Mixed Cultures: creation, from the perspective of difference and the mixing of cultures. Theme III, The City and the Days, defines the role of cities in general, and of Córdoba in particular. Aims to structure a programme focussing specifically on the problems faced by today’s cities, and on citizen participation. It is divided into: 1 Revolutionising the Everyday: fostering reflection on the city in all its guises, and on the use of common spaces for culture. 2 Rivers of participation: examines citizen participation in the ECoC, likening it to a river of creation.

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Could this programme be summed up by a slogan? (The answer to this question is optional at the preselection stage) The major underlying concept of this bid is summed up in a slogan which amounts almost to a declaration of principles: Córdoba, Europe: The future has roots. The slogan reflects the effort made to capture the essence of the city, and to convey it through a series of concepts and ideas. It reflects, too, the realisation that the city’s vast historical and cultural legacy – its roots – are simply the support on which the future can be built. We believe that the future depends on giving a modern meaning to the values, ideas and concepts of the past, so that they can fully retain their force and enable us to build a new identity Throughout the preparation of this bid, in other words over the last eight years, we have sought to understand the present in terms of the past, in order to secure an active future. We have endeavoured to respect what every generation has sown, and the repercussions it has had, in the hope that this intergenerational legacy may become an element in the construction of a European citizenry. Córdoba offers a substrate whose roots lie in a new vision of history as a core element of the contemporary, with a key added factor: the idea of dialogue as a civic duty. Our approach depends on linking heritage with creativity; community and land assets with development; the city’s identity and values with those services that foster a fuller integration of the city’s cultural diversity. Thus we aspire to create a balance between the undoubted quality of its historical legacy and its viable potential for generating a twenty-first century city and culture, for the people and institutions of today’s Europe.

The city has been a byword for respectful dialogue between different religions and communities ever since the Caliphate of Córdoba, which laid the foundations for the harmonious coexistence of the three great religions: Islam, Judaism and Christianity. That legacy is still to be found in the so-called Córdoba Paradigm, a term coined by the Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo1 to refer to a model of peaceful coexistence characterised by tolerance, and by religious, cultural, and linguistic diversity; a model on which to build a sustainable Europe of dialogue and mutual support. In his speech at Cairo University2, US President Barack Obama remarked: “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Córdoba”. He highlighted the need to overcome the antagonism between the West and the Muslim world on the basis of human rights, religious tolerance and respect for the democratic rules; he cited Córdoba as an example of tolerance, leaving no doubt as to what the city will symbolise as European Capital of Culture in 2016. So Córdoba is aware that it has a duty to bring Europe a message essential for the process of constructing the continent, at a time when intercultural debate is, undeniably, a matter of concern for all public authorities, both within the EU and all over the world.

1 “Beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism”, paper delivered to a conference organised by Reset-Dialogues on Civilisations, held in Cairo, 4-6 March 2006. 2 Speech by US President Barack Obama at Cairo University (Egypt), 4 June 2009.


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The slogan Cordoba, Europe: The future has roots signals a different initiative. It is an almost literal translation of the principles of sustainable development, implemented by the city authorities with regard to specific questions such as the optimised use of water, the involvement of local people in public issues, the protection of the city’s heritage, the rational use of resources, and the best use of public and private space (through unique elements, such as the patios); always understood as part of a common approach that reflects the responsibility of every generation with respect to its successors. In any case, it should be stressed that throughout the preparation of the bid attention has been paid to the morning after. If Córdoba is designated ECoC, from 1 January 2017 onwards the city will continue to promote cultural production and dissemination in all its forms. Culture is a right, not a luxury. 2016 will serve to fine-tune Córdoba’s efforts to maintain its impetus and broaden its horizons. The ECoC provides an opportunity to open our eyes, to see how much still needs to be done and learnt, to see how well we can do it, with a view to maintaining Córdoba as a symbol of interculturalism, participation, cultural innovation and sustainability. 2016 is not the target; it is a boost for the future. A European future in which Córdoba will shine with its own light, its own distinctive identity in a globalised culture.

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Which geographical area does the city intend to involve in the “European Capital of Culture” event? Córdoba’s bid to be ECoC in 2016 is seen as an opportunity for urban regeneration, based on linking the city’s historical identity with a more contemporary outlook. This new profile is inextricably bound to knowledge. Since 2002, when Córdoba first launched its bid, preparations commenced for a new challenge: to redefine Córdoba as a contemporary cultural city.

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· Whilst the whole city will be the stage for the ECoC, four specific geographical areas of the city will be specially involved. ·

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Old Town. Town-planning and architectural actions mainly affecting the Old Town, planned to run from 2002 to 2016. These actions were intended to diversify the use and content of the urban space, to prevent the area becoming simply a tourist theme park, so that historical Córdoba can be a place where local people and visitors come together. The ultimate aim is the creation of a cultural space which also involves the recovery of the edges of the Old Town where it meets the river, whose banks, already restored along the stretch bordering the Mezquita (Mosque-Cathedral), will also be integrated into the southern sector of the city as a natural and cultural riverside area. This will undoubtedly be a privileged venue for many of the activities taking place in 2016. The river and the Cultural Riverbank. Regeneration of the riverside as an area for walking, gradually equipped with a range of public facilities; the effect of this has been to open the city up to the River Guadalquivir. This process includes actions on the South Bank, or “Cultural Bank” as it will now be called, to be implemented mainly between 2012 and 2015; this will be a central stage for the EcoC events.

The districts. Actions aimed at providing all the city’s districts with cultural facilities, in order to promote the creation of, and access to, culture, and to encourage the urban and social regeneration of areas hitherto insufficiently integrated within the city, so that they can all host actions and activities as part of Córdoba 2016. The development of Madinat al-Zahra and of its links with the cultural ecosystem of the Sierra, as well as with other peripheral areas to form a kind of expanded city. This will be a cultural exhibition, production and research centre of the first order for the European Capital of Culture event.


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Explain this choice As indicated earlier, the city’s aim is that – beyond 2016 – Córdoba should see knowledge and the arts as an area to which the city should be devoted; to that end, the city has become a platform for the development of the cultural industry and cultural skills, with a view to making culture an essential and sustainable driving force for economic growth. At the same time, the restoration and development of the river and its banks based on new cultural infrastructure – some now being built, and some at the planning and design stage – is aimed at strengthening the river’s role as a place for creating and exchanging ideas. This major focus for development involves a whole range of projects grouped under the name “The Cultural Bank”. All this is explained in detail in the answers regarding infrastructure. But what really distinguishes Córdoba’s bid is the emphasis on its streets and squares, which have traditionally been a meeting place and a venue for cultural activity. They are therefore an essential part of the ECoC project: a sustainable city, devoted to the pedestrian and the cyclist; a city which encourages the use of public space as a backdrop for cultural events. This will be a distinctive element of Córdoba’s 2016 project, a way of bringing together the various facilities available to create a culturally active location. Cultural activities will be organised in the open air, in the traditional manner, given that Córdoba’s climate remains favourable most of the year. As indicated earlier, one of Córdoba’s strong suits is the culture of proximity, a philosophy that can be summed up by the path created, physically and conceptually, from the courtyard to the street and the square. We believe that this proximity and this physical link can contribute to the shaping of an ideal public space for cultural events, in which the street, the square and the thresholds into private spaces can be used as the stage. A distinctive feature of private spaces in Córdoba has traditionally been the courtyard, which offers a physical link between the public and private. It is a cultural element in itself, and part of the city’s heritage, representing the survival of a place for passing through, meeting and connecting. A space to live in, but also to share, a link between the house and the street.

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The Córdoba Cultural City Foundation is ready to revalue this component as an integral part of the preparation of this bid. Firstly, the aim is to understand the cultural value of the patios – their architectural structure, their appearance, their individual personality, which closely reflects their inhabitants or managers; secondly, we must acknowledge their importance in preparing Córdoba to be the ECoC, their survival as part of the city’s heritage, and their contribution to the new structure of the city. Their inclusion in the shaping of a new cultural city is a clear objective of this bid.

The issue of public space, after all these years, remains a major component in planning not only the urban landscape but also the cultural activities which use the city as their main stage. The ECoC project is aware that it is not enough simply to fill the streets with cultural activities of one type or another. Before this can happen, the public space – the streets and especially the squares – must be properly structured, and networks must be built to link different spaces and connect these to private spaces.

We have sought to review and rearrange these public spaces, which will be linked together and also to other urban elements as well as to a whole range of cultural facilities by cultural “streams”, so-called because they all flow down to the river. Public spaces will thus have a dual function: ·

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To link cultural facilities to each other: The city will offer a series of cultural routes, called “cultural streams”, which will essentially comprise a series of urban public spaces and facilities, linked to a network defined by the streets that converge on the river. These are the proposed active routes. The focus is on a network of cultural facilities connected by transport routes, stressing the need to pedestrianise these “cultural streams” in order to generate a sustainable city through culture. These filaments will have pedestrian areas linking the different locations to each other. Public space as a way of galvanising the city: This is a symbolic notion which condenses and summarises an action plan whose objective is to guarantee public space as a cultural venue, and one which plays host to activities with a view to ensuring access to the existing resources for the entire public, creating the human foundation required for the development of Córdoba as the 2016 European Capital of Culture.

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All the city’s various facilities will be linked through these “cultural streams”, which will be enhanced by pedestrian priority areas and bicycle lanes, with the aim of improving access and maintaining the sustainability and liveability of Córdoba. Public space is therefore understood as a way of connecting facilities: a culture of proximity (50% of the population will be no more than 15 minutes away from one these “cultural streams”) and as a way of structuring cultural and leisure options using linear routes connecting different areas of the city with areas where cultural facilities are concentrated. This ECoC project is also aware that an urban cultural event does not end with the design of the venue; new approaches to management, reflecting new realities, are also required. Innovative models clearly need to be developed in terms of both cultural facilities and the public space itself.

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To improve the network of cultural facilities, through the creation of a digital ring, thus connecting all centres to each other using new technologies. To avoid limiting our intervention only to permanent facilities, and to consider the possibility of generating instant cultural facilities which can be erected as and where needed. We envisage having a stock of temporary structures ready to be moved from one point of the city to another. To define and develop hybrid public spaces, with a simultaneously physical and virtual environment, providing free Wifi connection for unlimited use of the Internet, thus creating “virtual” public spaces via Wifi, a set of technological terraces. Over the last few years, the recovery of the left bank of the Guadalquivir as an urban park, along with the steel bridge of the same name, has opened up a hitherto-unknown public space in the city. This has been developed as a new river landscape which succeeds in incorporating the forgotten part of Córdoba. In this area, major new facilities include the Guadalquivir Balcony, and the Miraflores Park.

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Do you already have the support of the local or regional political authorities? Or are you planning to ask for their support at a later date? Explain. 5

In 2010, the preparations for Córdoba’s bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2016 will celebrate their tenth anniversary, with the explicit and active support of all the local, provincial and regional political authorities represented in the city. We are now in the final stretch of a long-distance race that began in the year 2000, when the Córdoba Business Confederation (CECO) launched the idea of undertaking a long- term challenge. The bid would not have been possible without the coordinated effort and committed involvement of countless players, ranging from public institutions to a variety of social and economic bodies, from the city’s cultural agents to the entire population. The political institutions took the first step, by creating at an early stage the structures required to develop the bid. Since 2001, when the Municipal Corporation adopted in plenary session the decision to work towards Córdoba’s designation as European Capital of Culture, the project has undergone various natural changes. First, in order to carry out the preliminary work required for the bid, a Special Cultural Capital Committee was created, together with a number of working groups. The Committee was made up of representatives from the City Council, the Andalusian Regional Council, the Provincial Council, the University of Córdoba, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Royal Academy, the Al Zahara Federation of Neighbourhood Associations, and the trades unions CCOO and UGT. In 2002, these organisations signed a joint manifesto supporting Córdoba’s ECoC bid.

However, as the project continued to grow, Córdoba 2016 soon needed an operational structure with greater administrative capacity, in order to centralise all the activities aimed at achieving ECoC status. This gave rise, in 2003, to the creation of the Cultural Capital Office – reporting to the Mayor’s Office and responsible for coordinating the project. The Office’s main role has been to publicise and promote the bid, and to support existing cultural events as well as foster new proposals, encouraging the creation of a whole network of cultural operators and agents focussing on the project. Over time, as the project assumed ever greater dimensions and ever greater importance for the city, it became apparent that a new body was required to channel the political agendas and inputs of the four major public institutions. Thus, on 7 June 2006 the Córdoba City Council, the Provincial Council, the Andalusian Regional Council and the University joined forces to create the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, as a stable structure representing all the institutions. This enabled the participating bodies to speak with a single, coordinated voice, to symbolise a huge joint effort in a single discourse, with a single aim and a single image. As a result, the key institutions representing the different levels of government did something more than simply back Córdoba’s bid for 2016. They decided to create, develop and jointly administer the bid, regardless of any possible political differences. The union of the various administrative institutions under a single name and logo has provided this ambitious project with the strength and symbolic power that it deserves. All these institutions have worked together, in a coordinated manner, to prepare the technical and operative resources required by the bid; they have all taken part in the drafting of the Pre-Selection Dossier, and together they have shaped the project’s discourse, as well as promoting the city and its cultural activities.

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How does the event fit into the long-term cultural development of the city and, where appropriate, of the region? The city’s commitment to culture and to the development of cultural industries enjoys strong backing from the citizens and from local society as a whole. The last two General City Plans and the two Strategic Plans for Córdoba have stressed this commitment. Both processes share a common denominator: a view of culture and the cultural industries as the basis for socioeconomic development and sustainable urban regeneration, with a view to fostering creative and productive processes. These plans, which came into effect in the late 1980s, and were gradually implemented over succeeding years, had already been clearly defined, and divided into three broad aims: 1

To develop an integrated city system based on the triple pillars of historical heritage, culture and economic activity, a system designed to recognise and foster the close relationship between culture and the service sector, and to exploit these pillars fully in order to ensure sustainable activity. At the same time, the Strategic Plan recognises the clear need to give added value to the city’s assets, through new readings of the city and a new approach to its heritage, moving away from the traditionally exclusive insistence on monuments, history and conservation. We are aware that heritage now embraces landscapes, research, and cultural routes. Today’s heritage, in short, is the sum of the tangible and the intangible. Heritage is essentially knowledge, and to achieve added value we must ensure a creative approach to knowledge management and transfer, blending respect for tradition with a search for new uses.

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To improve Córdoba’s image as an inclusive, participatory, educating and welcoming city, thus reinforcing the principles of European identity. What sets Europe apart from other communities is its ability to reconcile the differences between member countries by creating a common bond: the defence of cultural diversity. It is this balancing of diversity that provides scope for a clear and valuable understanding of what makes Europe different: the awareness and inclusion of otherness. 3

Córdoba needs to be the European Capital of Culture. Over long periods, the city has played little part in the development taking place around it. Given this isolation – also being addressed by the significant urban regeneration to which the city is committed – the ECoC project provides a welcome opportunity to improve people’s lives, enhance their access to culture and better their future prospects. The name Córdoba applies both to the city and to the surrounding province of which it is the capital. Córdoba city is centrally located within the province, and enjoys a strategic position in the communications network, making it easy to travel between the city and the 75 towns and villages in the province, with a total population of 803,998 inhabitants (Andalusian Institute of Statistics, 2009). These municipalities are grouped in seven areas, as a function of land relief and economic activities – mostly linked to agriculture and livestock breeding. Of all the municipalities making up the province of Córdoba, only eight have more than 20,000 inhabitants.


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In terms of the Córdoba 2016 project, the province should be seen not simply as a geographical area, but rather as the backdrop against which the city’s activities take place, as an extension of its outgoing approach. The province can offer the visitor a whole network of paths and roads used by travellers down the ages, an ancient culture based on the cultivation of olive groves and vineyards, which shaped a unique landscape abounding in natural beauty spots, linked to each other by the Guadalquivir, and a whole constellation of cultural projects scattered amongst its villages. Aware that the European Capital of Culture scheme is primarily intended to benefit cities, and that it is within this framework that the main activities must take place, the province will also form part of the initiative in all its breadth and diversity. An area uniquely rich in terms of popular festivals and traditions, the province offers a wide range of cultural and tourist-related attractions, including areas of outstanding natural beauty, archaeological sites, superb landscapes and abundant agrofood resources. All this has prompted a growing service industry. Joint participation in the ECoC project would provide the province with an opportunity to consolidate this burgeoning business and link it to cultural management, whilst encouraging visitors to the Capital of Culture to discover the delights of the surrounding towns. The area boasts countless attractions (archaeological sites, natural parks, picturesque villages) which will encourage visitors to discover the richness of the towns and villages around Córdoba. Three areas of the province contain natural parks with unique ecosystems: Hornachuelos, the Sierras Subbéticas and the Sierra de Cardeña-Montoro, all of which are part of the European Natura 2000 network of ecological sites. Córdoba is also home to the “Dehesas de Sierra Morena”, recognised as a Biosphere Reserve by the UNESCO in 2002. The whole area is crossed from east to west by the River Guadalquivir, a veritable artery whose curves and meanders play host to an immense biodiversity in terms of riverbank flora and fauna. In this respect, the ECoC scheme offers a real opportunity to extend the project to the small neighbouring towns which are to a large degree dependent on the primary sector, exploiting to the full and enhancing their potential as the living history of Europe. It will provide many citizens with access to cultural activities and at the same time will help to break down barriers and create new ways of seeing the world.

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The towns and villages of the province have recently been striving to broaden the range of cultural activities available. The ECoC project will do much to enhance the permeability of the social system, encouraging the inhabitants of smaller towns to play a more active role in consolidating the fledgling services industry. As an example of the links binding the city and the province, last April the mayors of 60 towns and villages in the province signed a Manifesto declaraing their support for Córdoba’s bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2016. This testifies to the widely-acknowledged view that the city and the province should speak with a single voice in supporting the bid. The reasons adduced by the city of Córdoba in bidding to be designated European Capital of Culture in 2016 are linked not only to the profile of the city in itself, but also to the fact that it is a model of Andalusia as a region. The city shares many features with the region as a whole, in which it occupies a central position as a crossroads from north to south and from east to west in relation to the 8 provinces comprising the region: Granada, Jaén and Sevilla; Cádiz and Huelva on the Atlantic coast; and Almería and Málaga on the Mediterranean coast. In addition to its general identity as part of Andalusia, Córdoba has many distinctive individual features, including its riverside location and its function as a hub for the main lines of communication between the Iberian Peninsula and Africa, and its history as an agricultural society which underwent a radical transformation in the second half of the twentieth century, as the result of a modernising project which needs to be constantly updated if the city is not to miss out on the opportunities offered by the twenty-first century. The links between Córdoba and the rest of Andalusia will undoubtedly be further enhanced by planned new high-speed rail links with the other cities in the region; Córdoba will be even more centrally placed within Andalusia, and even more accessible in terms of time. Thanks to this new network of connections, Córdoba can reach out far beyond local or provincial level. The number of visitors able to come to Córdoba for cultural events and go back home on the same day has risen to four million; whilst Andalusia has a population of around eight million.

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At the same time, it is also essential to stress a common Andalusian heritage to be found in Córdoba, evident in an alternative approach to urban productivity and competitiveness. This is very important when it comes to understanding what the city has to offer, which can be extrapolated to the regional level, in terms of features which until now have been underappreciated or undervalued. These include oral culture, the use of public space, the constant dialogue between private and public spaces, leisure, festivals, daily life in the open air and regular cultural events throughout Andalusia, which are both more frequent and more deeply rooted than elsewhere in Europe. For all these reasons, the Córdoba ECoC project seeks to formulate a proposal that will have an impact on the whole of Andalusia. Córdoba’s central location, less than two hours away from Andalusia’s other main cities, is an incentive to use 2016 as the basis for a future network of cultural cooperation between these cities, optimising the use of the region’s varied infrastructure as if it were a single project. Special links will be established with Málaga, which is also bidding to become ECoC. In future, the two cities should work together – as they did in the past – as allies. As a result, the cultural wealth that Andalusia can offer Europe is vast, because it readily extends to the whole region, with its special climate, its landscapes and its cities which – though very different – share a common heritage in terms of settlements, invasions, cultures, and a close connection to the great movements of Southern European culture. As a city close to the Mediterranean, Córdoba enjoys a strategic location from which it renders Andalusia’s position in European culture more universal in terms of a cultural programme that includes a proposal for a European intercultural dialogue; at its core, a city that has become a symbol of rapprochement, participation, creative innovation and sustainability.

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To what extent do you plan to forge links with the other city to be nominated Capital of Culture? 7

Paradoxically, relations between Córdoba and Poland began over a thousand years ago. Indeed, the earliest written reference to the formal existence of the Polish State dates back to 966, in the reign of Mieszko I, a monarch belonging to the Piast dynasty, who introduced Christianity into Poland. The reference occurs in a text by the Jewish merchant Ibrahim ibn Yakub (Ibrahim ibn Yaqub al-Israili al-Turtusi), ambassador of the Caliph of Córdoba al-Hakam II, who visited several Central European countries between 965 and 971 A.D. Thus, the first common link between the two countries is to be found in Jewish culture, which has exerted a marked influence in both over the centuries. In fact, Córdoba is a member of the “Paths of Sepharad” Network of Spanish Jewish Quarters, which in turn belongs to the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (AEPJ). Every year, this organization organises the European Jewish Culture Day, an event celebrated simultaneously in all member cities, including Córdoba and the Polish cities of Owiecim and Krakow. In December 2008, aware of the importance of encouraging and fostering relationships between the two countries within the scope of the Córdoba 2016 project, the Board of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, decided to hire a specialist adviser on Polish matters. The advisor appointed was Monika Bonet Poliwka (Warsaw, 1957), a renowned exhibition curator specialising in contemporary Spanish and Polish art.3 In fact, Córdoba has been working for a long time on strengthening relations with Poland; as a result, commercial, cultural and educational relations have been considerably re-vitalized over the last thirty years.

More recently, in order to establish relations and explore a possible exchange of cultural activities, a delegation from Córdoba comprising the manager of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, Carlota Alvarez Basso, Monica Poliwka and the Deputy Director General for Culture at Córdoba City Council, Juan Carlos Limia, travelled from 25-31 October to several Polish candidate cities: Gdansk, Lódz, Warsaw and Torun´. The outcome of the visit was extremely positive: it enabled the exchange of experiences and the arrangement of specific activities involving all the candidate cities, although at no stage was any preference expressed for any of the cities, since the idea was to make the arrangements as broad as possible. These four cities were chosen in view of their interesting bids, though of course Córdoba will work closely with whichever city is designated. Thereafter, relations between Córdoba and the city in question will naturally be expanded considerably. Córdoba/Gdansk The starting-point for the cultural relations established between Córdoba and Gdansk was the involvement of two members of the Córdoba Jewellery School Consortium in the Gdansk Ambar Week, held on 16-23 May 2010. The teacher José Carlos Sánchez López and the student Vanessa Rivera Pozas took part in workshops and attended lectures, as well as working with top Polish designers specialising in amber jewellery.

3 A graduate in History of Art from the University of Warsaw, her dissertation – directed by Bialostocki – focussed on mythological painting in the Spanish Renaissance. During the 1970s, she worked at the National Museum of Warsaw and was involved in producing several catalogues for heritage monuments in Poland. Monika Bonet Poliwka has lived in Madrid since 1985. Since then, she has worked on several art catalogues and exhibitions, the most outstanding being the Poland, Fin de Siècle exhibition, held in 2003 at the Mapfre Vida Foundation of Madrid, and Bruno Schulz’s exhibition: The Dark Fatherland, held in 2007 at the Fine Arts Circle in Madrid. She has been awarded the Medal of the Republic of Poland.

The pieces of amber jewellery made during that week by the Córdoba delegation were included in a highlysuccessful joint exhibition of the work produced by all those taking part, held at the Gdansk Amber Museum. This was a very positive experience, both personally for the members of the Jewellery School Consortium (in that it opened up employment opportunities) and for the Consortium itself at institutional level, since it laid the foundations for future permanent links and joint activities with other schools, associations and publications in the Ukraine and Poland, both of which specialise in amber research. These links will facilitate future student exchanges, as well as encouraging the inclusion of courses on the modelling and treatment of amber as part of the future curriculum at the Córdoba Jewellery School Consortium. Another confirmed project is Organs of Gdansk and Córdoba, United, an exchange programme for organists from the two cities. Under this agreement, the Córdoba organists Juan Antonio Pedrosa and Jesús Sampedro will take part in the Gdansk International Festival of Organ, Choral and Chamber Music (Europe’s leading festival on this theme), appearing in concerts at the Saint Nicholas Basilica on 22 September and 13 October 2010, respectively. The Polish organists Hanna Dys and Roman Perucki will perform at the Real Colegiata de la Iglesia de San Hipólito in Córdoba, on 16 and 24 October 2010. Cordoba/Lódz Cultural relations between Lódz and Córdoba will focus on an exchange of contemporary art exhibitions between the two cities in spring 2011. During its visit to Poland, the Córdoba delegation met staff from the Museum Sztuki Lódz (Lódz Museum of Art) with a view to holding a retrospective of the Córdoba art group Equipo 57 – a key contributor to the Spanish Abstract avant-garde movement – in Poland, and the exhibition From Balka to the Present Day – a joint exhibition featuring work by leading Polish contemporary artists, at the Vimcorsa Exhibition Hall in Córdoba. On 11 May, Jaroslaw Suchan, director of the Polish museum – which has been enlarged and is now one of the best modern and contemporary art museums in Central Europe – visited Córdoba to finalise the details and plan the organisation of the two exhibitions.

A meeting was also held with the team running the Four Cultures Festival, a specific, year-round team dedicated exclusively to this event. This festival is a multi-disciplinary event covering several artistic and cultural activities, a young, critical and contemporary festival similar to Eutopía in Córdoba. The two organisations exchanged detailed information regarding the two festivals and several exchange and collaborative options are being studied. At the same time, the Andalusian Youth Institute (Andalusian Regional Council), which organizes Eutopia, has planned to invite Polish creators and musicians to the next edition of the festival, which will take place in September 2010. Cordoba/ Warsaw In the course of the visit to Warsaw, interviews were held with the management team of the Copernicus Science Centre (the building is under construction, but various activities are already taking place), as well as with the management team of the Warsaw European Capital of Culture 2016 Foundation. A series of exchanges have been arranged: Warsaw will send a first-rate Polish pianist to take part in the Rafael Orozco Piano Festival and Córdoba will provide a flamenco troupe to perform at their River Festival. Córdoba has offered two flamencorelated options: a classical flamenco troupe and a fusion flamenco troupe. This exchange, which is currently being negotiated, would last around a week and the costs would be shared by both parties. Torun´ The meeting with managers of the Torun´ Cultural Capital Office focussed on the potential co-organisation of the Cultural Capital Concert, a recital by two talented young performers. Córdoba would be represented by the violinist Francisco Jose Montalvo, and Poland by the young pianist Jan Lisiecki. The Warsaw Symphony Orchestra would help to manage and organise this musical project. Talks are currently in progress regarding the details of this project, in which music will act as an intercultural bridge between the two cities. Córdoba will establish special links with the Polish city designated ECoC in 2016, from the moment it is awarded the title. It will propose that the two cities set up a joint committee which will be responsible for submitting joint programmes and projects as well as cultural exchanges to take place under the ECoC banner in 2016.


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In order to facilitate – and secure – these projects, the budget drawn up following designation will include specific allocations for joint productions with the city in question. Once the designation is announced, the city of Córdoba undertakes to organise an exhibition on the Polish city, so that it will be better known both in Córdoba and in Spain. In return, we would propose that the Polish city organise a reciprocal exhibition about Córdoba. The exhibition in Córdoba on the designated Polish city would run throughout the years prior to 2016, and would consist primarily in the exchange of cultural operators with the Polish city with a view to organising exhibitions on specific themes (history of the city, artists...), as well as musical activities, and events related to local cuisine and customs, etc. Below are some examples of the programmes that might be implemented in 2016, with a twofold purpose: to analyse and compare the contributions of Spain and Poland to the history of Europe; and to promote modern cultural programmes designed to foster mutual understanding and the exchange of creators. These 6 projects are discussed in greater detail in the answer to Question 1, Section II, entitled Structure of the programme for the event. From Poland to Córdoba. The Voyage of the Goths

This interesting exhibition project focuses on the important ties between Córdoba and Poland, with the aim of highlighting the importance of migrations that transfer customs from one country to another in order to build a new society. The exhibition will centre on the period in which Goths, Vandals, Hispano-Romans, Byzantines, and later Muslims and Berbers exerted a mutual influence on the building of today’s Europe. Recent research by the Córdoba Archaeological and Ethnological Museum has underlined the material importance of Córdoba during the Visigothic period and, especially, the existence of strong links between the jewellery and the funeral customs of the local civilisation and those of societies that developed over several centuries through migrations and contacts with the Roman Empire and various barbarian cultures.

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The finding of treasures throughout Europe has made it possible to trace the route followed by these magnificent craftsmen, who first (in what is now Poland) worked for princes, and later (in the Iberian Peninsula), for the Monarchy and the Church. In tandem with the exhibition, a meeting of Spanish and Polish jewellers, focussing on modern jewellery design – will be organised in conjunction with the governmentsponsored State Society for Development in Design and Innovation (DDI). Children’s activities and games will be organised so that the younger generations can learn more about this important period of history. At the border: eighteenth-century Polish Orientalism

This exhibition was first organised in 2008 by the National Museum of Warsaw, under the curatorship of Tadeusz Majda and Anna Kozak. It was the first exhibition devoted to Orientalism in Polish painting during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Given the link between things Andalusian, Arabic, African and exotic, the idea is to bring this exhibition to the city in 2016, so that Spaniards can learn something of the view of the East among nineteenth-century Polish painters. The local public is likely to be very surprised by this reading of the East. Paintings will be loaned from the Warsaw National Museum and other art museums in Krakow, Bielsko, Biala, Kielce, Poznan, Toruń, Wroclaw and other Polish cities, as well as from private collections and from the royal palaces of Krakow and Wilanow. Parallel activities will also be organised for a whole range of audiences, with a view to exploring in depth all aspects of Orientalism; one such activity will be an exhibition of family photographs with an Orientalist inspiration.

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A dialogue between Pepe Espaliú and Miroslaw Balka

In the early 1990s, sculptures by the Córdoba artist Pepe Espaliú (1955-1993) and the Polish artist Miroslaw Balka (1958) coincided on the international art scene, in the Venice Biennale. The two artists already shared a certain aesthetic background, and their works displayed a shared concern for representing the body as a fragile, brittle material. They also felt that art should include an awareness of reality, though shunning a dogmatic, formulaic approach; their work was informed by an interest in caring for others, and remembering those who have suffered. This was evident in a series of performances by Espaliú entitled Carrying, which sought to publicise the plight of AIDS victims; it was also evident in Balka’s recent and highly-acclaimed installation in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London, which evoked the fear and silence in which the victims of Naziism were forced to live. Today, work by both artists is to be found in the Tate Modern’s permanent collection. This exhibition is presented as a dialogue between two key artists on the contemporary scene who – from Spain and from Poland – have succeeded in reaching the world’s leading museums with works which link the fragility of life with a socially-aware concept of art.

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Journey to the Kingdom of Knowledge

This game-based project will begin in 2012 and last at least until 2016. A “passport” will be published containing the city’s main cultural and heritage-related resources, laid out in stages like points on a tourist route. A passport will be given to everyone who wants one, and a publicity campaign will be run in the media. Passport in hand, users will be invited to visit all the places featured; at each one, the passport will be stamped, and the user will be given a word that forms part of a riddle that can only be solved once all the words are collected, i.e. once all the cultural sites have been visited. It will be suggested that the Polish city designated ECoC in 2016 organise the same project, with a view to strengthening cooperation and enhancing mutual knowledge of the two cities. There will be three types of passport: for under-18s; for people aged 18-65; and for over-65s. Children who fill up their passport will receive educational prizes. Adult participants will be able to take part in a draw for one of four trips per year to the Polish European Capital of Culture, all expenses paid, with a full programme of visits. A similar arrangement will be suggested to the Polish city with regard to Córdoba.

Tadeusz Kantor vs. Jerzy Grotowski

Various activities will explore the contribution made to the history of theatre by Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990) and Jerzy Grotowsky (1933-1999), two Polish dramatists and directors who revolutionised voice, body and stage techniques in Europe during the second half of the twentieth century: theatre performances, workshops, screening of films and actions, and an exhibition on the legacy of these two figures in terms of stage design and the theory and practice of literature. The contemporary Polish art scene

The proposal, made by an independent cultural manager, seeks to create a platform for the Polish contemporary art scene in Spain, featuring interventions by six of the most distinguished artists in Poland today. The works will be installed in heritage centres that are not usually used for exhibitions but which are ideal for sitespecific events, contexts in which the tradition and history of the venue would be enhanced by the contemporary approach of these artists.

Europe and the New ‘Imago Mundi’: Science and Navigation from Columbus to Copernicus

This is a multidisciplinary project, involving both Córdoba and the Polish city designated European Capital of Culture in 2016. It seeks to provide the public in both countries with an exhibition, a congress, and a publication, focussing on two key personalities in Humanist Europe, whose destinies to some extent ran parallel: Christopher Columbus and Nicolaus Copernicus, born in Torun´, Poland. Thanks to Columbus and Copernicus, Europe expanded outwards: it discovered the New World and found how the planet fitted into the Universe.


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Explain how the event could fulfil the criteria listed below. Please substantiate your answer for each of the criteria (This question must be answered in greater detail at the final selection stage) As regards “The European Dimension”, how does the city intend to contribute to the following objectives? 8

· to strengthen cooperation between the cultural operators, artists and cities of your country and other Member States, in all cultural sectors

The aim is therefore to establish a network of cultural organisations in Spain and Europe sharing a common philosophy, with a view to developing a medium- and long-term strategic alliance, that will function before, during, and after 2016. The idea is based on the principle that all associated institutions should be considered as a single unit with several locations; as a result, each manager can count on teams and materials provided by other members of the alliance. This naturally requires the joint input of other cultural institutions in Spain and Europe, with a view to creating the synergy necessary to ensure the greatest possible cultural benefits for the citizens of Spain and Europe.

We are aware that the implementation of such an ambitious, high-quality cultural project of international scope requires considerable networking. The scale of this bid – its professional approach, its geographical reach, its financial implications and the need for cultural sustainability – requires the creation of new relationships between European institutions, based on strategic alliances; these in turn require strengthened cooperation between cultural operators, in order to ensure that the best use is made both of the assets available and of the joint efforts of all those involved.

The aim is to encourage the creation of a European network capable of producing major works, without resorting to mere spectacle. It would thus seem appropriate that the alliance should focus primarily on the circulation of artists and cultural operators throughout the Member States.

Coproductions encourage the generation of projects. Cultural coproductions, based on institutional collaboration, are the only way to ensure that more and better events are produced in 2016; that costs are cut; that programme coordination problems are reduced, such as duplication, repetition and/or overlapping of schedules or events organised by different institutions in the same city or a nearby city. Moreover, the lack of resources becomes less marked, and communication is improved.

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The network will allow its members: ·

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To coproduce exhibitions, concerts and stage shows, cinema and audiovisual festivals, and similar activities. To create joint projects that can be submitted to large-scale European cultural production programmes. To regularly exchange experiences and information; to enjoy and provide mutual support; and to design new, shared coproduction models. To participate in a fluid exchange of heritage, both through the temporary loan of works of art and through long-term loans.

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To produce joint publications. The network could produce its own regular publication, taking full advantage of web links between members. To enable young artists from member locations to work in specific areas of the alliance. To take part in the various existing forums as a joint entity. To establish ties with similar networks set up by European centres with the purpose of presenting Spanish artists and exhibitions.

In that respect, the strategy of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation has been to identify topics, arguments and projects sufficiently interesting, relevant and universal in scope to attract potential partners amongst European organisms and programmes. These include projects focussing on the great European themes covered by the programme: intercultural dialogue, Europe’s great thinkers, the problems faced by cities, and citizen participation. They also include projects to commemorate cultural figures or events whose universal importance brings them within the scope of European or international institutions, and European networks and programmes such as the Culture Programme 2007–2013; Lifelong Learning; Citizens; Youth; Euromed Heritage; Media, URB–AL; UrbAct, Interreg; the European Neighbourhood Policy and the European Social Forum. This would lead to partnership in projects requiring considerable infrastructure or the input of specialised foundations such as national libraries, natural science museums, thematic museums. At national level, institutions like the State Society for Cultural Commemorations (SECC), run by the Ministry of Culture, and the State Society for Artistic Activities Abroad (SEACEX) – the two are shortly to be merged, forming the new State Society for Cultural Activities (SEAC) – seek to participate in projects of this nature. These are therefore project-specific partners, but will still play a key role in the overall partnership strategy. In short, the ECoC project seeks to encourage an active policy of strategic alliances, based on joint productions and applicable to the culture programme as well as to other spheres; previous experience in Córdoba, and in the cultural programming process as a whole, suggests that this modus operandi can readily be applied to the ECoC in all its aspects.

From the outset, the Córdoba 2016 project has done everything possible to attract the close involvement of creators – especially young creators, both from Córdoba and from outside – in a range of activities that include publishing books and CDs, supporting tours and concerts by local bands, running exhibitions and installations, encouraging international exchanges amongst young creators, and bringing young Spanish poets from all over the country for the Cosmopoética poetry festival. These activities testify to a close and lasting cooperation between the Córdoba 2016 project and creators in every field – both local and from outside the city: Cosmopoética. Poets of the World in Córdoba. This festival, first held in 2004, was a remarkable success in combining literary quality and citizen involvement; in 2009 the festival was awarded the National Prize for the Promotion of Reading by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. It is one of the local cultural projects that has achieved the greatest international renown in recent years. Over the last seven years, it has sought to stress accessibility both to poets and poetry, to demystify and democratise poetry as a genre, to encourage the involvement of local people as a guarantee for the project itself, and as a means of driving social, cultural and economic development, by bringing together poets and writers from all over the world, and by taking poetry into every area and discipline of society. Sensxperiment. International Creation Event. This is a festival of avant-garde art founded ten years ago in Lucena (Córdoba) by the Weekend Proms Association with the backing of the Lucena Town Council. In 2005, the festival was enlarged – with the support of the Cultural Capital Office and other institutions – and its scope was extended to Córdoba. Since then, numerous international artists have exhibited their highly-innovative work in sound art, art on paper and many other formats. Sensxperiment will in future be a triennial festival, and an ongoing three-year sensory immersion project is currently in force (2009-2011), which involves actions and research in a variety of fields, including expanded and live cinema, and the relationship between sound and space. The work is being done by a network of artists in Spain, the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, Japan, France, Britain, Austria and Belgium.


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Migrations. Arts in translation is a programme backed by the Cultural Capital Office in cooperation with the Asociación Los Amigos de Marsuf, which seeks to encourage cultural exchanges between young local artists and young artists from other European cities. The project embraces a range of disciplines, including fine arts, music and poetry. Events include poetry readings, concerts and exhibitions, held both in Córdoba and the other European cities involved. To date, joint events have been held in Córdoba-Lisbon (Portugal) and in Córdoba-Paris (France). The third joint event will link young artists in Córdoba and Berlin (Germany). Eutopía, International Young Creators’ Festival. This international festival is an essential event for young Spanish creators, since it brings together young people from many countries. Eutopia, in addition to involving concerts, performances and shows is, above all, a space for the exchange of ideas and for dialogue between young creators, for research and training, and for reflecting on cultural requirements, values and management. Its 2016 edition will be specifically devoted to creative work by and for young people throughout Europe. The competition has also become an act of celebration of the street as a meeting place. Many of the scheduled activities take place in the open air, are free, and promote the participation of citizens in culture. All these international programmes, now fully consolidated, will continue beyond 2016, focussing on European culture.

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Masters and students This proposal will focus on the circulation of ideas, and on their transmission from one generation to another within European culture. Culture is renewal and rupture, but it is also transmission and inheritance. Different generations of European artists, linked through their specific master-student relationships, will be explored through exhibitions, performances, concerts and readings. Specific proposals will be selected with the help of European schools of art, music and performing arts. Duplex A season of exhibitions, concerts, performances and readings in the form of a dialogue between the work of two artists from different European countries. The meeting of creative universes, and the dialogue between different artistic languages, is increasingly seen as one of the most dynamic and appropriate areas for experimentation. At the same time, these dialogues will foster contacts between artists and institutions, with a view to generating networks that reflect both the diversity and the internal bonds that characterise Europe.

The Performing Arts Laboratory in Europe This project is intended as a core element in the performing-arts section of the programme, with particular reference to the arts of theatre and dance

Programas specifically aimed at the ECoC in 2016 seek to connect artist and creators from different European countries, and include:

The performing arts laboratory spread across Europe during the second half of the twentieth century. The project seeks to highlight this short history, and focus on the echoes of that research tradition that survive in contemporary practice in the performing arts.

Is Don Luis alive? This project seeks to revitalise the legacy of Luis de Góngora y Argote, establishing networks between poets in Córdoba and elsewhere in Europe, emulating – from a modern perspective – the symbolist poets of Paris and young Spanish poets of the ‘27 Generation.

The idea of a performing-arts laboratory will thus become a truly European setting for the sharing of initiatives, experience and results. The format will comprise performances, training activities, debates and the exchange of projects on this theme between different European countries.

Crossroads: European Dialogues A programme of events in all disciplines, organised around the idea of dialogue and bonding, between creators and artists and also between educational institutions all over Europe. The project will comprise two working areas:

Pictures of Europe, Words of Europe In Córdoba there is a street called Imágenes, which for the last five years has played host to a project led by an artist known as Goval, who lives in the street. During April and May, all the residents carry out a collective artistic intervention in the street, as an excuse to meet up and work together on a common project involving adults and children.

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This project seeks to make use of that idea and give it an international dimension, by locating similar cultural activities in other European cities and bringing them to Córdoba. In the years prior to the ECoC, the residents of Calle Imágenes will contact those responsible for similar collective actions elsewhere in the EU, to exchange knowledge and experiences with a view to organising those actions in 2016. That year, the interventions in Calle Imágenes will be extended to other districts of Córdoba. It is envisaged that these exchanges will continue in subsequent years. The contemporary Polish art scene As indicated earlier, the proposal seeks to create a platform for the Polish contemporary art scene in Spain, featuring interventions by six of the most distinguished artists in Poland today. Des-Bordes. International Mural Art in Córdoba This initiative involves the specific intervention of contemporary artists on walls around the outskirts of the city. One artist from each of the 27 EU member States will be invited to design and install works of mural art in areas of Córdoba unaccustomed to hosting cultural interventions of this sort. This modus operandi will bring project management mechanisms and agents closer to local residents, and the residents themselves – once they have seen the designs – will decide which painting will be put up on their walls, in an attempt to stimulate their interest in contemporary art. Once the walls in question have been located and the artists have been selected, a kind of project monitoring office will be set up in the area in question, making use of Córdoba’s network of local civic centres. Under the Eyes of Europe The installation, in a public space in Córdoba, of a giant collage made of photographs taken by mentallydisabled people all over Europe. This mural will provide a representative image of Europe and its culture. It will be designed by the winner of an international competition for young artists.

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Though not part of the scheduled ECoC programme, it is worth mentioning a project entitled Circular, which will become a container for cultural expression. This features a 1957 Douglas DC-7 aeroplane, 36 metres long and weighing 33,000 Kg, which has been converted into a cultural vehicle. The programme of events will be drawn up by the young artists of Córdoba in collaboration with local cultural groups with the aim of promoting the work of young emerging artists. It underscores a firm commitment to contemporary art and has the twin themes of accessibility and sustainability running all the way through it. The idea is for it to become a magnificant platform where young European creators can exhange creations and experiences. Numerous local institutions do a superb job in keeping with these efforts, and offer a wide range of assistance to youthful creativity that over the last decade has paid real dividends. A clear example of this is the Antonio Gala Foundation, which for over eight years has been awarding residency grants to young creators from various backgrounds. Since 2001, the Antonio Gala Foundation – situated in the restored Corpus Christi convent – has provided residence grants to a total of 120 Young Artists. Every year, 20 young artists – writers, musicians, painters, and sculptors live together at the Foundation, sharing their creative activities and experiences in a process of generous symbiosis aimed at mutual enrichment. For its part the Rafael Botí Foundation has been awarding sculpture grants to young artists born or living in the city or province of Córdoba for 15 years, as well as giving significant economic support to the creative projects of local artists regardless of age. The city council has also contributed with the Córdoba Fine Arts Grant, an important award in financial terms and linked originally to the Ángel Prizes for painting, as well as providing a powerful boost to Andalusian creators through the Andalusia Regional Council’s Iniciarte programme. Taken together, and despite the effects of the economic crisis, they constitute an important set of initiatives that have helped to support the work of emerging artists.


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· to highlight the richness of cultural diversity in Europe The programme devised for the ECoC event is based on themes or areas for reflection covering issues whch are highly topical for Europe. Interculturalism, the dialogue between cultures, and citizen participation – all hallmark features of the city – are also features of Europe’s identity from various perspectives. These factors are interwoven, in turn, with elements drawn from the area of the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and North Africa. While these qualities are characteristically and unambiguously part of Córdoba’s special culture and personality, they are also conceptual and symbolic elements that can be identified with a dynamic, universal outlook; they are the defining traits of Córdoba’s ECoC project, and a fundamental part of Europe’s identity. Any overall, interrelated analysis of the historical events that shaped the city, and of the material, architectural and cultural legacy that now defines Córdoba and its people, must inevitably highlight a number of concepts which together account for the city’s current dynamic outlook, and warrant the export of that outlook to the broader horizons of Europe. Other key concerns of the bid – such as creative innovation and sustainability – are also part of Europe’s cultural agenda. Of the projects envisaged for the ECoC, outlined below, one is aimed precisely at highlighting the richness of Europe’s cultural diversity: Rooted in the Wind Is an intercultural music festival promoted by the Cultural Capital Office and the music management company La Factoría D. The original idea was that all the groups taking part should perform music from countries and cultures other than their own. For the first festival, local groups played Celtic and Irish music, American country, Brazilian bossanovas and Jewish klezmer music. This year, any bands resident in Spain were entitled to take part, so that Spanish and American performers played Indian music, while Bolivian, French, Italian and Spanish musicians played klezmer music and a Turkish singer and guitarist sang flamenco.

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Plans are under way to expand the international dimension of the festival for 2011, and to highlight its intercultural features. With regard to the programme devised for 2016, the activities envisaged will help to highlight the richness of Europe’s cultural diversity: As indicated earlier, four special new seasons will be included in Cosmopoética 2016: · · · ·

Poets of Europe in Córdoba European Poetry Festivals at Cosmopoética Poetry as dialogue in Cosmopoética The poetic image of Europe.

Capital Music This project is a survey of European music through its cities. The core element of the project is a season of concerts, whose programmes will link a European capital to a given period in European musical history. The idea is to link a given city (e.g. London, Paris, Venice) with a specific musical landmark: a group of composers, a school, the development of an influential form. The city serves as a binding element, given that cities throughout history have made musical practice possible in various ways. Fons Sophiae: significant absences and presences in the history of Europe A season of monthly lectures throughout 2016, each devoted to the work of two European intellectuals, one man and one woman: e.g. Aristotle-Sappho, Isaac Newton-Madame d’Aulnoy, Immanuel Kant-Madame de Staël, Sigmund Freud-Madame Curie. This would give a gender slant to the lectures, exhibitions and cultural programmes comprising the project. These activities would also have a dimension specific to the world of translation, as one of the routes for the transmission and dissemination of ideas beyond linguistic and ideological borders. The Roma, a European People Following the enlargement of the European Union to 27 member States, with the entry of Romania and Bulgaria, the Gypsies have become the largest ethnic minority in Europe. There are large Gypsy communities in Spain, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Croatia and Greece.

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The programme seeks to be a week-long meeting, around the 8th April (International Roma Day), at which Gypsies from all over Europe will be able show and share the various expressions of their culture (music, cooking, language, oral tradition, etc.). Local people and visitors will have a chance to discover and enjoy the work of Roma artists. At the same time, there will be a season of documentary and feature films focussing on the Gypsy people and a fascinating exhibition will explore the image of the Gypsy – and especially of the Gypsy woman – in advertising throughout Europe, including such landmark images as the packet design for the French cigarettes Gitanes, and the label on the Spanish olive oil brand Carbonell. Projectmylife This project seeks to generate, collect and disseminate videos, lasting one minute, in which citizens of every European country describe their daily lives. The project will be carried out in collaboration with film institutes and embassies in the various countries. By the end of the project, an archival database will have been built up of the daily lives of Europeans at a given moment in time. Re-encounters This will be a film in ten episodes, each lasting ten minutes, and each made by a different leading director, on a single theme: encounters and the dialogue of cultures.

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· to bring the common aspects of European cultures to the fore Córdoba and al-Ándalus bequeathed a legacy without which the history of the West cannot be fully understood, although many twentieth-century Europeans may be unaware of the many and varied customs in their daily lives – now completely inbred and forming part of their cultural DNA – that were introduced into Europe through Córdoba and al-Ándalus. The various aspects of the legacy bequeathed to Europe by al-Ándalus will be examined in the programme: 716-2016: 1300 years of the legacy of al-Ándalus in Europe The year 2016 will mark nothing less than the 1300th anniversary of the establishment of Córdoba as the capital of al-Ándalus, i.e. the capital of the whole of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule. A major exhibition will be held on al-Ándalus and its culture, the fruit of a fertile blend of Christian, Jewish and Islamic culture; the exhibition will highlight its contribution to European and Western culture, going back to 716, the year when the first coin bearing the name al-Ándalus was minted. The coin itself, a key piece in the exhibition, is kept in the National Archaeological Museum: one side bears an Arabic inscription, and the other an inscription in Latin – a real metaphor of daily life in Córdoba during the al-Ándalus period. At the same time, a world congress will take place covering various aspects of the legacy bequeathed by alÁndalus to Europe: scientific, artistic, literary, agricultural, philosophical, gastronomic, and aesthetic. This legacy, in all its forms, is now part of Europe’s DNA, an integral element in the common heritage of the peoples of Europe. At the same time, a world congress will take place covering various aspects of the legacy bequeathed by alÁndalus to Europe: scientific, artistic, literary, agricultural, philosophical, gastronomic, and aesthetic.


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Its position as active heir to the Graeco-Roman classical tradition, as well as its Eastern roots, will also be highlighted. The exhibition, therefore, will tell us about the cultural heritage that Córdoba succeeded in spreading to Europe. Finally, a transversal programme will be implemented throughout the year, comprising linked activities intended to explore more fully the various contributions of the culture of al-Ándalus to Western culture through different sectors of the population. Rafael de La-Hoz: Contemporary European Architecture and the Córdoba Proportion The project takes the form of an exhibition and a season of lectures on The Córdoba Proportion, suggesting the existence of an actual proportion not hitherto examined, based on the properties of the octagon; the lectures will also focus on the life and work of the distinguished Córdoba architect Rafael de La-Hoz Arderios, author of the 1973 study on this subject. Despite its local name, this proportion is to be found in buildings all over the world. The exhibition seeks to explain the relationship between contemporary architecture and the Córdoba Proportion from the perspective of its cultural impact and repercussions. One major theme of the programme, Córdoba in the World, focuses on the understanding and recognition of Europe as a common project, proposing new approaches to shared phenomena: aspects of common history, migratory movements, population displacement and multiple processes of dissemination, all seen as factors promoting fertility and mutual enrichment. Specific mention must be made of economic exile; an enormous number of emigrants left Córdoba during the 1950s and 1960s for other parts of Spain, Europe and America in search of better livelihoods. This painful fracture gave rise to a complex process of integration, which prompted innovative elements when the emigrants returned home. All this is particularly significant today, when Córdoba, like Spain and Europe, is becoming a destination for immigrants; the recognisable parallel with the emigration of local residents years ago should serve as the basis for integration and the recognition of diversity.

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In this context, specific historical events will be researched and reappraised, including the intra-European establishment of colonies, which contributed to the shape of modern-day Europe as well as marking the history and culture of many villages in the province of Córdoba; these colonies – La Carlota, Fuente Palmera and San Sebastián de los Ballesteros – were founded by Central European settlers as part of a policy implemented in the late eighteenth century under Charles III. Part of that reappraisal is to be found in the project The Carolinian route through the new settlements: the Road to Enlightenment, proposed by the Córdoba Provincial Council. This route, in the form of an exhibition, aims to highlight the special cultural and historical characteristics that still link these villages with their origins, such as Southern Germany (Alsace and Lorraine), Flanders or the Italian Tyrol, and to analyse possible shared features. Another major theme of the programme refers expressly to Europe’s common culture, and its component projects seek primarily to highlight the central elements shared by European cultures, for example: The Voice of the Emotions A season of concerts and recitals revolving around the relationship between the word in song and the world of emotions and passions, particularly love, in both classical and contemporary music. The repertoire will be very broad, including Spanish carols for voice and vihuela, and English Renaissance songs for voice and lute, as well as some twentieth-century lieder. It will also include non-religious cantatas on the theme of love (many of Handel’s Italian cantatas), and various operas and arias from operas, as well as more contemporary work by composers that use the word to transmit emotions. The repertoire of modern singer-songwriters will also be covered. The aim is to highlight and link common elements in the musical repertoire of different European countries and seek their equivalents in other continents.

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Dada Attitude If there is one artistic movement, particularly belonging to the European avant-garde, which cannot be reduced to a simple artistic sphere, it is Dada. Since its appearance, the movement has above all defined an attitude, a “way of life”, a way of thinking and acting. To coincide with the centenary of its appearance in 1916, the project proposes to take a look back at the movement; not from the historical point of view, but by charting the marks and traces it has left on the arts today. In the Shadows of Seneca, contemporary meditations in Europe Seneca is an essential cultural figure in European history. His capacity for reflection and meditation not only on the conditions and the context of his time, but also on the human condition, inform this whole project. Both areas of reflection (context and man) will be addressed in an extensive season of lectures by some of the major thinkers of our time. Part of the project will involve a broad reflection on Europe and the main challenges confronting the Union. The other part will explore how and what Europe thinks, what its concerns are, and how to construct values. The shadow of Seneca favours and provides a particular context for reflection, a way of tackling – through meditation – the question of how we should live in Europe. The Dream of the City and the Urban Imagination This is an exhibition project that will explore the urban condition through a reconstruction of those attributes and experiences that define the “urban” as identity. This theme will be approached through the view of the city provided by international artists and their conception of how these attributes should be reconstructed. The artists will review issues such as links, the place, mobility, limits, sociabilities, the collective imagination, flows, and cyberspace as a new public place.

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Reflections of Themselves: the Suburbs of Europe Parallel to, and supplementing, the contemporary art exhibition described above, this broad programme will include scientific meetings, exhibitions, a season of lectures, as well as scientific and popular publications. Given the unique characteristics of a city like Córdoba, any study of its suburbs, or areas of urban expansion, will find itself facing a dense, complex and unique archaeological heritage. This makes it a perfect “laboratory of experiences” which can lay the groundwork for a better understanding of the historical heritage, that can be extrapolated to other European cities with similar characteristics.


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· Can you specify how this event could help to strengthen the city’s links with Europe? Now the time has come to share with Europe and the rest of the world our historical legacy; a cultural, human and symbolic heritage that, in turn, forms part of the European memory. The citizens of Europe must be given the chance to discover that legacy, that part of its history that – though it shapes our collective outlook – has not yet had the chance to receive the attention it deserves. Córdoba offers visitors from Europe and beyond a vital, unique experience, to which everyone is entitled: a chance to enjoy a Baroque Cathedral nestling within an ancient Mosque, a chance to wander through the Jewish Quarter, and cross a Roman bridge to visit the new Centre of Contemporary Art. A ten-minute stroll takes in two thousand years of common European history. Only Córdoba can provide this trip through time and space. In designating Córdoba the European Capital of Culture, Europe will be acknowledging its own ability to create and communicate, its own determination to grow and adapt to today’s rapid changes. Córdoba is a medium-sized European city which has sought to nurture, protect and respect its heritage in order to bequeath it to the rest of the world; at the same time it has endeavoured to reflect the values and objectives of today’s Europe. This common undertaking deserves to be recognised, so that the citizens of Europe can identify and rediscover themselves here, in this welcoming city that is also theirs.

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Explain how the event could meet the criteria listed below. Please substantiate your answer for each of the criteria (this question must be answered in greater detail at the final selection stage). As regards “City and Citizens”, how does the city intend to ensure that the programme for the event: · attracts the interest of the population at European level Thanks to its heritage and its cultural wealth, Córdoba is one of that small group of ancient European cities in which the history of Europe can be appreciated by all five senses. This is borne out by the fact that UNESCO declared the Old Town a World Heritage site. Córdoba therefore already appeals to European citizens, as is evidenced by data from the Andualusian Institute of Statistics, showing that the city received 715,266 visitors in 2008.

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· The bid has various tools at its disposal to arouse the interest of European citizens between 2012 and 2016:

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With regard to programme content: The Córdoba 2016 cultural programme seeks to work towards several key objectives with a view to attracting the interest of European citizens: ·

To identify specific aspects of Córdoba’s past that could be considered crucial for the history of Europe, and to highlight the city’s leading figures in art and culture, figures whose work and ideas were so influential that they could reasonably be called European – or even universal – thinkers and creators.

·

To rescue “local heroes”, i.e. to highlight the work of local figures who – though less famous than their colleagues – made famous contributions to European culture. Extrapolating this local dichotomy, the project sought to reappraise some of the “major figures missing from the history of Europe”, both in the run-up period 2012-2015, and more particularly in 2016. To highlight Córdoba’s distinctive features and its heritage, in order to raise European awareness of a city which has left its mark on the history and culture of Europe. To present a programme of contemporary culture, whilst respecting the city’s history and heritage, according to a single overarching principle: to activate the future through the past. To establish contacts with the main cultural organisations and foundations at European level. Between 2012 and 2015, i.e. during the run-up to the ECoC year, Córdoba will be involved in coproducing activities jointly with the European Capitals of Culture designated for those years, wth a view to attracting the interest of the inhabitants of those cities. To provide, as part of the programme, projects and events which highlight the authentic appeal and charm of Andalusian culture, a culture which has long been of interest to Europe, yet sometimes proves difficult to find due to the forgeries that abound.


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With regard to tourism: Since 2001, the city has been making major efforts to develop and improve its quality as a tourist destination: through the Plan for Tourism Excellence backed by the local, regional and national authorities and the Córdoba Business Confederation, and cofinanced through European funds (ERDF and ESF); and later through the Strategic Plan for Tourism covering the period 20092012. Public initiatives aimed at improving communications infrastructure, and private initiatives seeking to expand hotel and catering capacity and the availability of leisure pursuits have combined to make Córdoba a uniquely appealing city. The tools available for this purpose include: 1 The creation of synergies for promotion between the two main tourism-promoting organisations, the Tourism Consortium – covering the city of Córdoba – and the Provincial Tourist Board, covering all the municipalities in the province. Both organisations take part in the major national, European and international tourism trade fairs. To create synergies with the main networks of which Córdoba is a member: the World Heritage Cities Group, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the Regional Secretariat of the Organisation of World Heritage Cities (OWHC) for Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the network of Jewish Quarters, as well as around twenty national and international cultural networks covering Latin America, the Mediterranean coast and the rest of Europe. 2 To arrange special rates with public transport bodies and hotels, so that young people can travel to Córdoba and stay here at affordable prices. 3 To arrange with tour operators for travel packages to include tickets for specific events in the cultural programme, thus encouraging a continuous flow of visitors between Córdoba and the major tourist resorts on the coast of Andalusia. c

With regard to communications: The marketing and communications strategy seeks not only to publicise the event itself, but also to foster a new way of promoting the city through its links to culture, seen from a participatory and sustainable perspective.

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The communications plan envisaged for Córdoba 2016 aims to make use of all the tools available (to date), and especially of those based on new technologies. We seek to communicate, to raise awareness, and to foster a certain pride in belonging, at European level, through the following strategies: 1 Creating a European network of ambassadors for Córdoba 2016 comprising journalists from the 27 member states of the European Union, who will be charged with the task of transmitting information about Córdoba and its cultural programme in their respective countries. 2 Contracting a communications and public relations agency with European scope which will help us to publicise the European Capital of Culture in a more efficient way both at a national and international level. 3 Organising press trips for groups of European and international journalists with the aim of deepening their understanding of the area and encouraging them to experience its many charms. 4 Running marketing campaigns that promote the city and its cultural programme to visitors and tourists, placing special emphasis on those activities that underline the European dimension of the project and events that cross national boundaries. 5 Presentations and exhibitions in foreign cities (such as at international tourism fairs), receptions of international missions, advertising campaigns on international television stations and websites, articles in international publications and the distribution of printed matter. The plan is to focus efforts especially on cities that will host the European Capital of Culture between 2011 and 2015, to reap the benefits of synergy with the communication campaigns of the cities already designated. 6 Preparing a regular e-newsletter in several languages (a minimum of Spanish, English and Polish) to which European citizens can subscribe in order to access real-time information. 7 ECoC events-related information for European citizens, at least in English and Polish, through the website, e-mail and social networks, and also using traditional advertising channels such as the press, radio, television, publications and posters.

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8 During the run-up years (2012-2015), special emphasis will be placed on reinforcing the city’s visibility and its attractions at European and international level. To this end, the programme will devote each of the years, from the time of designation up to 2016, to a different continent, in such a way that between 2012 and 2015 the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania will be honoured, while 2016, year of the European Capital of Culture, will be dedicated to Europe itself. The programming of proposals and activities from each continent will be complemented by institutional trips to get to know the city; at the same time, presentations will be held in each of the continents with the aim of promoting and publicising the Córdoba 2016 project and its values.

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· Encourages the participation of artists, stakeholders in the sociocultural scene and the inhabitants of the city, its surroundings and the area involved in the programme Córdoba’s bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2016 comprises rather more than just a series of cultural activities whose implementation is to a greater or lesser extent assured. The organisation of an event on this scale requires that all the projects share a common thread, reflecting the objectives of a programme that seeks to contribute to building Europe and the European Union, highlighting the common values of the citizens within a shared framework of agreement and institutional cooperation. We also feel that the very process of drawing up the programme for this bid must faithfully reflect the spirit of participation which is a hallmark feature of the city’s identity and one of the basic pillars of the bid. From the outset, emphasis has been placed on team work, on a transversal approach, so that the end result will be specific and idiosyncratic. People of varying beliefs and outlooks – from the world of culture and from other walks of life – have worked together in a coordinated manner to capture and set down exactly what it is that Córdoba can contribute to Europe, and what Europe can contribute to Córdoba. From the outset, the Córdoba 2016 project has worked actively with local creators – and especially with the youngest creators – to enliven the city’s cultural scene. Many activities would not have been feasible without that collaboration: publishing books and CDs; supporting tours and concerts by local bands; running exhibitions and art installations.


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In March 2010, the exhibition 16 Icons for 2016 displayed 16 works by local artists, selected from a total of 102 entries to an ideas competition held in 2009. The aim was to support the production and dissemination of innovative projects in the different fields of contemporary creativity and encourage the involvement of local artists in Córdoba’s ECoC bid. The result was highly satisfactory in terms of the quality and diversity of the entries, which included a multitude of formats, from photography, video and sculpture, to urban furniture, public installations and the creation of objects related to games. All these initiatives form part of a long-standing collaboration between the Córdoba 2016 project and creators both in Córdoba and beyond the city. With regard to the cultural programme presented here, many of these projects have been selected following a public call for ideas, which took place between December 2009 and March 2010. A total of 191 proposals were received, of which 100 were approved by the Drafting Committee; of these, 47% were submitted by citizens, grass-roots organisations, cultural agents or independent associations. For the drafting of this dossier, it was decided at the start that, rather than a closed process, local people should be invited to contribute as much as possible. To this end, a call for ideas was issued, prompting a massive response; ideas and suggestions poured into the offices of the Foundation responsible for coordinating the project. Selection was based on a set of indicators, to make sure that all the activities chosen would together constitute a consistent whole. This work was supervised by international experts. Córdoba is presenting a project in which dialogue – between artistic dicsiplines and between the participating institutions – is a core element. By taking full advantage of the pooled resources provided by all the city’s institutions, of coproductions and synergies, this initiative has become one in which the whole is substantially greater than the sum of its parts. In this respect, special emphasis has been placed on the relationship between neighbouring cities in the province and the region, with which Córdoba is gradually developing very fertile links. As a result, we favour a modus operandi that includes local artists, cultural operators and citizens, together with four million people living less than an hour away from Córdoba.

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· is sustainable and an integral part of the longterm cultural and social development of the city? The concept of culture as the fourth pillar of sustainability has been gradually acknowledged, and is now widely accepted; the other three pillars are the environment, economy and society. Córdoba’s ECoC bid adopts this principle, arguing that culture is the structure that supports and transforms the city, society and social organisations. Supporting and transforming, a twofold vision that applies and guarantees the basic principle of sustainable development: “meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (1). We understand sustainability as the fostering of an environment capable of generating cultural activities in the broadest sense. The model proposed for Córdoba does not focus exclusively on the year 2016, but rather uses this milestone as a means of consolidating processes that have been running for over ten years. In addition to the programme of activities drawn up specifically for 2016, we seek to establish productive processes that will make culture, thereafter, the real heart of the city’s progress. Not merely as the definition of a certain kind of tourism, or of a given form of economic activity, but as a value in itself, regardless of any positive external benefits that it may, and should, generate. For this reason, in 2016, Córdoba intends to lead the debate on the social value of culture in itself. This commitment to stability is particularly evident in the fact that the infrastructure created to support the activities scheduled during Cultural Capital year will be maintained and will continue to generate added value over future decades; none of the facilities will lose their significance once the year is over. Cultural centres being built now will remain open after 2016, regardless of whether or not Córdoba is named Cultural Capital of Europe.

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This insistence on sustainability is also evident in the name of the organising body: the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, i.e. with no reference to 2016. Although its regulations state that the collective aspiration is to be named ECoC, there is also a commitment to continuity, in that the aim of the Foundation is to guide Córdoba towards the creative route. Indeed, Córdoba’s ECoC bid has given rise to a whole new framework of relationships between existing cultural institutions, facilitating joint endeavours.

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10 How does the city plan to get involved in, or create

synergies with, the cultural activities supported by the European Institutions? The changes outlined earlier have prompted new approaches to creative praxis that demand a new model of cultural management based on institutional coproduction, whose main aim is to implement ambitious, original and innovative projects that reach the largest possible audience. In short, the ECoC project seeks to encourage an active policy of “strategic alliances”, based on joint productions and applicable to the culture programme as well as to other spheres; previous experience in Córdoba, and in the cultural programming process as a whole, suggests that this modus operandi can readily be applied to the ECoC in all its aspects. This working method requires a number of changes in the day-to-day routine of cultural managers and mediators: ·

·

First, it requires the drafting of a long-term programme, which means reconciling programme-related interests with the work schedules of the coproducing institutions (something which cannot be improvised), and scheduling proposals with considerable notice (at least one or two years), which is not the usual practice in public administration. Second, most proposals involve the contracting of productions, and the erection of the site-specific facilities required by the programme; management bodies will thus become responsible – among other things – for the production of shows and exhibitions. This requires greater communication among curators, producers, and those responsible for publicising the events in question; it also means that the staff involved in the whole process, from coordination to production, need to receive some specific training.

Since the burden is borne by various bodies (e.g. management, production, coordination, exhibition, catalogue publication), more is made of these efforts, in purely economic terms and in terms of cultural dissemination, than if they were the work of a single institution. Two kinds of strategic alliances are envisaged: 1 One-off, project-specific alliances that are sufficiently ambitious and of sufficiently high quality to attract coproducing partners. The scale of the project is unimportant: the greater the relevance, the easier it will be to find partners. The strategy of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation has been to identify topics, arguments and projects sufficiently interesting, relevant and universal in scope to attract potential . 2 This is a much more integrated form of alliance, since it addresses present and future cultural activities, and is therefore sustainable; it seeks to emulate the production system as well as a semi-organic management system. The aim is to establish a network of cultural organisations in Spain and Europe sharing a common philosophy, with a view to developing a medium- and long-term strategic alliance, that will function before, during, and after 2016. The idea is based on the principle that all associated institutions should be considered as a single unit with several locations; as a result, each manager can count on teams and materials provided by other members of the alliance. A practical example of this laborious yet effective working method, which combines coproduction, networking, interculturalism and sustainability, is provided by the first Averroes Philosophy Meetings, under the title The Córdoba Paradigm: One Culture, Three Religions, to be held in Córdoba from 3-5 February 2011. These meetings, promoted by the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, are the fruit of a joint production involving the Córdoba Arabic House and the UNESCO Chair in the Resolution of Conflict at the University of Córdoba.

The Rencontres d´Averroès, initially held in Marseille, began 16 years ago with the aim of examining current thinking and politics, through the teachings of the world-famous Córdoba philosopher Averroes. The aim is not to view these issues from a historicist perspective, but to show how his teachings – for example on the meeting of cultures – are still relevant in the European agenda of today. Given his evident links with Córdoba and the Muslim world, the cities of Marseille, Córdoba and Rabat have created a permanent, network-based structure for international joint productions, with the aim of enlarging this legacy of dialogue and tolerance. All the papers presented will focus on the past, present and future of Córdoba as a centuries-old model of religious and cultural coexistence. The Teatro Cómico Principal will be the setting for this event, which will include two international round tables, a season of films at the Andalusian Film Institute, a keynote lecture by Juan Goytisolo and a series of workshops on political ethics, run by the celebrated Iranian professor Ramin Jahanbegloo. The event will close on 5 February with a concert at Córdoba’s Gran Teatro. Consistent with the philosophy underlying this bid – which seeks to ensure the sustainability of the projects implemented – it has been decided that this should be an ongoing activity, thenceforth to be organised by the Casa Árabe. For the run-up period from 2012 to 2015, Córdoba aims to establish coproductions with the cities designated European Capital of Culture for those years. To take a single example, preliminary contacts have already been established between Córdoba and Riga (Latvia), the European Capital of Culture in 2014.

Within the framework of the Riga 2014 project, the Latvian National Library is preparing an exhibition on the history of the printed book, charting European written history from the Renaissance onwards. In this context, the organisers consider that a presentation of European culture prior to that time would be a valuable addition; this would stress the cultural role of al-Ándalus, as embodied in scholars like Averroes y Maimónides, and also the survival of the knowledge of the Greek philosophers in European culture thanks to Arabic translations. Córdoba’s heritage as a cultural capital on a continental scale between the tenth and thirteenth centuries would thus be promoted in Riga, through collaboration with the Latvian National Library and also the National Museum of Riga. The exhibition would have a regional dimension, since it is set to travel to the other Baltic countries.


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11 Are some parts of the programme designed for

particular target groups (young people, minorities, etc.)? Please specify. The cultural programme proposed in this bid, reflecting the desire to build an inclusive and supportive city, is presented as a multi-dimensional structure, capable of integrating historical elements and established cultural formats whilst at the same time enabling culture and creation to follow a pattern of “disseminated proliferation”. The idea is that a pop concert or a theatrical production should have the twofold aim of revealing the truth enclosed in a work, and enabling the momentary formation of a group by the very act of performing. This awareness applied to a programme of events should be compatible with the idea that the future, in terms of culture and creation, lies in diversity through encounters with new and different worlds. This can only be achieved through a framework of integrated action, aimed at structuring a certain model of city – in this case a southern city characterised by cultural diversity and citizen participation. For all these reasons, it should be stressed that the project – apart from ensuring the participation of these groups in specific activities – has made physical and economic accessibility a key element of the ECoC event as a whole. Many specific cultural projects targeting young people have used the bid as their springboard, working in collaboration with the Youth Department and the Mayor’s Office of Córdoba City Council. The Youth Department has been carrying out initiatives aimed at encouraging creativity among young people, through innovative schemes such as the 24-student Rehearsal Courses, for which the former premises of the Municipal Institute for Economic Development and Employment (IMDEEC) will be turned into rehearsal rooms for young musicians or aspiring actors wanting to rehearse; basic training will also be provided in other fields.

Meanwhile the Mayor’s Office is planning to implement a new project under the name of Circular, outlined earlier. The programme of events will be drawn up by young artists from Córdoba and all over Europe, in collaboration with local cultural groups with the aim of promoting the work of young emerging artists and the fostering of culture as a leisure option amongst young people At the same time, with a view to encouraging the involvement of young people and thus generating a new public for cultural events, the Culture Network programmes, organised in various districts of the city, will be reinforced, and their creative framework will be strengthened. Professionalisation programmes will be implemented for creators in a range of fields. The future Centre for Contemporary Creation, a high-performance art centre, will offer high level training programmes for emerging artists both in and beyond the city. Numerous local institutions do a superb job in keeping with these efforts, and offer a wide range of assistance to youthful creativity that over the last decade has paid real dividends. A clear example of this is the Antonio Gala Foundation, which for over eight years has been awarding residency grants to Young Creators from various backgrounds. For its part the Rafael Botí Foundation has been awarding sculpture grants to young artists born or living in the city or province of Córdoba for 15 years, as well as giving significant economic support to the creative projects of local artists regardless of age. The city council has also contributed with the Córdoba Fine Arts Grant, an important award in financial terms and linked originally to the Ángel Prizes for painting, as well as providing a powerful boost to Andalusian creators through the Andalusia Regional Council’s Iniciarte programme. Taken together, and despite the effects of the economic crisis, they constitute an important set of initiatives that have helped to support the work of emerging artists.

Sport and youth are undoubtedly a core aspect of citizen involvement. For that reason, the decision by the Executive Committee of the European University Sports Association to make the University of Córdoba the venue for the 1st European University Championships, taking place in the city between 13 and 21 July 2012, is an extremely important one. This event will be based on the model of the Universiade, or World Student Games, and will bring together over 3,000 university sportsmen and women.

The inclusive nature of the city involves a special awareness of children and young people. Children are an excellent indicator of the city’s skill in rendering it inhabitable, accessible, shared and inclusive. We should like to highlight in this report three dimensions that illustrate this inclusive character. Firstly, the actions carried out in the city itself: secondly, the municipal support provided to the educational system and to the cultural development of children; and lastly, their inclusion in participation mechanisms.

Another group that deserves specific attention is that of senior citizens. According to the 2005 census, there are 48,740 senior citizens over the age of 65 residing in the city (29,292 women and 19,448 men), which represents an ageing index of 15.09%. The increase in life expectancy and the age of retirement, which is currently set at 65, has given rise to a social group of senior citizens that is increasingly important and necessary to cultural activity in our cities. Aware of this, in addition to the different social support programmes that facilitate the integration into citizen life, Córdoba has established a specific strategy aimed at ensuring that its senior citizens act as agents in the cultural life of the city, becoming what is known in sociological terms as an active elderly community.

This is reflected, firstly, in the city itself. The commitment of the city to establish a progressive humanisation of its physical space is being put into practice through a number of actions principally aimed at restricting motorised traffic in a large part of the old town, with a clear priority given to pedestrians in this area, and with children as the principal beneficiaries. This policy is complemented by an extensive network of urban parks, and specifically children’s play areas. According to a study carried out by the magazine Eroski Consumer in 2010, the children’s parks in Córdoba ranked among the highest in the country in terms of quality, with a good level of maintenance. An example of this commitment can be seen in The Children’s City, a large children’s park and playground with an area of 45,000 square metres and 22 rides and attractions, with leisure and educational activities. This centre, together with the Zoo, the Botanical Gardens and the Environmental Education Centre (under construction), form a large educational space in one of the best parts of the city.

This strategy is being implemented at a number of different levels, e.g. through a range of specific actions for promoting reading (guided tours of municipal libraries, reading clubs, home-delivery reading services for senior citizens with difficulties….), and discounts for municipal cultural events. Here it is worth highlighting the agreement that enables senior citizens to attend the events showing at the Gran Teatro with discounts of up to 80%. A particularly interesting feature is the existence of the Inter-generational University Department for Senior Citizens, the result of an agreement between the City Council, the University of Córdoba and the Department of Equality of the Andalusian Regional Council. The training activities directed at this population segment began in 1997 at the University of Córdoba and were subsequently formalised with the creation of the “Francisco Santisteban” University Chair.

Córdoba is a member of the Network of Educating Cities, and implements a wide range of cultural activities designed for children. The Council runs numerous educational programmes addressing various social, cultural and environmental issues, reaching out to thousands of schoolchildren. Attention is also drawn to the far-reaching municipal programmes aimed at supporting the education system through the prevention of truancy, socio-educational support, family support, and skills training.


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This chapter will provide two examples: the Municipal Central Library programme and facilities, and a specific children’s theatre programme, produced by the Avanti company. Córdoba boasts an innovative children’s library with a wide programme of activities. The theatre company runs a permanent children’s programme at its own theatre, and also takes part in many of the city’s cultural activities, thereby generating a space for children in major cultural events. A third aspect which illustrates Córdoba’s commitment to include its children in its participatory approach is the creation of the Children’s Council. This is a City Council initiative and is a specific mechanism, similar to the councils already described in this document, in which the children in Córdoba can be involved in the decisions that affect them. In today’s world, a city cannot be considered as inclusive if it does not take into account those citizens with disabilities or mobility problems by attempting to eliminate the “chain of obstacles” that hinder their integration, and by promoting specific actions to positively influence the circle comprising: Information-Communication-Transport-Town Planning-Architecture. With respect to the role of people or groups of people with disabilities as active participants, having met the requirements with respect to access to information and communication and accessibility to the installations, these people may participate on equal terms by forming part of general initiatives or making specific contributions. In this light, it is worth mentioning the previous experience of people or groups with hearing (theatre and dance), visual (theatre and music) or physical disabilities (poetry recitals or installations). During ECoC year, a Work Group will be established specifically to monitor the development of the project in terms of its approach to accessibility and disabled people, strengthening coordinated action between the Municipal Areas involved and the Council experts in accessibility and disability. The aim is to ensure the specific monitoring of work carried out, and when – due to justified and understandable causes, related to the nature of the event itself or to a physical or technical impossibility – a person cannot take part unaided in an event or service, there will be a team of properly- trained voluntary workers to collaborate with the Disabled People requesting their help.

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The ECoC will provide the stimulus to improve access for the disabled, and at the same time to empower them as active agents in the process. Good Practice criteria will be observed in public events; needs in terms of access to information and communications will be diagnosed with input from the various agents involved, including – as primary agents – disabled people’s associations. Participation of these associations will be enhanced through the services of a specific advisor, and with the assistance of trained volunteers who will provide the required help when unavoidable circumstances mean that disabled people cannot take part unaided in an ECoC event. In practice, efforts will focus on the following: a

With respect to access to information and communication: The ECoC will put in place a whole battery of specific tools in order to ensure that everyone can find out the “what, how, when, where and with what” of the initiatives and programmes. b

With respect to transport: The ECoC will foster continued work on adapting all elements of public transport and taxis, and will encourage the necessary adaptations to be made regarding access at taxi ranks and parking facilities for people with limited mobility. c

With respect to town planning and architecture: Work will continue on the removal of barriers or obstacles from existing buildings, together with the incorporation of positive good practice measures in the design and execution of new projects. This project will also take into account the informal carers for dependent people who devote over 70% of their time to this activity and who – in practice – are usually left out. It will also focus, to a lesser extent, on parents with young children, whose dedication may be less timeconsuming, but who usually only have access to childrelated cultural activities. For them, in Córdoba we have considered the possibility of creating permanent time banks, within the framework of two plans that have already been developed by the city (Municipal Equality Plan and Support Plan for Carers) to help these people, if not to participate fully in the process, then at least to regularly enjoy the cultural events available in the city.

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Other barriers also need to be borne in mind: those affecting social groups, such as Gypsies and immigrants – who for social or economic reasons are unable to access cultural activities on the same footing as others. The city’s history and its heritage embody a high degree of tolerance based on the mixing of cultures; for that reason it is all the more important to see and accept those cultures as a contribution to the richness inherent in mixed cultures: diversity, difference as an added value for cultural life, rather than grounds for exclusion. There are areas of Córdoba where residents are facing, or are at risk of facing, social exclusion. Whilst localised social exclusion is a thing of the past, the socioeconomic situation of some neighbourhoods requires specific attention. En route to 2016, we plan to develop musical activities in a systematic manner, providing training and creating permanent infrastructure as well as flamenco and fusion circuits, thus reflecting the distinctive identities of the other cultures which live together – not always harmoniously – in these neighbourhoods. We seek to encourage the incorporation and circulation of these emerging cultural movements into the ECoC project, not as a centripetal drive, but as part of a process of exchange and recognition , of fusion and mutual enrichment. This will be achieved by making full use of the solid participatory tradition in these areas, where decisions are taken and strategies shaped. One distinctive feature of Córdoba’s identity that is apparent in many aspects of local everyday life is the desire to construct a friendly city that integrates every group or minority that forms part of it. It is therefore essential to analyse one of the most representative and relevant communities in the history of Córdoba: the Gypsies, the fifth culture whose presence is added to that of the Romans, Muslims, Jews and Christians.

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The central role of this ethnic group is well-known throughout Andalusia in both quantitative and qualitative terms. According to estimates by the Gypsy Secretariat Foundation, around 50% of Spanish gypsies live in Andalusia (around 700,000 of the 12,000,000 residents in the 27 member states of the EU). This group represents an important element of the Andalusian identity and culture, something which is internationally identified and recognised. In fact, it is one of the places in Europe in which this group has shaped a more defined profile with a greater weight in the symbolic imagination of the community. All of this, which is true for the whole of Andalusia, is equally true for Córdoba, a province in which, according to the same source, 15,000 gypsies live; 8,000 in the city itself, essentially in the districts of Moreras, Palmeras, Polígono Guadalquivir, Fuensanta and the Old Town. The democratic era has brought with it a boost to the integration of the Gypsy minority, which in Córdoba has been reflected in specific policies and the creation of active associations. Through these tools, a network has been established that actively participates in the development of municipal social policies designed to improve the living conditions of this minority community This initiative has been recognised by other institutions, and the Gypsy population itself invited the European Commission to hold its 2nd European Summit on Actions and Policies to favour the Roma Population in Córdoba, on 8 and 9 April 2010. At the summit, the European Commission Communication on the Social and Economic Integration of the Roma Population was approved. Within this context the Unión Romaní Española (Spanish Roma Union) organised an event to support the Córdoba ECoC bid, in the Plaza de la Corredera on 7 April. The Gypsy association that defended this proposal considers Córdoba as “a mosaic of cultures”, and is committed to organising “a series of events in the city until 2016, which will culminate in a world Gypsy congress”, according to its Secretary General, Manuel García Rondón. The Córdoba 2016 campaign will support the Romani Union in its commitment, will include and promote Gypsy cultural proposals in its programme, and will ensure, through the municipal networks, the full participation of this group in the 2016 activities.


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Another issue to be borne in mind is that of immigration, since today Córdoba is starting to become a destination for immigrants forced from their countries by hunger, wars and dictatorships; they come mainly from Latin America, Africa and a large part of Asia; even so, Córdoba is still one of the Spanish provinces with fewest immigrants. Social initiatives at local level in Córdoba give priority to the integration of the immigrant population: first, by improving access to the standard network of services; and second, by raising awareness among local people about the importance of intercultural coexistence, and of understanding immigration as a structural, positive, enriching and necessary phenomenon. In order to achieve these objectives, Córdoba City Council – with input from all the city’s social, trade union, business and political organisations – designed the first consensus-based Municipal Immigration Plan 2006-2010, which was unanimously approved in the Plenary Session of 1 June 2006. This Plan defines the measures and actions to be taken with respect to immigration, aimed in general terms at the full integration of immigrants through the implementation of community-based preventive intercultural initiatives that enable and encourage the open reception of foreign nationals, and their inclusion in society and in community life on equal terms with local people, both in the city and in the surrounding area.

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Young people

Poetry as dialogue in Cosmopoética. The word as dialogue is not always a harmonious undertaking. Conflicting views and arguments are also part of dialogue; argument at its most extreme, denying the word itself and the possibility of dialogue, can become conflict. Different cultures have different forms of ritual in which poetry can defuse the potential violence of debate, and turn the spoken word into an aesthetic game, imbued with cultural value; throughout history, these forms – in their various guises – have come to characterise certain geographical areas. In Spanish, they include the modern rappers’ cockfights, the verdiales popular in the mountains around Málaga, the troveros in the province of Córdoba, and the various types of decimistas (versadores, payas) all over Latin America. Other European cultures are bound to have similar formulae. From the modern heirs of the sixteenth-century poet Vicente Espinel to the exponents of hip-hop, the project would examine the presence of this art in poetic/musical dialogue, in other European countries; a research, documentation and exchange network would be set up, culminating, in 2016, in an international meeting on poetic dialogue, which would thenceforth become an integral feature of the annual Cosmopoética programme.

Is Don Luis alive? Emulating – from a modern perspective – the symbolist poets of Paris and young Spanish poets of the ‘27 In short, the ECoC is clearly a management model which Generation, the project aims to examine Góngora’s life seeks to include everyone, paying special attention to and work through a series of poetic actions, both live minorities, as part of a non-hierarchical approach de- and online – such as the blog Góngora 2.0 – with a view signed to involve all the people and bodies that repre- to promoting the meeting of diversity, and a reflection sent new channels and media for cultural dissemination. on the relationship between modernism and tradition, between the legacy of a poetic language and the emWith regard to the specific programme for 2016, a major bracing of a plural, technological world very different to effort has been made to encompass all possible facets that of the author. of cultural activity, building on the positive experience of the Cosmopoética festival, thus ensuring not only Eutopía. International Young Creators’ Festival. an interdisciplinary approach but also the enhanced As indicated earlier, this international festival is an esintegration of different groups such as young people, sential event for young Spanish creators. senior citizens, children, the disabled, the Gypsy minority or the immigrant population. Details are provided below:

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Projectmylife This project seeks to generate, collect and disseminate videos, lasting one minute, in which citizens of every European country describe their daily lives. This vast document will be stored on a range of web-based platforms which will be responsible for disseminating the project. Copies will be used to draw up a European map of videos on the Internet. The project aims to explore new production, communication and distribution formats, tapping the new potential of technology allied to culture. Córdoba in the River This involves the creation of an infrastructure (linked cameras and projectors) which will exploit the enormous potential of the river. The River Guadalquivir – a physical setting of great environmental, urban and landscape value – will host key social and cultural events during the ECoC, whilst the infrastructure will be linked up to the Internet, the universal social network, thus fully exploiting its immeasurable capacity. In short, this project will connect Córdoba with the world. Senior citizens

At the border: eighteenth-century Polish Orientalism Parallel activities will also be organised for a whole range of audiences, with a view to exploring in depth all aspects of Orientalism, one such activity will be an exhibition of family photographs with an Orientalist inspiration. The Sky Within My House. Contemporary art in the courtyards of Córdoba This project seeks to revive an earlier experiment in which the courtyard tradition was combined with the contemporary view of the artists involved. In this way, the dialogue between public and private, and the division between the traditional and modern, are expressed in new idioms and for a new public, attracted by the courtyards themselves. Sixteen international artists will again be invited to exhibit their work in sixteen Córdoba couryards, most of whose owners are elderly and will thus be able to participate in the project.

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Children

The Córdobas Route A bilingual educational package in Spanish and English, based on the route, will be produced for use in schools in Spanish Córdoba and in the different Córdobas around the world. The Carolinian route through the new settlements: the Road to Enlightenment In order to enable the younger generations to learn the dances brought by settlers from Central Europe, and thus prevent their dying out in the future, workshops will be held in schools in the villages concerned, where children would have an opportunity to learn the dances. From Poland to Córdoba. The Voyage of the Goths To complete the programme, children’s activities and games will be organised so that the younger generations can learn more about this important period of history. Dada Attitude Amongst other activities, a series of games will be organised in order to enable children to find out about this art movement. Flamenco from A to Z The project envisages a series of lectures about Flamenco, its history and its multiple forms, together with presentations and concerts covering the different palos or genres, and the production of teaching package entitled Palos, from A to Z, to be used in schools and colleges throughout the province. A number of other activities will be aimed at children and young people: The Route of the First Umayyad Real-time updates on the journey will be available through the new social-network options (e.g. Twitter, Facebook). A blog will be set up in four languages (Spanish, Arabic, English and French) which will become the diary of the journey. The exhibition will be shown in Córdoba and subsequently in the countries visited during the expedition. Educational material in Spanish and Arabic will also be sent to those countries, for use in schools as a means of strengthening links between Córdoba and the cities on the route.


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Disabled people

The Gypsy population

Under the Eyes of Europe The installation, in a public space in Córdoba, of a giant collage made of photographs taken by mentallydisabled people all over Europe. This mural will provide a representative image of Europe and its culture, and marks a serious attempt to foster the inclusion and integration of mentally-disabled people into the world of culture.

Flamenco from A to Z The bid will also foster initiatives aimed at encouraging the social inclusion of gypsy schoolchildren through Flamenco, in an attempt to address the truancy problem which is highly localised in certain districts of the city. The Workshop on Social Inclusion through Flamenco will thus become a means of integration in which the families themselves will help others to learn about the identifying features of the Gypsy race; over the last few years, other projects in this field, such as the Beat Workshop, have been remarkably successful. The workshop will run parallel to other schemes aimed at exploring the opportunities for fusion and exchange with music from Africa and South America. This course will provide training activities, but will also encourage concerts and promotional tours, which may lead to the setting up of culture companies and the creation of jobs in the music industry; in other words, the project has a sustainable future.

This will form part of a broader programme to include an exhibition on the coexistence of the three cultures in the city, and a season of concerts with performances by leading exponents of contemporary Christian, Muslim and Jewish music from all over the world.

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The Atlas of Córdoba This project, a tribute to the great European cartographer Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594), seeks to work at several creative and narrative levels (from contemporary art to creative expression by children and young people) in exploring the potential of cartography as a tool for thought, and charting the way in which maps articulate mental and symbolic images. The idea is to provide educational and creative possibilities for children and young people, who will produce their own maps and atlases, by giving spatial expression to the symbolic images they have or perceive of Córdoba, Europe and the world. The project will include the following specific activities: Networking involving 27 schools (one in each EU member State), where students will produce an atlas, as an exercise in imaginary geography. One institution in each country will help to coordinate the work. · Exhibition of work by contemporary artists based on cartography or on the idea of the mappa mundi, aimed at questioning our symbolic representations and offering alternative visions and readings. · Production of a photographic atlas of Europe. · Production of a set of 27 specially-made documentaries on the work of 27 European NGOs, with a view to examining the problems faced by each European country.

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A permanent information point will be set up in the place where the mural is mounted. It will be staffed by mentally-disabled people, who will be responsible for telling local people and visitors about how the project was created.

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The following programme comprises sections devoted to children, young people, and senior citizens: Journey to the Kingdom of Knowledge As indicated earlier, there will be three types of passport: for under-18s; for people aged 18-65; and for over-65s. Children who fill up their passport will receive educational prizes. Adult participants will be able to take part in a draw for one of four trips per year to the Polish European Capital of Culture, all expenses paid, with a full programme of visits.

Radio Collage The project aims to create an Internet-based radio station which will broadcast during 2016, covering the events taking place during the European Capital of Culture year. The philosophy is that this radio station will be an additional medium for artistic creation, and the Internet its home. It will be structured around sound sections posted on the Internet, so that the listener can download them as podcasts, thus producing a kind of sound map of creativity in the city. The geographical target will be the citizens, in the widest and most inclusive sense of the term, paying special attention to social minorities. The focus will be on Europe, with translations of the pieces into English, and with Latin America as an invited continent.

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The Roma, a European People As indicated earlier, the programme The Roma, a European People seeks to be a week-long meeting, around the 8th April 2016 (International Roma Day), at which Gypsies from all over Europe will be able show and share the various expressions of their culture (music, cooking, language, oral tradition, etc.). At the same time, local people and visitors will have a chance to discover and enjoy the work of Roma artists. The meeting will be supported by the Unión Romaní, a member of the International Romani Union (a UNrecognised organisation), whose first Euro MP was the Gypsy Juan de Dios Ramírez-Heredia, recently appointed International High Commissioner for Gypsy Affairs. The immigrant population

The Masks of the Three Cultures The proposal is for a review of one of Córdoba most distinctive features, the meeting of different cultures, through a season of plays. This is an opportunity to examine the traditional view of the relationship between Christians, Arabs and Jews, as well as adopting a new approach to the staging of Spanish classics.

Congress on African Literature in Spanish This meeting of critics, specialists and creators will have a twofold aim, focussing on knowledge and on recognition. In part, it seeks to delve deeper into this emerging literature, in which the common language acts as a channel for expressing unique experiences within the great tradition of Hispanic literature. During the congress, a number of supplementary activities will foster interaction with different audiences: concerts of African music, a food exhibition, and the screening of African films. Women Feed the World This project aims to highlight the fundamental role of women in feeding people, this being something that brings us together, something shared with most other cultures in the world. The project will comprise a touring exhibition of photographs of women from various countries fulfilling this role: women breastfeeding, country women labouring in the field to attain food self-sufficiency, women cooking, etc. The photographs will be collected in collaboration with other NGOs, women’s associations and local social groups. In addition, an intercultural coexistence day will be organised, which will enable local people to learn about representative dishes from the countries of origin of the immigrant population in the city and province of Córdoba. Finally, the transversal programme 2016: 1300 years of the legacy of al-Ándalus in Europe will be implemented throughout the year, comprising linked activities intended to explore more fully the various contributions of the culture of al-Ándalus to Western culture through different sectors of the population.


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12 What contacts has the city or the body responsible

for preparing the event established, or what contacts does it intend to establish, with: · cultural operators in the city? In order to ensure the participation of local cultural operators in the project, the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation has held regular meetings with a large group of public cultural programmers, many of whom are represented on the CCCF Advisory Committee, a consultative body chaired by Manuel Pérez Pérez and comprising a team of seven professionals with an impressive track record in the cultural sector. Regular meetings have also been held with private local cultural operators, with the attendance of artists, publishers, designers, specialised journalists, producers and cultural managers. Many of these professionals have submitted proposals for ECoC projects, which have been selected by the Drafting Committee. Similarly, 22 local photographers were involved in the production of this dossier, providing a database of pictures for the Córdoba 2016 project. The bid has also benefited from the participatory spirit of Córdoba’s local residents’ associations. Regular working sessions with the Al-Zahara Federation of Neighbourhood Associations and with the Citizens’ Movement Council have served to encourage their participation in the project. The bid has fostered a spirit of participation through events such as the Europe Day Festival. A total of 53 cultural activities, organised by 75 associations and neighbourhood groups, were held throughout the city, bringing culture to residents’ very doorsteps and making citizens themselves the protagonists.

The rationale of the project was to invite the entire city to celebrate Europe Day, while at the same time trying to ensure the greatest possible degree of participation from institutions and citizens. It was put together for and by local people, as it was they themselves who proposed the activities and thronged the streets dressed in blue. The whole of Córdoba wore the colour of Europe. The project started at 20:16 on 8th May, when a choir of students comprising 60 voices and accompanied by the Youth Orchestra of the “Rafael Orozco” School of Music sang and played the European hymn in Tendillas Square. Ambassadors and diplomatic representatives in Spain of 12 of the 27 EU states plus representatives from local and regional authorities and news media were in attendance. Following this performance, a wide programme of recreational and artistic activities was held simultaneously in 14 venues, covering all the city’s districts. This marks a shift from a project conceived as enabling participation to a project belonging to the people, one that is inherently participatory. This confirms the positive results stemming from the initial strategy of building a bid project that simultaneously runs top-down and bottom-up. The idea has been to give Córdoba 2016 a presence in every shop, office, home and restaurant in the city. On some occasions, such as the decision to decorate the Córdoba May Fair with the colours of Córdoba 2016 - blue and yellow - this has been a deliberate intervention. On other occasions, it has relied on a partnership with the people of Córdoba. The various Departments of the Córdoba City Council served as catalysts, and coordinated the participation of residents from all over the city; local schools and youth organisations also took part, as did the blue army of volunteers for Córdoba 2016.

As a way of highlighting the many events and performances held by the various neighbourhoods in Córdoba to celebrate Europe Day, an exhibition entitled Citizenship and Cultural Capital was arranged. On 26 June, in one of the main thoroughfares of the city, the cultural and artistic output of the festival was displayed in photographs, together with a sample of some of the works concerned. The event was supplemented by the distribution of information regarding the Córdoba 2016 project, performances of music, shows for children and workshops. In addition to the Europe Day Festival, many other activities organised over the last few years in support of the bid have been led– and continue to be led – by the citizens and by local cultural operators A good example is the Culture Network programme, which offers the whole city a wide range of cultural resources and activities (theatre, dance, photography...) to be carried out in the city’s various districts. Other examples are the many cultural programmes implemented over the last few years under the management of local cultural operators, including Cosmopoética, Eutopía, the White Night of Flamenco, Migrations. Art in translation, etc.

· cultural operators based outside the city In terms of the Córdoba 2016 project, the province should be seen not simply as a geographical area, but rather as the backdrop against which the city’s activities take place, as an extension of its outgoing approach. Aware that the European Capital of Culture scheme is primarily intended to benefit cities, and that it is within this framework that the main activities must take place, the province will also form part of the initiative in all its breadth and diversity. The ECoC event provides many opportunities, one of the most important being the opportunity to foster access to culture by groups not accustomed to taking part in cultural events. This is significant, since it means that they will no longer be mere consumers of culture, but will have a chance to generate cultural activities of their own (through projects, curatorships, their own productions), thus designing programmes for people and with people. At the same tine, the province boasts numerous archaeological sites, natural beauty spots, and picturesque villages, which already stimulate tourism, and could easily lead to cultural activity being an additional source of development. The ECoC provides an opportunity to generate a culture-management business working in areas different from those to be found at present (largely based on tourist circuits, visits to historical heritage sites and excursions to natural parks) by fostering an interest among city residents in exploring and discovering the province. There is already a coordinated network of activities in place focussing on contemporary art, organised by the Córdoba Provincial Council; this network has been integrated into the Córdoba in 16 mode programme promoted by the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation.


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In most of the villages, there is a long-standing tradition of cultural projects, whose sustainability is evident in their duration over time. With regard to contemporary art, there are five outstanding projects in the province that share a common aim: to exhibit avant-garde art in a rural context. Here, “rural” ceases to be synonymous with a given set of customs and traditions, and starts to be indicative of everything that is contemporary and progressive; the setting for groundbreaking, transgressive, innovative projects. Aptitudes, in La Rambla, is a project fostering citizen participation in contemporary culture; Dmencia, in Doña Mencía, focuses on experimental exhibitions and on the formation of a collection; Scarpia, in El Carpio, opts for interventions in the natural and urban landscape; Sensxperiment, in Lucena, is based on immersive experiments and sound art; and The Flight of Hypnos, in Almedinilla, offers a dialogue between contemporary art and historical heritage, through interventions carried out in the Roman village at Ruedo. In order to coordinate the management and logistics of these projects, activities are pooled under the common name of Peripheries. At the same time, the Visual Poetry Centre in Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo is implementing projects that represent a half-way point between contemporary art and literature. As indicated earlier, the Córdoba 2016 project seeks to embrace the whole of Andalusia. Córdoba’s central location in the region can serve as the foundation for a future network of cultural collaboration for the whole region, optimising the use of the region’s varied infrastructure as if it were a single project.

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· cultural operators based outside the country? Name some operators with whom cooperation is envisaged and specify the type of exchanges in question. (The answer to this question is optional at the pre-selection stage). The major focus of the Córdoba 2016 project is Spain and, as a priority, Europe. Within this operative framework, any cultural operator or body providing quality activities is welcome to be a partner in the ECoC project. The Córdoba 2016 project has considerable professional experience in the establishment of this kind of direct relationship with national and international bodies; the manager of the CCCF, Carlota Álvarez Basso, was the leading promoter and first President of the Spanish Association of Directors of Museums and Centres of Contemporary Art (ADACE), which was founded in 2003. That network was created following the example of similar experiments in other European countries. It was established as a professional forum for corporate dialogue, and as an organ of public opinion. The Association now has 31 Spanish members, including the country’s major institutions, and it functions as the regional branch of CIMAM (International Council of Museums of Modern Art),, itself a branch of ICOM (International Council of Museums). This wealth of professional experience – which amongst other things testifies to the fact that the greater the scale and scope of the projects, the easier it is to find partner organisations – places Córdoba in a privileged position in terms of contacts with any Spanish or European museum.

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It is perhaps too early to state which cultural institutions the ECoC could work with, leaving aside the specific projects that have already been outlined. It is more important, at this stage, to make clear that the working philosophy behind the cultural programme will involve specific coproductions regarding specific projects. To that end, it is essential to develop a long-term programme enabling the presentation of projects to most European cultural programmes, which might also be in a position to provide international funding as a complement to the contribution of the Melina Mercouri Prize. These bodies include: Culture Programme 2007–2013; Lifelong Learning; Citizens; Youth; Euromed Heritage; Media, URB–AL; UrbAct, Interreg; the European Neighbourhood Policy and the European Social Forum. Membership of existing European networks whose sphere of activity is close to that of this programme is also necessary: the European Festival Association, the Internacional Society for the Performing Arts, the European Composers’ Forum, Culture Action Europe, the Euro-Mediterranean and International Research Association, the European Network of Cultural Administration Training Research Centres, the European Music Council and other bodies which foster exchanges and cooperation between creators and cultural managers in different countries. In any case, it should be stressed that, if this bid is successful, one of the first appointments to the ECoC staff will be a specialist exclusively devoted to managing European project funding.

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13 In what way is the proposed project innovative?

Because of Córdoba’s projection as an intercultural city:

Córdoba is now – and will be even more by implementing all the initiatives envisaged for 2016 – a model of intercultural governance for Europe, in which passive intolerance is replaced by an active guarantee of human rights. A governance supported by the involvement of citizens’ associations, by the real participation of the city’s poorer districts, and by the transformation of public spaces, which will cease to be mere thoroughfares for consumers who avert their eyes from each other, and will become spaces where citizenship is built. Córdoba’s capacity to support concepts such as tolerance, constructive dialogue, interculturalism and peaceful coexistence, and its ability to project those concepts at international level, will enable the whole of Europe – in, before and after 2016 – to give these values both symbolic significance and tangible content. In doing so, Europe will be adopting a transnational and transcultural approach, while at the same time preserving the deep-rooted signs of Europe’s specific and distinctive features. Whilst it would be foolhardy to claim that during the period of al- Ándalus, the three religions – Judaism, Islam and Christianity – lived together without any sort of friction, we can nonetheless use the experience of Córdoba in the tenth century as a guide to steer us through the troubled waters of diversity. The Córdoba Paradigm, a term coined by the Iranian thinker Ramin Jahanbegloo in his text Border-Crossing and the Córdoba Paradigm, is not simply a legacy; it is an attitude, a commitment to synergy, to debate, to common projects that may well help us to meet two of the major challenges facing twenty-first century Europe: the universal exercising of the right to culture and the democratic coexistence of cultural identities.

Running parallel to the adoption and implementation of this approach, is the design of a common culture, open to dialogue and to other cultures; a culture which reflects the need for interculturalism and global integration, but nonetheless respects local and regional peculiarities. Interculturalism is understood here as a process of mutual transformation, a way of linking people together to create a common space, avoiding both an excessive attachment to their original cultures (which would lead to the emergence of monocultural spaces and hence to their isolation) and an excessive assimilation into the dominant culture. We believe that Córdoba’s ability to give tangible shape to its overwhelming symbolic legacy will meet many of the needs arising in a Europe whose society is rapidly changing in the new millennium; it will contribute to the building and convergence of a citizens’ Europe. Córdoba therefore offers itself to Europe as a platform, a meeting place, a permanent forum for debate on dialogue and interculturalism, as it was for the 2010 HighLevel Meeting on religious freedom, backed by the Alliance of Civilisations, and the European Commission Conference on the Roma people – referred to earlier – both of which took place under Spain’s six-month presidency of the European Union. Because of its participatory dynamics:

Participation is the most reliable indicator of a society’s self-confidence, of its capacity to argue with the powers that be, to look to the future, to harness the varying energies that make up any complex society, without that society risking any potential loss of information, language or identity. Today, every project, idea and proposal is grounded on participation, as a guarantee of democracy and a sine qua non of its feasibility. We fully understand this now; and Córdoba understood it – perhaps unwittingly – back in the mid-1970s when Spain embarked upon the political transition to democracy.

In the first exciting years of democracy, Córdoba – spurred both by institutional support and by its own sociocultural characteristics – soon defined its role as a participatory city. In the liberated era of the late 1970s, the city devoted its energy to constructing a model radically different to its predecessor. Political parties and citizens’ groups joined forces to seek a new approach to coexistence, and to build a city in which the people would be the driving force. This joint effort succeeded in shaping a different city, a space for permanent debate, a public forum in which all ideas could be given a hearing. This approach has permeated the whole city. Social and institutional initiatives interact with a considerable degree of autonomy, and have succeeded in adapting to the far-reaching changes taking place in local society, through new demands and new priorities. The participatory schemes implemented over the last 35 years – involving different forms of participation, different players and different aims – have together shaped a diverse and enriching landscape. These schemes, though emerging at different times, have succeeded in complementing rather than replacing each other; as a result, today’s Córdoba is a rich, multifaceted and only apparently contradictory city. As a result, Córdoba has been able to equip itself with communications and relational structures that have proved highly efficient for extending its outreach; this is evident in the numerous forums and platforms that have fostered citizen participation, in all the city’s districts. For all these reasons, every activity, idea or proposal for the ECoC event will have participation as a core requirement, as a democratic guarantee and a condition of its feasibility. Because of its inclusive character:

Córdoba, as a city committed to participation and the creation of “in-between” spaces – between the sexes, between generations, between cultures, between religions, between districts, between the centre and the suburbs, between creators and their audiences, between the private and the public – has vowed to welcome what is mixed, to grant equal recognition to all, and to use public spaces as civic spaces.

With this bid, the city seeks to avoid creating ghettos, inner borders, and invisible cities. The idea is to foster a “soft” city, as the metaphor of a plural space that encourages encounter, mixing, mutual recognition, and learning. In this sense, Córdoba experience can help us to replace the solitary experience of the shopping mall with the collective experience of the public square. Córdoba is a city for strolling, for living outside, in its streets and squares; a city where public spaces are shared and enjoyed by generations, cultures, gazes. Women must add their knowledge and the tools related to the ethics of care to a civic space that needs to be reviewed at a time when political, economic and social models are clearly in crisis. Their creative work should be fostered and the voice that for centuries was hidden, belittled, hardly mentioned at all, should be now heard. Like the voice of Fátima the librarian; like the voice of the first female autobiographer, Leonor López de Córdoba; like the politically-influential voice of Leonor de Guzmán; like the voices of so many anonymous women who built bridges and wove tapestries. The equality of men and women is not just a major plank in this project, it is also a priority concern in a city to which Europe will turn its eyes in 2016, and from which it must learn in order to bring about a future that will need a new discourse and new methods. Córdoba has made great efforts to enable the participation of every single citizen in the cultural life of the city, to foster equal opportunities, and to fulfil its commitment to universal access to culture. Children, senior citizens, the disabled, immigrants…All will have their place in the ECoC event. Because of its use of public space:

One of Córdoba’s strong suits is the culture of proximity, a philosophy that can be summed up by the path created, physically and conceptually, from the patio to the street and the square. We believe that this proximity, and this physical link, can contribute to the shaping of an ideal public space for cultural events, in which the street, the square and the thresholds into private spaces can be used as the stage.


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A distinctive feature of private spaces in Córdoba has traditionally been the courtyard, which offers a physical link between the public and private. It is a cultural element in itself, and part of the city’s heritage, representing the survival of a place for passing through, meeting and connecting. A space to live in, but also to share, a link between the house and the street. In this sense, Córdoba experience can help us to replace the solitary experience of the shopping mall with the collective experience of the public square. Córdoba is a city for strolling, for living outside, in its streets and squares; a city where public spaces are shared and enjoyed by generations, cultures, gazes. In this sense, Córdoba experience can help us to replace the solitary experience of the shopping mall with the collective experience of the public square. Córdoba is a city for strolling, for living outside, in its streets and squares; a city where public spaces are shared and enjoyed by generations, cultures, gazes. It is also the venue for traditional festivals such as the Crosses Festival, the Courtyards Festival, the May Fair and Holy Week. This is reflected, first, in the land itself; hence the Council’s commitment to a progressive humanisation of public space, visible in countless actions aimed primarily at the pedestrianisation of much of the Old Town. We believe that this proximity factor, and the fluid links amongst citizens, will enable the Córdoba 2016 project to serve a useful means of contributing to the appropriate structuring of public space, as the ideal framework for cultural activities, whose venue is the street, the square, and especially the threshold between public and private spaces, as symbolised by the courtyard. The courtyard is a cultural and heritage asset in its own right, that represents the survival of a place of passage, a place for meeting, for bonding. A dwelling-place, but at the same time a place for communal living; a passage between the house and the street. The Córdoba Cultural City Foundation has made the reappraisal of the courtard an integral element of this bid. As part of the ECoC project, the city has drawn up a cultural infrastructure plan designed to ensure that half the population of Córdoba will be no more than 15 minutes away from an existing or future cultural venue. The public space is seen as a network of spaces that need to be arranged to form a system of spaces.

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Because of its support for innovative creation:

For some years now, Córdoba has been working to enhance the innovative tools available for linking its splendid past not just to tourism , but also to a new scenario in which technology and creativity are key factors. The city is involved in European programmes directly related to this initiative, which are helping to expand and coordinate the work done by local institutions and private companies. Examples of this innovative approach include research initiatives in place at the University of Córdoba, in the fields of software and nanotechnology, and also the organ transplant programme at Córdoba’s Reina Sofía Teaching Hospital, in which tremendous social support plays a key role. Specifically, the University has been chosen to lead a Campus of Excellence, and is contributing actively to the development of the Rabanales 21 Science and Technology Park. At international level, activities include the First Creativity Week, which seeks to broaden the practical applications of innovation. There is a creative Córdoba which, often using networks similar to those used by the residents’ associations, runs a whole range of cultural activities. Here, again, social groups are working in areas linked to contemporary art, music and poetry. We believe in supporting new creators by fostering those forms of art – of various origins – which are able to interact with both the past and the present of Córdoba, and by encouraging new artistic idioms that offer a testing ground for new perceptions of art and culture. Working with new creators will encourage the appearance of new audiences, as the Cosmopoética Festival has proved. Because of its essential concern for sustainability:

Sustainability is a crucial element of this project, in terms of the implementation of the project itself and in terms of what culture can contribute to the overall sustainability of the city. All the facilities created for the ECoC will continue to work to capacity after 2017. A number of cultural and social actions are envisaged to ensure the realisation of this aspiration; as a result, the city will become a national benchmark for cultural sustainability, just as it is already for environmental sustainability.

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Córdoba’s ECoC project will encourage training and education in the cultural sector, and the identification of new employment sources as an essential part of the sustainability strategy. Because of the PIC16 (Impact Córdoba 2016 project) and the Laboratory on Cultural Trends and Impacts 2016 (LATIC16)

A working-system project entitled PIC16 has been set up to monitor ECoC activities from the moment of designation, from a scientific standpoint. The project will be managed by a prestigious institution, which will provide an objective and comprehensive assessment of the CEC. In order to develop a rigorous research programme between 2012 and 2018, with a view to guaranteeing the necessary diversity of outcomes, the Foundation has signed a strategic alliance with the Córdoba-based Andalusian Institute of Advanced Social Studies (IESACSIC) which will in turn be supported by the University of Córdoba and the Córdoba Business Confederation (CECO). As a result, this project led by IESA-CSIC will have four associated bodies: the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, which engages to provide support and information- channelling services; IESA-CSIC itself, which will provide the technical research skills of a specialised centre attached to the Spanish Science Research Council; the University of Córdoba, which will supplement these institutional skills with the development of econometric impact-assessment models; and CECO, which will provide information regarding the various sectors of the local economy, together with their expert knowledge of the situation in Córdoba. This structure will enable the use of resources belonging to the participating institutions, as well as facilitating the participation of the Córdoba 2016 project in a range of calls for scientific or other funding (business, R & D & i, training) in order to obtain suitable and sufficient financing. Córdoba’s ECoC bid provides the ideal framework for exploring and developing new analytical tools able to view as a whole the experiences which together shape what is now termed “the culture sector”. For that reason, in parallel to the PIC16 project, there are plans to establish an open field for culture evaluation and prospecting, to be known as the Laboratory on Cultural Trends and Impacts 2016 (LATIC16), which will favour the sustainability of the PIC16 project beyond 2016.

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14 If the city in question is awarded the title of Capital

of Culture, what would be the medium- and long-term effects of the event from a social, cultural and urban point of view? Socioeconomic effects:

When examining the effects of the ECoC, it is essential to bear in mind the city’s current economic situation, with unemployment at over 25% in late 2009. The promoters of this bid consider that the socioeconomic dimension of the project is central to the whole proposal. Córdoba has embarked upon a transformation of its socioeconomic situation, and seeks to make culture, creativity, knowledge and technological development the driving forces for its future development. Taking as the basis the city’s immense assets in terms of heritage, its privileged location and its valuable urban qualities, a strategy has been designed to attract the most creative and decisive professional sectors over the next few years. Central to this transformation are technological companies and businesses linked to the management of culture and knowledge. A number of projects are currently in place with this purpose, the most important being the Rabanales 21 Science and Technology Park and the Campus of Excellence in Agrofood, headed by the University of Córdoba. The ECoC is another strategic project for the city. First, in view of Córdoba’s accumulated assets in terms of heritage and tourism. Second, because of its links to the tourist sector – perhaps the strongest economic sector at present, but which could undoubtedly be expanded in the short term. Third, because of the synergies that can be created by the cultural sector with previous projects, and their value in boosting cultural industries and urban regeneration, giving rise to the creation of new jobs.

Countless studies highlight the similarity of the professional profiles of the cultural sector and those of researchers, teachers and designers; their presence in the city will have an important effect, on the principle that like attracts like. Finally, technology plays an increasingly important part in cultural projects, producing a snowball effect in terms of joint development. The aim is to make cultural and creative industries a sustainable driving force for the local economy; this is essential for the city in the twenty-first century, which must be able to generate employment, foster the development of local cultural talent, welcome creative minds from beyond the city, and finally promote active cultural tourism. It is hoped that the ECoC project will encourage the creation of new professions linked to cultural management, and that this will in turn serve to strengthen other professions and sectors. Another economic sector that will clearly benefit from the ECoC is the tourism, hotel and catering industry. The province of Córdoba currently boasts 176 full-scale hotels offering accommodation for around 10,000 people, together with a number of high-quality small hotels and some of the best-known restaurants in Andalusia. Córdoba is the sixth most popular tourist destination among Spanish cultural cities, and most tourists are attracted by the city’s heritage. Whilst enhancing this strong point, the ECoC project also seeks to explore new areas of tourism, based on the city’s cultural, religious, and linguistic appeal. The city’s history and current situation offer enormous potential for this type of niche tourism. Cultural effects:

Analysis by sector suggests that two sectors will most visibly benefit from the ECoC in the short term.

First, the cultural sector itself: since 2002, when the city launched its ECoC bid, Córdoba has organised a whole agenda of new cultural activities to add to other wellestablished events. Activities like Cosmopoética, Animacor, the White Night of Flamenco, Eutopía or The Sky Within My House, contemporary art in the courtyards of Córdoba, have been added to the Guitar Festival and the National Flamenco Art Competition, amongst other events. This new agenda has succeeded in generating a new image of Córdoba as a cultural city, serviced by specialised businesses and boasting a critical and discerning public. We believe that all these activities have improved and expanded the city’s image at national level, as well as imbuing it with European and contemporary connotations, as befits one of the most vibrant cities in the area. Designation as ECoC would undoubtedly enhance this impact, becoming – together with technological development – a core element in the city’s future. Secondly, the most lasting effect will be that local society as a whole will enjoy the added values of culture, as well as the social benefits inherent in the ECoC programme: these include greater social and intergenerational cohesion, and increased pride in the city, and in belonging. Moreover, the ECoC event will foster the creation of cultural consumption habits amongst local people; and as sociologists well know, these habits, once acquired, can never be taken away. Cultural activity will add a more participatory dimension to the city’s culture, and will encourage the use of public spaces for the creation, promotion and dissemination of activities. It will help to bring contemporary creation closer to the citizens, this being a particularly complex undertaking in a city whose major assets are heritage-related. Finally, training programmes will help to create a highly-qualified professional sector, which will provide the basic human support for the development of future cultural projects that will continue to contribute to a vibrant cultural scene at metropolitan, regional, national and European level.

Urban impacts:

The city of Córdoba has opted for a model in which cultural programmes and urban regeneration are closely linked. In general terms, city planning in Córdoba is of high quality; the city is well-ordered, well-connected, and enjoys a valuable, well-conserved heritage and high-quality services. Even so, it is not without its problems. From an urban perspective, the most pressing concern is the persistence of a number of residential zones with serious social and urban problems leading to social exclusion. Of the five areas in question (Margaritas, Moreras, Palmeras, Guadalquivir and Sector Sur), the most seriously affected is the Sector Sur area. The infrastructure plans envisaged under the ECoC, together with other measures such as the recently-approved Urban South plan, seek to provide considerable urban regeneration and a better quality of life in an area which currently lacks infrastructure and has an excess of housing. These measures seek to give a truly urban character to an area which suffered years of uncontrolled development from the 1950s onwards. This area will be host to the Córdoba Congress Centre, the Córdoba Centre for Contemporary Creation (C4) and the new premises of the Fine Arts Museum, all to be built on the south bank of the Guadalquivir; this will contribute considerably to the urban regeneration of the area, providing new uses, new high-quality public facilities, and attracting new sectors of the population. The aim, in short, is to make this large area an integral part of Córdoba’s characteristic inclusive approach, so that all its residents can feel pride in belonging to a part of the city that has hitherto been excluded from ordinary functions. The other major urban effect of the ECoC event lies in the avoidance of a very different disease. The tourismbased development of the Old Town (and particularly of the Jewish Quarter) threatens to create an island cut off from the rest of the city, an island comprising virtually nothing but shops and restaurants aimed at the tourists visiting the monuments in the area: for example, the Mezquita (Mosque-Cathedral), the Alcázar of the Christian Monarchs, and the Roman Bridge).


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The infrastructure and facilities envisaged for the ECoC seek to avoid that threat by attracting local people to cultural events that are open to new trends. The idea is to introduce a more contemporary cultural content, likely to attract a new public; more important, the idea is to involve local residents. In short, the project seeks to guarantee that the Old Town retains its cultural and symbolic importance, whilst at the same time endowing it with greater versatility, reflecting the diversity characteristic of the rest of the city.

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Do the municipal authorities intend to make a public declaration of intent concerning the period following the year of the event? The municipal authorities feel that the Córdoba 2016 should continue beyond the year of the event. The main content (creation, training, programmes, cultural habits, facilities, infrastructure) should be sustainable and permanent. So much so, that sustainability is in fact one of the basic concepts underlying the whole bid; this has been made clear on numerous occasions by the municipal authorities, especially over the last eighteen months of hard work which mark the culmination of a process that started almost ten years ago. The Córdoba Manifesto, published on 13 December 2002 and unanimously approved by the City Council, states clearly that the Council backs Córdoba’s bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2016, and that this is seen as a strategic project for the city’s development, “a project for the future, a distinctive feature of Córdoba in the Third Millennium”, not only for the year of the event. The Foundation established in June 206 by the local institutions – City Council, Provincial Council, Andalusian Regional Council and the University – to manage and prepare the ECoC bid is called the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation; this amounts to a public declaration of its resolve to go beyond 2016. The Foundation’s statutes make clear that its primary objective is to develop and foster all kinds of creative activity in Córdoba, and to promote local creations all over the world, and especially in the European Union. The programme of infrastructure and facilities drawn up for this bid and approved by the City Council looks well beyond 2016. Moreover, all the authorities active in the city (local, provincial, regional and national) are committed to implementing the programme even if Córdoba is not designated European Capital of Culture in 2016.

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It should also be stressed that the very essence of the project is the generation of a regular ongoing programme of events and cultural habits, before, during and after 2016. The overriding aim is that, after 2016 and thanks to the impetus of the ECoC, Córdoba should become a cultural city of the first order, an attractive city for European citizens, in which culture is a sustainable driving force for development, able to foster the development of local cultural talent, to extend knowledge and the arts, and continually to encourage creation. For all the reasons stated above, the municipal authorities have made and continue making all the necessary public declarations expressing these intentions regarding the post-2016 era, explicitly setting out goals for such a period and the long-term programme needed to make culture a true hallmark of identity and a generator of urban activity in the Córdoba of the Third Millennium. In any event it is important to point out that throughout the entire process of the candidacy the ‘aftermath’ of the Year has been constantly borne in mind. In the event of Córdoba being designated, the city will continue from 1 January 2017 to promote the production and dissemination of culture in all its facets.

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15 How was this application designed and prepared?

The procedure adopted for the drafting of this preselection dossier, and of the cultural programme it contains, is a faithful reflection of an underlying philosophy: a participatory vocation. These documents have been conceived and drawn up by means of a long and laborious consultative process involving the various sectors of local society: a joint effort over eighteen months of work. Prior to drafting the application, a great deal of preliminary research was carrried out; the application is based on the results of those studies. Specifically, and with the active collaboration of a multidisciplinary group from the University of Córdoba, a White Paper on Capital of Culture Status was produced; the White Paper provides a rigorous analysis of the situation at the start of the project (diagnosis, SWOT analysis, legislation...). The University of Córdoba also contributed to a study entitled Córdoba, Europe. The European Dimension of Córdoba4, which examines Córdoba’s European legacy, and the European aspiration that should underlie the bid. Additionally, Spanish and European experts took part in four international advisory seminars, two European Conferences entitled The Invention of Cities. European Conference on Cities and Culture; leading figures and European experts also gave a series of lectures focussing on the principles and rationale behind the European Capital of Culture programme. Since then, the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation has held regular meetings with various local bodies from different sectors, with a view to informing the citizens about the Córdoba 2016 project, establishing synergies between the various areas of society, identifying common issues and receiving proposals.

In order to coordinate the participation of local society in the ECoC bid, the Foundation has held regular meetings with representatives of the Al-Zahara Federation of Neighbourhood Associations, the Citizens’ Movement Council, district councils and numerous public cultural programme planners. The Foundation also invited input from local private-sector cultural operators, represented by artists, publishers, designers, specialised journalists, producers and cultural managers. With regard to public-sector involvement, regular meetings have been held with expert groups and cultural managers from all the city’s public institutions. These work sessions have helped to familiarise planners with the strategic guidelines for Córdoba 2016, and to bring public cultural programmes closer to the European objectives of ECoC status. This has led, moreover, to the launching of a very positive process of coordination, as a result of which Córdoba’s cultural programme will include elements previously agreed through overall consensus planning. During 2009 and 2010, professional meetings have also been held with the network of municipal experts in Citizen Participation, with the Córdoba Business Confederation (CECO), with professors, lecturers and heads of department at the University of Córdoba, with local media, with Employment Workshops run by the Municipal Institute for Economic Development and Employment (IMDEEC), and with members of the Córdoba Marketing Association. Information days were organised at the Real Circulo de la Amistad social club, one of the “collaborating bodies” designated by the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, and at the Youth Centre.

This participatory spirit will be maintained and enhanced throughout the ECoC preparations, since the intention is to involve local social organisations in the ECoC governance model. Although local associations cannot be equated with the “collaborating bodies” which will be contributing financially to the project, they must be involved in the consultation procedure. Specific joint work groups will therefore be set up for that purpose, as a way of enriching the process and ensuring that the voice of local people is heard; local residents, and their most influential representatives, must take part in developing the project, and in making it “their own”. In the course of these meetings, the broad strategic outlines for the ECoC pre-selection dossier were established. A public call for proposals was held in December 2009 and March 2010 with the purpose of collecting cultural projects that could be included in the project. The Cultural Programme was drawn up by a Drafting Committee headed by the manager of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, Carlota Alvarez Basso, and the manager of the Cultural Capital Office, and appointed by the Board of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation. The Committee comprises nine culture-related professionals: specialists in museum sciences, architecture, cinema, town-planning, visual and performing arts, music and literature, and benefits from the experience of people in successful bids by other European Capitals of Culture. The Committee comprises the following nine Spanish experts:

· · ·

·

· Córdoba: City Council, 2009.

·

María Dolores Baena, Director, Córdoba Archaeological and Ethnological Museum Francisco Javier Flores, artist and cultural manager Pablo García Casado, Director, Andalusian Film Institute, and poet Eugenio González Madorrán, architect, former manager of the Córdoba City Council Department of Town Planning Carlos Hernández Pezzi, architect, former Chairman of the Board of Spanish Architects’ Colleges Alberto Martín, art critic and exhibition curator. Former General Coordinator of the Salamanca European Capital of Culture, 2002; at present Cultural Coordinator at the University of Salamanca Juan Miguel Moreno Calderón, Professor of Piano and Director of the “Rafael Orozco” School of Music

Pedro Ruiz, Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Córdoba Octavio Salazar, Professor of Constitutional Law and Director General for Culture, University of Córdoba.

The work of the Committee was enhanced by invaluable and disinterested input from the Córdoba-based Andalusian Institute for Advanced Social Studies (IESACSIC), the Contemporary Architecture Foundation, a private association of architects from all over Spain, and the Córdoba Business Confederation (CECO), which provided advice on economic matters. The preliminary draft of the pre-selection dossier was submitted for exhaustive critical reading and review by 31 experts and local specialists in various fields. Their comments and recommendations have been incorporated in a second draft of the dossier, which has again been submitted for review, this time by a group of international experts comprising: ·

·

· ·

·

·

4

·

·

Guy Dockendorf, Director General of the Ministry of Culture of Luxembourg, Vice-President of Luxembourg, European Capital of Culture 1995; and Chairman of the Organising Board of “Luxembourg and Greater Region, European Capital of Culture, 2007”. Mercedes Giovinazzo, Chair, Access to Culture Platform (under the structured dialogue with civil society launched by DG Education and Culture, European Commission), and Director, Interarts Foundation. Colin Mercer, independent advisor, United Kingdom. Eduard Miralles Ventimilla, Director of International Cultural Relations, Barcelona Provincial Council; and President, Interarts Foundation. Antonio Taormina, Director, ATER Formazione, Italy

Finally, the photographs for this dossier were provided by 22 local professional photographers, and by amateur photographers from Italy, Portugal, Germany, South Africa, and Mexico, under the editorial guidance of Córdoba Cultural City Foundation and with coordination by Braulio Valderas. These photographs now form part of a Picture Bank for the Córdoba 2016 project.



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I i STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAMME FOR THE EVENT

What structure does the city intend to give the year’s programme if it is designated “European Capital of Culture” (guidelines, general theme of event)? How long does the programme last? (This question must be answered in greater detail at the final selection stage) 1

This cultural programme sets out the objectives, the principles, the major themes and the programme areas for the 2016 ECoC programme. It is structured as a constellation, a term which reflects Córdoba’s position as the hub for European cosmogonies –religions, cultures, personality, flows – throughout its history. In structuring the cultural programme presented here, the term constellation has been used as a metaphor, echoing Walter Benjamin’s “dialectical constellations”. This network structure provides a real opportunity to establish an intercultural and intergenerational dialogue between the past and the future, in order to understand the present, where the future is understood to be a responsible anticipation of what is to come. The idea of a constellation is also underpinned by the desire to “activate” the future by restoring references from the past; in that sense, it is a tribute to the great astronomers of al-Ándalus, whose discoveries and experiments were collected by order of the king of Castile, Alfonso X (the Wise), in the thirteenth century, in a treatise that became widely known elsewhere in Europe under the title The Book of Knowledge of Astronomy. Consistent with this approach, Córdoba’s ECoC programme is structured around three levels of operation which serve as central themes:

·

The first level comprises the guiding principles of the project as a whole, which – as indicated at the start of this cultural programme – will ensure that the specific events reflect the values of Córdoba, and of this bid: interculturalism, participation, innovation and sustainability.

·

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The second level, entitled The Constellations of Córdoba, comprises the main themes of the programme, the central core ideas around which the various activities will be organised; these explore the city’s past and its present, with a view to placing Córdoba’s historical legacy firmly within a contemporary European and international cultural framework. These themes might be said to define and highlight what Italo Calvino has termed the “implicit programme” of the city and its bid. The third level comprises a set of Transversal Quality Indicators (TQI). Their purpose is to ensure that the programme fulfils certain requirements in terms of values and concepts, as well as complying with the four principles indicated above. The function of these 10 indicators is not to generate specific programmes, but rather to guarantee that the programme fully reflects the spirit and the principles of the bid. These indicators, which inform the programme, are also closely linked to the ECoC evaluation programme: · European and international dimension · Interdisciplinarity · Gender equality · Presence of projects for minorities · Intergenerational cooperation · Presence and promotion of educational activities · Use of new technologies · Accessibility guidelines · Project sustainability · Joint activities with the designated ECoC in Poland

Nocturnal satellite image of Europe and the Mediterranean. Source: NASA. Image: Craig Maythew and Robert Simmon.

In intellectual terms, then, the project is structured as a constellation, whose symbolic scope enables four different approaches to the programming of events. First, there is a kind of “celestial vault”, a network of flows and connections joining all the cities in Europe, common links that together shape a continent-wide tapestry of cities and citizens. The image is of a Europe of cities; seen from above, it forms a kind of terrestrial constellation. This view of the continent must become an essential component in the current process of generalised globalisation. At the same time, this structure highlights the spacetime concept of aggregation; a city like Córdoba is at once Andalusian, Spanish and European. To that extent, the city can be seen as a forum with various agorai: open public spaces with their monuments, each of which is in itself a constellation of architecture of different periods and styles, concentrated symbolically on the two landmark monuments, the Mezquita (MosqueCathedral) and the Umayyad city of Madinat al-Zahra.

This structure is also appropriate because Córdoba is a source of life cycles, urban cycles, twenty-first century European cultural cycles, which overlap to form a kind of palimpsest, without ceasing to respect each and every one of its vital forms. The constellation underlines Córdoba’s culture as a symbolic hub, composed of all the religions, cultures, figures and flows that throughout history have shaped its unique identity. This bid seeks to heighten the dialogue of civilisations, by making Córdoba – the traditional setting for encounters – the venue for a series of cultural activities based on elements such as the Córdoba Paradigm, on words and literary creation, on music and contemporary art, and on youth expression.


I i STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAMME FOR THE EVENT

ES PL CI IN

IN A

Theme III: The city and its days

Revolutionising the Everyday

M ES EM TH

10

INTERCULTURALITY

PARTICIPATION

European and international dimension, interdisciplinarity, gender, minorities, cooperation, educational activities, new technologies, Accessibility, sustainability, Poland

S TQI TOR CA DI N

I

The constellations of Córdoba: the future activated by the past

Source: personal compilation.

SUSTAINABILITY

Rivers of participation

PR

Finally, the image of an aerial constellation neatly captures the way the programme is arranged and implemented, as a network with no sealed compartments, no hierarchy of disciplines, formats, contents or audiences. The programmes will be linked to each other in the same plane; no distinctions will be made between the local and the universal, between art and music, between highbrow culture and popular culture. Like heavenly bodies in a galaxy, the events will be structured and held in place through a balance of tensions; each will be essential, and none will be missing. Otherwise, the structure of the whole celestial vault would become unbalanced and collapse. Events which have already become something of a tradition (such as Cosmopoética, the Guitar Festival, and Eutopía) will be appended as satellites to the speciallydevised ECoC programme; in conjunction with the ex novo events planned, they will form a constellation of cultures. In this way, existing programmes – like satellites –will become part of a harmonic structure of greater value, without losing their own identity.

Words

Cordoba routes

Theme I: Cordoba in the world

Arts and senses

Theme II: Culture, the european common denominator

Constellations of Córdoba is seen as the sum of the city’s involvement, at European and international level, in cultural spaces and in networks of cities and artistic fields which define its international role. This metaphorical constellation is home to the Córdoba 2016 cultural programme, whose underlying themes and specific events – building on the positive experience of the Cosmopoética festival – will encompass all possible facets of cultural activity, thus ensuring that the interdisciplinary approach permeates the ECoC, throughout the year. Main themes of the programme: ·

The Cordoba paradigm

Cordoba -Poland

Mixed cultures

Science and conscience

·

INNOVATION

·

Theme I, Córdoba in the World, comprises three sections: The Córdoba Paradigm, Córdoba routes and Córdoba-Poland. Theme II, Culture, the European common denominator, places the project in the European cultural context, through sections on The Word, Art and the senses, Science and Conscience and Mixed cultures. Theme III, The city and the days, comprises events addressing the creation of the city, citizen participation, and the city as a priority issue for Europe. It will include the activities that shape society, the city-asnetwork and the society of flows, in its two sections Revolutionising the Everyday and Rivers of participation.

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How long does the programme last? The ECoC programme proper is designed to last throughout 2016. However, during the run-up period, i.e. 2012-2015, a number of specific activities will be organised, identifiable as forming part of the European Capital of Culture project. The proposed modus operandi, involving strategic alliances and joint productions, means that ECoC-related events will start to be negotiated and prepared at least three years beforehand; and in most cases, pre-production will commence between 2014 and 2015. Executive production for some programmes will start in 2015 , to ensure that the results are visible in 2016. Beyond that, the international dissemination and promotion of the ECoC and its programme of events will continue throughout the 4-year run-up, and especially over the six months prior to the start of the ECoC. The ECoC programme proper will run throughout the twelve months of the year, beginning in January 2016 and ending in December 2016. A specific day in January will be selected for the official commencement of the programme, and a specific day in December for its official closure. We seek to stress and strengthen the symbolic thrust of the inauguration and official closing of the ECoC, for which large-scale international ceremonies and public events, involving as many people as possible, will be designed. It is essential that the beginning and end of the ECoC be marked by suitably spectacular events. All the scheduled events will take place between these two dates, the idea being to have a balanced programme in place throughout the year. Differences in the rhythm of the programme are likely to be marked by the seasons and the weather: in spring and summer, more scheduled activities will be held in the evenings and at night; stress will be placed on open-air stage performances and concerts. Exhibitions and congresses will mostly be scheduled for autumn and winter, which is the best time to be indoors and in the warmth.


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The end of the 2016 programme will mark the start of a specific consolidation and sustainability project. The programme itself will include a number of specific activities demonstrating in a visible manner the continuity and future sustainability to the ECoC project. Unlike the programme for the run-up years, the programme starting in 2017 will comprise specific events, activities and festivals intended to highlight the impact of the ECoC on the city’s future.

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What main events will mark the year? For each one, please supply the following information. Description of the event / date and place / project partner / financing (The answer to this question is optional at the pre-selection stage) 2

The main themes of the programme The Constellations of Córdoba, i.e. the broad categories into which projects will be grouped, are set out below, together with a proposal comprising between five and seven projects for each section of the programme, in order to provide an idea of the kind of project to be implemented in 2016. Theme I: Córdoba in the World

Culture is a way of understanding reality, and of attempting to change it in order to improve man and his way of inhabiting his environment. A city like Córdoba is more than just a group of individuals and physical spaces; it is also a stage-set that persists over time, forging a history and a memory which are also those of Europe. Córdoba is projected as a set of images, recognised and valued by others, interpreted as distinct, but accepted as enriching. This gives rise to certain paradigms, elements that function in collective discourse as examples or models, as ideals which can, to a greater or lesser degree, be mapped onto coordinates in space and time, and which have a positive influence on values and behaviour patterns. This factor – without losing a certain element of the utopian – can serve as a driving force for change; operating through culture, it can modify other specific spheres.

Programme section: 1.1 ‘The Córdoba Paradigm’

The title of this section was coined, recently and rightly, by the Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo, in a conference paper entitled Beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism. This concept is informed by the twofold awareness of a living legacy – the Iranian legacy – as the genesis of world civilisation and culture in both its Eastern and Western branches. It also reflects the current divide affecting a region overwhelmed and trapped by the multiple contradictions between tradition and modernism, that the author himself has explored. Jahanbegloo highlights the capacity for tolerance and religious pluralism characteristic of Córdoba, as the former capital of al-Ándalus. This is Umayyad Córdoba’s greatest contribution to today’s world. Its material splendour may have vanished, but the intellectual contributions of its philosophers, scientists and poets have persisted over the centuries, prompting alternatives and enhancements from other cultural sources. Nevertheless, the ideal of three cultures coexisting in the same space has no parallel in history, nor can it be found today on a comparable scale. Seen from a perspective more appropriate to today’s social and anthropological approach, one might speak not of three individual cultures, but rather of a single culture with three religions, whose inhabitants prayed to three different gods; it was from this sense of coexistence that the richness of diversity emerged.


The Córdobas Route Activities: Documentary film, travelling informational exhibition, publication, teaching material. Project: Transglobe. Independent producer, Madrid.

The Route of the First Umayyad Activities: Press expedition, travelling exhibition, use of social networks and blogs, bookcatalogue, documentary, teaching material. Project: Alfonso Alba and Rafael Villegas. Journalists, Córdoba. Literary Route. Dialogues of love: Shakespeare, Cervantes and Inca Garcilaso Literary encounter, theatre. Project: Fernando Iwasaki, writer. Peru-Spain.

The Carolinian route through the new settlements: the Road to Enlightenment Exhibition, European folk-dance festival, educational activities. Project: Córdoba Provincial Council.

716-2016: 1300 years of the legacy of al-Ándalus in Europe Exhibition, congress, linked activities. Project: Drafting Committee and Juan Pedro Monferrer, University of Córdoba. Averroes Philosophy Meetings Season of lectures and photographic exhibition Project: Casa Árabe-IEAM, Madrid and Córdoba.

Maimónides and Averroes Prize for Intercultural Dialogue International Prize Project: Córdoba City of Intercultural Encounters, University of Córdoba

Rafael de La-Hoz: Contemporary European Architecture and the Córdoba Proportion Exhibition, season of lectures, architectural route. Project: Carlos Hernández Pezzi, architect, and the Córdoba Official College of Architects.

Cosmopoética. Poets of the World in Córdoba Activities: poetry recitals, fine arts displays, theatre, music, film, video creations, educational activities and games for children. Project: Córdoba City Council. Is Don Luis alive? Poetry actions, blog, theatre. Project: Drafting Committee.

The Voice of the Emotions Season of concerts, recitals, theatre, exhibition of paintings and photography. Project: Drafting Committee.

Radio Collage Internet radio. Creation of an ECoC sound archive. Project: Marta Jiménez and José María Martin García. Jounalists, Córdoba.

A dialogue between Pepe Espaliú and Miroslaw Balka Contemporary art exhibition in Córdoba and Poland. Project: Juan Vicente Aliaga, Lecturer, Faculty of Fine Arts, Polytechnic University of Valencia; art critic.

Tadeusz Kantor vs. Jerzy Grotowski Theatre, workshops, film season, exhibition. Project: Casa Pichincha SocioEducational-Cultural Association and Vertebro Teatro, Córdoba.

The contemporary Polish art scene Contemporary site-specific interventions in local heritage spaces. Project: Antonio Jesús Gil Alcaide. Independent curator, Córdoba.

From Gutenberg to the eBook: from the Europe of the book to the digital revolution Exhibition, meetings with experts, contemporary creative activities, workshops, electronic book fair. Project: Drafting Committee and Diocesan Library.

Flamenco from A to Z Flamenco singing and dance performances, season of concertlectures, exhibition on Flamenco and contemporary art, teaching materials, exhibitions, films and documentaries, seminars and courses. Projects: “Rafael Orozco” School of Music, Córdoba; Intercultural Chair for Social Inclusion through Flamenco (University of Córdoba); Municipal Institute of Performing Arts, Córdoba (IMAE); Córdoba City Council.

The Andalusian School of Renaissance Polyphony Season of concerts. Project: Drafting Committee.

The Performing Arts Laboratory in Europe Theatre, dance, circus, performance, training and research activities in the performing arts. Project: Drafting Committee.

Crossroads: European Dialogues Exhibitions, lectures, concerts, theatre and dance. Project: Drafting Committee.

Capital Music Concerts, masterclasses, seminars. Project: Drafting Committee.

Eutopía: International Young Creators’ Festival Concerts, performances, shows, lectures and round tables. Project: Andalusian Youth Institute.

Dada Attitude Theatre, dance, poetry, contemporary art, children’s activities. Project: Drafting Committee.

Bioethics: After Our Likeness Seminar, congress, exhibition. Project: Drafting Committee.

Europe and the New ‘Imago Mundi’: Science and Navigation from Columbus to Copernicus Exhibition, congress, publication, astronomical observations, children’s activities. Project: Monika Poliwka. Independent curator, Madrid.

In the Shadows of Seneca, contemporary meditations in Europe Keynote lectures and theatrical performance. Project: Andalusian Institute of Advanced Social Studies (IESACSIC), Córdoba.

Fons Sophiae: significant absences and presences in the history of Europe Season of lectures, exhibitions and cultural programmes. Project: Drafting Committee.

The Roma, a European People International meeting, music, gastronomy, exhibitions, film season, and documentaries. Project: Drafting Committee.

Women Feed the World Photographic exhibition, food workshop. Project: Asociación Pro-inmigrantes de Córdoba (APIC)Andalucía Acoge.

Congress on African Literature in Spanish Congress, season of African music, food exhibition, screening of African films. Project: Drafting Committee.

The Masks of the Three Cultures Season of plays, exhibition and musical encounter. Project: César Oliva. Theatre specialist, Murcia.

The Inca and the ‘garcilasos’: contemporary comments on Spanish-American literature Lectures, workshops, specific seminars. Project: Fernando Iwasaki. Writer. Peru and Spain.

From Writing in Exile to Nomadic Writing Literary encounter, Spanish-American musical encounters, photographic exhibition. Project: Jorge Eduardo Benavides. Writer, Madrid.

Theme II: Culture, the European common denominator Art and Science and Mixed The word the Senses Conscience Cultures

At the border: eighteenthcentury Polish Orientalism Exhibition of paintings, parallel activities. Project: National Museum of Warsaw.

From Poland to Córdoba. The Voyage of the Goths Exhibition, meeting of Spanish and Polish jewellers, children’s activities. Project: María Dolores Baena, Director, Córdoba Archaeological and Ethnological Museum, and Jerónimo Sánchez Velasco, archaeologist specialising in Visigothic culture.

Theme I: Córdoba in the World The Córdoba Córdoba CórdobaParadigm routes Poland

Projectmylife Audiovisual production, creation of digital dissemination platforms. Project: Drafting Committee.

Des-Bordes. International Mural Art in Córdoba Mural art on the outskirts of the city. Project: Oscar Fernández. Independent curator, Córdoba.

The Sky Within My House. Contemporary art in the courtyards of Córdoba Contemporary art interventions in the courtyards of Córdoba. Project: Drafting Committee.

The City as Stage: Public Art Interventions in Urban Spaces Contemporary art interventions in public spaces in Córdoba. Project: Drafting Committee.

Reflections of Themselves: the Suburbs of Europe Scientific meetings, exhibitions, season of lectures, publications. Project: Desiderio Vaquerizo, University of Córdoba.

The Dream of the City and the Urban Imagination Contemporary art exhibition. Project: Drafting Committee.

Journey to the Kingdom of Knowledge City-scale game, cultural route, trip abroad. Project: Drafting Committee.

Under the Eyes of Europe International competition for young artists, and creation of a mural of photographs taken by mentallydisabled people. Project: Association of Mentally Disabled People and their Families (Asaenec). Córdoba.

Re-encounters Collective audiovisual production. Project: DosdeCatorce Producciones SL. Independent producer, Córdoba.

The Atlas of Córdoba Contemporary art, creative expression by children and young people, educational activities, photographic atlas, documentaries. Project: Drafting Committee.

Pictures of Europe, Words of Europe International group art interventions and similar activities in various streets in each of Córdoba’s districts. Project: Goval, artists; and Javier Lucena, staff member, Cultural Capital Office, Córdoba.

Córdoba in the River Permanent audiovisual installation, social networks, videocreation. Project: Town Planning and Land Management Laboratory, University of Granada.

Theme III: The city and the days Revolutionising Rivers of the Everyday participation

The constellations of Córdoba: the future activated by the past

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To explore and reappraise the legacy of a tradition built upon great historic events and upon continuity. To respond to the most pressing problems of today, by investing the symbolic assets of the Córdoba Paradigm. To work towards creating conditions that will enable the building of a future with foundations that are more balanced and more shared than those in force today. To raise Europe’s awareness of its multiple origins, as a path towards solving the problems posed by the union of disparate cultures and by the incorporation of immigration. To contribute to Europe’s role as a source of balance in the Middle East. This is one of the world’s most troubled areas due to the open conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, which has fuelled the rise of religious fundamentalism and therefore of traditionalist terrorism. The aim is to move forward with the idea of a political, social and cultural Alliance of Civilisations.

The exhibition will include pieces from the leading museums in Europe and worldwide, including the Institut du Monde Arabe and the Musée du Louvre (Paris, France), the Musée National du Bardo (Tunisia), the Museo del Bargello (Florence, Italy), the National Museum of Damascus (Syria), the Museum of Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and the University Library (Leiden, Netherlands). The exhibition will later move to the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid.

To promote dialogue with America, mainly through the Spanish-speaking community, closing gaps and fostering a balanced climate.

To make clearer the importance of this subject, both for visitors and for local people, a cultural route will be organised around the city and province of Córdoba, covering the main surviving evidence of the culture of al-Ándalus. Educational packages will be provided for schools and colleges throughout the province, and a documentary will be produced which will be sent to the major European television channels.

It is this symbolic asset that has secured Córdoba’s importance in today’s world; though the city is no longer at the height of its material splendour, this is the time when values such as those embodied in the “Córdoba paradigm” need to be revitalised. Rising to that challenge, this city is committed to updating these values and turning them into tangible realities by way of three fundamental elements:

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1 In a practical sense, dialogue represents a real application of the ideas of proportion and balance. It is not an exchange of opinions but a shared search, from initially different positions, for a new space which will allow coexistence through the integration of diversity. 2 The “right measure” as a rule for coexistence, defined by Maimónides and Averroes, a concept linked through Aristotelian philosophy to the very roots of Western thought, but shaded and enriched through the specific formulations of al-Ándalus intellectuals. At a time when the rest of Europe was governed by the principles of feudalism, the Caliphate of Córdoba was moving in exactly the opposite direction to the mental and material exclusivism predominating elsewhere, laying the foundations for the harmonious coexistence of individuals and cultures. 3 The “Córdoba proportion”, which arose as a particular framing of the great tradition of the golden mean, visible in the harmonious architecture of the Caliphate of Córdoba, and its search to project a particular way of using space. This concept, as explored and reformulated by the Córdoba architect Rafael de La-Hoz Arderius (1924-2000), goes beyond the merely archaeological to form part of an architectural and town-planning discourse in which modern progress in technology and design are placed at the service of human wellbeing and happiness.

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In this reading, the three solidly-linked principles outlined above prompt a rethinking of Córdoba’s role in the world, a building of the place where the city wants to be, and whence it is keen to make a contribution to the contemporary world. Its concrete application through a programme of activities has a threefold historical dimension (past, present and future) and a threefold spatial dimension (Europe, the Mediterranean, America).

Following the successful exhibition The Splendour of the Umayyads, held in Córdoba in 20011, a major exhibition will be held on al-Ándalus and its culture, the fruit of a fertile blend of Christian, Jewish and Islamic culture; the exhibition will highlight its contribution to European and Western culture, going back to 716, the year when the first coin bearing the name al-Ándalus was minted. The coin itself, a key piece in the exhibition, is kept in the National Archaeological Museum: one side bears an Arabic inscription, and the other an inscription in Latin – a real metaphor of the mixture of culture in Córdoba during the al-Ándalus period.

The aim of these principles is:

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Programmes proposed:

1 716-2016: 1300 years of the legacy of al-Ándalus in Europe Project submitted by: Drafting Committee and Juan Pedro Monferrer, University of Córdoba. Activities: exhibition, congress, linked activities The year 2016 will mark nothing less than the 1300th anniversary of the establishment of Córdoba as the capital of al-Ándalus, i.e. the capital of the whole of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule.

At the same time, a world congress will take place covering various aspects of the legacy bequeathed by alÁndalus to Europe: scientific, artistic, literary, agricultural, philosophical, gastronomic, and aesthetic. This legacy, in all its forms, is now part of Europe’s DNA, an integral element in the common heritage of the peoples of Europe. Its position as active heir to the GraecoRoman classical tradition, as well as its Eastern roots, will also be highlighted. The exhibition, therefore, will tell us about the cultural heritage that Córdoba succeeded in spreading to Europe.

Finally, a transversal programme will be implemented throughout the year, comprising linked activities intended to explore more fully the various contributions of the culture of al-Ándalus to Western culture through different sectors of the population.

1 Exhibition The Splendour of the Ummayads, Madinat al-Zahra, 3 May – 30 September 2001. Organised by the Andalusian Regional Council Department of Culture through the Fundación El Legado Andalusí, with backing from the Córdoba City Council, the Córdoba Provincial Council, the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECI) and the various countries making up the Cultural Itinerary of the Ummayads. The exhibition comprised almost 300 pieces from Spain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, France, Britain, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, the Netherlands, Portugal, Qatar, Syria and Tunisia.

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2 Averroes Philosophy Meetings Project submitted by: Casa Árabe-IEAM, Madrid and Córdoba. Activities: season of lectures and photographic exhibition These meetings will be organised in Córdoba from 2011 onwards, through a cooperation agreement with the cities of Marseille (France) and Rabat (Morocco); the project is inspired by the Rencontres Averroès, which have been organised in Marseille since 1994. Papers will provide a meditation on the past, present and future of the city as a model of religious and cultural coexistence over centuries, from a contemporary perspective. In addition, an international photographic exhibition including work by the world’s leading press photographers will explore the concept of religious conflict in various parts of the world. 3 Maimónides and Averroes Prize for Intercultural Dialogue Project submitted by: Chair of Intercultural Studies Córdoba City of Encounters, University of Córdoba Activities: International Prize Under the auspices of the European Capital of Culture, an international prize will be awarded to the two international figures who, during the course of the year, have contributed most to fostering civic attitudes and dialogue between cultures. Awards will also be given to research projects favouring intercultural dialogue in all its many forms, including education, creativity, critical knowledge, politics, diversity or memory. Maimónides and Averroes, a Jew and a Muslim, both born in Córdoba, symbolise dialogue, which is why the award is named after them. It will be a way of acknowledging people and institutions that have learned how to express their commitment to the right to diversity, and have fostered dialogue between civilisations as a contribution to achieving the cooperation and development of people of different races, cultures and religions.


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4 Rafael de La-Hoz: Contemporary European Architecture and the Córdoba Proportion Project submitted by: Carlos Hernández Pezzi, architect, and the Córdoba Official College of Architects Activities: Exhibition, season of lectures, architectural route

Two of the main causes of population exodus have been colonisation and exile. There are places named Córdoba in many different parts of the former Spanish empire, including several countries in South America, the United States and the Philippines. This is an indicator of the important role played by Córdoba in the discovery of America.

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The project takes the form of an exhibition and a season of lectures on The Córdoba Proportion, suggesting the existence of an actual proportion not hitherto examined, based on the properties of the octagon; the lectures will also focus on the life and work of the distinguished Córdoba architect Rafael de La-Hoz Arderios, author of the 1973 study on this subject. Despite its local name, this proportion is to be found in buildings all over the world. The exhibition seeks to explain the relationship between contemporary architecture and the Córdoba Proportion from the perspective of its cultural impact and repercussions.

This section of the programme seeks to establish a network of relationships between all these Córdobas, scattered around the world, with the idea of fostering – at grass roots level – a dialogue between countries and cultures, contributing to the strengthening of ties and the promotion of cooperation mechanisms. At the same time, a significant part of the historical memory will be restored, both at the point of departure and at the destinations of those who bore the name of their city to new territories and made it a key to their activity. The project will thus balance and reorder the relationships between countries from three continents.

As in the previous case, for this reason a part of Córdoba reached the distant confines of various continents. They took with them the culture of their native land, but also absorbed the culture of their new homes. Sometimes this mixture returned to Spain as a revitalising element, as occurred in the case of European Romanticism, which arrived in Spain with the return of the nineteenth-century liberals.

At the same time, a season of lectures will explore Rafael de La-Hoz’s discovery from various perspectives: its influence on European Islamic architecture, the changing relationship between citizens and architecture as exemplified by the streets, districts and courtyards of Córdoba, and the changing face of the contemporary city. The project may include a reissue of this seminal study.

The other field of reference is that of exile, for groups and key figures from Córdoba have been obliged on several occasions to leave their homes and set out for other lands. Indeed, the very founding of what was to become the Umayyad Caliphate arose from the flight of the Umayyad prince Abd al-Rahman I from Damascus. Many figures forced into exile continued to carry out significant intellectual work in their new homes. These events include:

These events will take place throughout 2016, occupying various public spaces and private premises, whilst the Córdoba Proportion exhibition will run for four months, as the major element of the project.

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· Finally, local residents and visitors will be encouraged to follow a route around the city of Córdoba, taking in examples of the architecture of Rafael de La-Hoz and those buildings which respect the Córdoba Proportion. Programme section:

1.2 Córdoba routes Within Córdoba in the World there is another dimension beyond that of the city as meeting place. Throughout its long history, Córdoba has experienced dissemination processes that have been to a greater or lesser extent traumatic, and which were directly linked to the world of culture. In many cases, these processes had negative causes which today, with hindsight, can be used as a lesson for the future.

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The banishing of Averroes and Maimónides, for adhering to their ideas in a time of religious fanaticism under the Almohad fundamentalists. The forced exile of a whole sector of the city – the district of Saqunda – following the uprising against Al-Hakam I due to an increase in taxation. Some of the exiled families headed for Fez (Morocco), where they founded the al-Ándalus district); other headed for Alexandria, and for Crete, where a former Córdoba resident, Umar al-Balluti, established a dynasty that ruled until 961. The dramatic expulsion of the Moriscos by Philip III from 1609 onwards; they went into exile in Timbuktu (now in Mali) where they founded a library of over 3,000 ancient manuscripts in Arabic, Hebrew and Aljama Castilian. The Sephardic Jews were banished by the Catholic Monarchs under the Edict of Granada in 1492; the memory of Sepharad still survives in many parts of the world, where Sephardic Spanish (known as Ladino) is still spoken.

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The persecution of Crypto-Jews, such as José Penso de la Vega and Miguel de Barrios, by the Inquisition in the seventeenth century. The exile of liberals such as the Duke of Rivas during the absolutist reign of Ferdinand VII. The exile of leading republicans such as the writers Juan Rejano or Pedro Garfias.

Specific mention must be made of economic exile; an enormous number of emigrants left Córdoba during the 1950s and 1960s for other parts of Spain, Europe and America in search of better livelihoods. This painful fracture gave rise to a complex process of integration, which prompted innovative elements when the emigrants returned home. All this is particularly significant today, when Córdoba, like Spain and Europe, is becoming a destination for immigrants; the recognisable parallel with the emigration of local residents years ago should serve as the basis for integration and the recognition of diversity. The central theme of these activities will be the understanding and recognition of Europe as a common project for sharing, rather than for uniformity and homogeneity, based on a new approach to migration, displacement and dissemination, seen as factors promoting fertility and enrichment.

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The proposal consists of making a documentary film, organising an informative touring exhibition and publishing a book (The Thousand and One Córdobas) about the culture, history and customs of the citizens of the different places around the world that bear the name of Córdoba (or Cordova). A total of 47 places in the world bear this name, in countries such as the Philippines, Portugal, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico and the United States; 16 landforms are called Córdoba in Brazil, the United States and Canada. A similar experiment was made in 1992 by the Córdoba film-maker Gerardo Olivares. The idea here is to reuse his model, and learn from the outcomes in order to go a step further, endeavouring to establish more stable relationships based on culture, fostering exchange and collaboration, especially in artistic and educational projects. The intention of this documentary in two parts, each lasting 52 minutes, is to create a unique and entertaining film that combines knowledge and experiences, enabling the viewer to relive this special union between the different peoples. The project will be a return trip. Not only will it focus on what these other Córdobas are like, but it will also analyse the significance of this Córdoba, and determine to what extent its legacy and the symbolic importance of its culture and history (beyond its name) are still visible in other areas. The project seeks to explore the role played by migrations in the present and future of different societies, and the value of interculturalism. The exhibition will be taken to the main Córdobas of Latin America and Asia during 2016. A bilingual educational package in Spanish and English will be produced for use in schools in the different Córdobas around the world.

Programmes proposed:

1 The Córdobas Route Project submitted by: Transglobe. Independent producer, Madrid. Activities: Documentary film, travelling informational exhibition, publication, teaching material.

2 The Route of the First Umayyad Project submitted by: Alfonso Alba and Rafael Villegas. Journalists, Córdoba. Activities: Press expedition, travelling exhibition, use of social networks and blogs, book-catalogue, documentary, teaching material


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The initiative consists in organising an expedition, in the twenty-first century, to retrace the eighth-century journey of the Umayyad Prince Abd al-Rahman I from Damascus to Córdoba, where he became the first independent Emir. The team will comprise journalists and photographers from Spain, Syria and Morocco, who will travel through Syria, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Spain in search of the traces of the Umayyad dynasty in its journey through space and time. They will also highlight common features and differences between today’s Mediterranean societies. Real-time updates on the journey will be available through the new social-network options (e.g. Twitter, Facebook). A blog will be set up in four languages (Spanish, Arabic, English and French) which will become the diary of the journey. The project will also use the journey to promote the significance of Córdoba as the European Capital of Culture 2016 in each of the ten countries and to stress its symbolism as a destination and a gateway for relationships between the Mediterranean Region and Europe – organising press conferences at each stage of the journey. The expedition will make special “stop-overs” in Damascus (Syria), Bethlehem (Palestine), Kairouan (Tunisia) and Fez (Morocco), cities with which Córdoba is twinned, and will compile a database of cultural, educational, artistic and peace-promoting associations, foundations and institutions on either side of the Mediterranean, which will be of use in the sharing of experiences, facilitating future collaborations and revitalising cultural exchanges. The odyssey will culminate in a touring exhibition of the pictures and articles produced during the journey. An audiovisual book-catalogue will be produced, that will be both attractive and easy to distribute for workshops, educational programmes and the media. The exhibition will be shown in Córdoba and subsequently in the countries visited during the expedition. Educational material in Spanish and Arabic will also be sent to those countries, for use in schools as a means of strengthening links between Córdoba and the cities on the route.

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3 Literary Route. Dialogues of love: Shakespeare, Cervantes and Inca Garcilaso2 Project submitted by: Fernando Iwasaki, writer. PeruSpain. Activities: literary encounter, theatre On 23 April 1616, Miguel de Cervantes died in Madrid (Spain), William Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon (United Kingdom) and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega in Córdoba, which is why UNESCO decided to celebrate this date as World Book and Copyright Day. This day will always unite the two classics of the English and Spanish languages with the first great writer from the American continent, considered “the father” of Latin American literature, the mixed-race writer, Garcilaso. The works of these three writers in a sense represent the sum of Renaissance and Graeco-Roman culture. Therefore, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of their deaths – a significant date in world literature – the city of Córdoba will bring together writers in the three languages, focusing on Dialogues of Love by León Hebreo, a work that was consulted by Shakespeare when writing Romeo and Juliet, translated into Spanish by Inca Garcilaso in 1590 and quoted by Miguel de Cervantes in the preface to Don Quixote.

2 2016 marks the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Inca Garcilaso (1539-1616). Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, nicknamed Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, was a Hispano-Peruvian writer and historian who devoted his life to history and to translating the classics. His father was a Spanish Conquistador, and his mother an Inca princess; this mixed background places him between two worlds. A contemporary of Luis de Góngora and Miguel de Cervantes, he was at one time a career soldier. He was considered the father of Spanish-American literature. He lived, wrote and published most of his work in Córdoba, and was thus the first of a long line of Spanish-American writers. He was a neighbour of Luis de Góngora in Córdoba, and of Miguel de Cervantes in Montilla, and while in Andalusia met Saint John of the Cross and Theresa de Jesús; he was an admirer of the work of Lope de Vega, Francisco de Quevedo and a contemporary of Fray Luis de León and Calderón de la Barca. His ashes are buried in the Cathedrals of Córdoba (Spain) and Cuzco (Peru).

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The meeting, chaired by the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa – who has already expressed his interest in taking part – would be organised by Fernando Iwasaki, a Peruvian writer living in Seville. The guest writers would be: Nobel prizewinner, John Maxwell Coetzee (South Africa), Salman Rushdie (India). Ian McEwan (United Kingdom); Antonio Muñoz Molina (Spain), Enrique Vila-Matas (Spain), Rosa Montero (Spain), the Cervantes prizewinner Jorge Edwards (Chile), Ricardo Piglia (Argentina) and Nelida Piñon (Brazil. Speakers would include the writers Lorrie Moore (United States), Zadie Smith (United Kingdom); Julia Leigh (Australia), Eduardo Jordá (Spain), Javier Cercas (Spain), Espido Freire (Spain), Jorge Volpi (Mexico), Rodrigo Fresán (Argentina) and Edmundo Paz-Soldán (Bolivia). At the same time, Córdoba will host a season of plays about love by Shakespeare, Cervantes and their contemporaries from various European countries. 4 The Carolinian route through the new settlements: the Road to Enlightenment Project submitted by: Córdoba Provincial Council Activities: exhibition, European folk-dance festival, educational activities This exhibition seeks to show how the experience of colonisation has played a part in shaping Europe. The history and culture of many towns and villages in the province of Córdoba are closely linked to the continent, because they were founded under Charles III in the late eighteenth century, by settlers from Central Europe. Examples include La Carlota, La Carolina and San Sebastián de los Ballesteros. This route, in the form of an exhibition, aims to highlight the special cultural and historical characteristics that still link these villages with their origins, such as Southern Germany (Alsace and Lorraine), Flanders or the Italian Tyrol, and to analyse possible shared features.

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During the second half of the eighteenth century, the spirit of reform and enlightenment gave rise, among many other new concepts, to the New Villages of Andalusia, an experiment in founding the ideal society. They were the fruit of a project initiated in 1767 by the politician and lawyer Pablo de Olavide, who conceived the idea of repopulating the land as a way of achieving economic and development objectives and also of ensuring safety, since these were unpopulated areas, mainly covered by Mediterranean forests and scrub, which often sheltered bandits and highwaymen. In order for the experiment to be untainted, the settlers had to be foreign; it was also indispensable that they be Catholics. The idea was to build a model community, uninfluenced by the negative aspects of the old society, particularly in economic matters. In the province of Córdoba, the new population was distributed over the area known as the Desierto de la Parrilla, halfway between Córdoba and Ecija. The exhibition will be enriched by a festival of Spanish and European folk-dances, from the countries whence the settlers came. In order to enable the younger generations to learn these dances, and thus prevent their dying out in the future, workshops could be held in schools in the villages concerned, where children would have an opportunity to learn the dances. Programme section:

1.3 Córdoba-Poland In 2016, one Spanish and one Polish city will share the designation of European Capital of Culture. The European Commission requires that candidate cities in both States demonstrate their awareness of the cultural context of the countries with which they will share the designation, as well as their ability to establish cultural relations with them. Below are some examples of the programmes that might be implemented in 2016, with a twofold purpose: to analyse and compare the contributions of Spain and Poland to the history of Europe; and to promote modern cultural programmes designed to foster mutual understanding and the exchange of creators.


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Programmes proposed:

1 From Poland to Córdoba. The Voyage of the Goths Project submitted by: María Dolores Baena, Director, Córdoba Archaeological and Ethnological Museum, and Jerónimo Sánchez Velasco, archaeologist specialising in Visigothic culture. Activities: exhibition, meeting of Spanish and Polish jewellers, children’s activities This interesting exhibition project focuses on the important ties between Córdoba and Poland, with the aim of highlighting the importance of migrations that transfer customs from one country to another in order to build a new society. The exhibition will centre on the period in which Goths, Vandals, Hispano-Romans, Byzantines, and later Muslims and Berbers exerted a mutual influence on the building of today’s Europe. Recent research by the Córdoba Archaeological and Ethnological Museum has underlined the material importance of Córdoba during the Visigothic period and, especially, the existence of strong links between the jewellery and the funeral customs of the local civilisation and those of societies that developed over several centuries through migrations and contacts with the Roman Empire and various barbarian cultures. These funeral dowries are on the whole scarce, but those that have been unearthed are highly significant: personal ornaments (brooches, jewels, buckles…), weapons and, most of all, funeral urns which share similar features from the Baltic Sea to the banks of the Guadalquivir. Under Umayyad rule, they were used as the basis for working techniques which led to a new aesthetic style. The finding of treasures throughout Europe has made it possible to trace the route followed by these magnificent craftsmen, who first (in what is now Poland) worked for princes, and later (in the Iberian Peninsula), for the Monarchy and the Church. We can appreciate the similarities between the jewels found in the princely necropolis of Kowalewko (Greater Poland, located to the north of the city of Poznan), the royal treasure found in La Petrosa (Pietroasa, in what is now Romania), the objects discovered in Guarrazar (to the south of Toledo) or the votive crowns supposedly dedicated to Saint Justa and Saint Rufina in Seville by the Gothic kings, and found in Torredonjimeno (Jaén).

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Thus, by the end of the fourth century AD a whole repertoire of styles and techniques was travelling from Poland across the whole of Eastern Europe and the Roman Empire until they settled on Spanish and Córdoban soil two centuries later. This is a striking new way – rigorous, scientific, attractive – of demonstrating a hithertounknown interculturalism based not on religion but on the movement and intermixing of peoples. In tandem with the exhibition, a meeting of Spanish and Polish jewellers, focussing on modern jewellery design – will be organised in conjunction with the governmentsponsored State Society for Development in Design and Innovation (DDI). Children’s activities and games will be organised so that the younger generations can learn more about this important period of history. 2 At the border: eighteenth-century Polish Orientalism Project submitted by: National Museum of Warsaw Activities: exhibition of paintings, parallel activities This exhibition was first organised in 2008 by the National Museum of Warsaw, under the curatorship of Tadeusz Majda and Anna Kozak. It was the first exhibition devoted to Orientalism in Polish painting during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Given the link between things Andalusian, Arabic, African and exotic, the idea is to bring this exhibition to the city in 2016, so that Spaniards can learn something of the view of the East among nineteenth-century Polish painters. The local public is likely to be very surprised by this reading of the East. Paintings will be loaned from the Warsaw National Museum and other art museums in Krakow, Bielsko, Biala, Kielce, Poznan, Torun´, Wroclaw and other Polish cities, as well as from private collections and from the royal palaces of Krakow and Wilanow. Parallel activities will also be organised for a whole range of audiences, with a view to exploring in depth all aspects of Orientalism, one such activity will be an exhibition of family photographs with an Orientalist inspiration. 3 A dialogue between Pepe Espaliú and Miroslaw Balka Project submitted by: Juan Vicente Aliaga, Lecturer, Faculty of Fine Arts, Polytechnic University of Valencia; art critic

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Activities: contemporary art exhibition in Córdoba and Poland In the early 1990s, sculptures by the Córdoba artist Pepe Espaliú (1955-1993) and the Polish artist Miroslaw Balka (1958) coincided on the international art scene, in the Venice Biennale. The two artists already shared a certain aesthetic background, and their works displayed a shared concern for representing the body as a fragile, brittle material. They also felt that art should include an awareness of reality, though shunning a dogmatic, formulaic approach; their work was informed by an interest in caring for others, and remembering those who have suffered. This was evident in a series of performances by Espaliú entitled Carrying, which sought to publicise the plight of AIDS victims; it was also evident in Balka’s recent and highly-acclaimed installation in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London, which evoked the fear and silence in which the victims of Naziism were forced to live. Today, work by both artists is to be found in the Tate Modern’s permanent collection. This exhibition is presented as a dialogue between two key artists on the contemporary scene who – from Spain and from Poland – have succeeded in reaching the world’s leading museums with works which link the fragility of life with a socially-aware concept of art. 4 Tadeusz Kantor vs. Jerzy Grotowski Project submitted by: Casa Pichincha Socio-Educational-Cultural Association and Vertebro Teatro, Córdoba. Activities: theatre, workshops, film season, exhibition. The Casa Pichincha Association and the Teatro Vertebro theatre company propose to organise a series of activities exploring the contribution made to the history of theatre by Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990) and Jerzy Grotowsky (1933-1999), two Polish dramatists and directors who revolutionised voice, body and stage techniques in Europe during the second half of the twentieth century. The activities will include: theatre performances, workshops, screening of films and actions, and an exhibition on the legacy of these two figures in terms of stage design and the theory and practice of literature. It should be noted that Grotowski drew his inspiration from Spanish classics, transforming them into a paratheatrical idiom. A good example is the influence of The Constant Prince, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (16001681), on Grotowski.

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Tadeusz Kantor was strongly affected by his travels in Andalusia, his passion for bull-fighting and his evident fascination for the work of Diego de Velázquez and Francisco de Goya, which often served as an inspiration. 5 The contemporary Polish art scene Project submitted by: Antonio Jesús Gil Alcaide. Independent curator, Córdoba. Activities: contemporary site-specific interventions in local heritage spaces The proposal, made by an independent cultural manager, seeks to create a platform for the Polish contemporary art scene in Spain, featuring interventions by six of the most distinguished artists in Poland today. The works will be installed in heritage centres that are not usually used for exhibitions but which are ideal for sitespecific events, contexts in which the tradition and history of the venue would be enhanced by the contemporary approach of these artists. Theme II: Culture, the European common denominator

The history of Europe is a good example of how diversity has always been the starting point for unity. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the history of Europe is that it is the sum of all the cultures that together have made it a privileged setting for any artistic event. Indeed, the originality and success of the European Union stems precisely from its ability to respect the history, languages, and cultures of the member States within a common democratic framework. The European project feeds on the rich legacy of a history built upon cultural diversity. It grows, in turn, through dialogue and through cultural exchange, which is now breaking down borders. This is giving rise to a neverending European market for ideas, greatly helped by new technologies. The European Union is not only an economic process or a trading power; it is also a dazzling and unprecedented social and cultural project. Moreover, the European cultural sector has become the trigger for highly-dynamic economic activities and a major generator of employment. Creativity and innovation go hand in hand, and together guarantee a future in which we will be able to address the main social and economic challenges faced by European society.


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Thanks to its commitment to respecting human rights and the protection and promotion of cultural rights and the rights of minorities, the European experience plays an essential role in the redefinition of international relations. Europe therefore has an opportunity to tackle immediate challenges, for itself and for the world, including the promotion of culture as a tool for social and economic development and as a guarantee of peaceful coexistence and the prevention of conflict. These are global objectives, clearly defined in the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Córdoba’s commitment to Europe is based on a concept of knowledge that has been forged in Europe over the centuries, particularly through the response to the challenges that the city has currently made its own, those relating to culture as social and human capital, and to the dialogue between civilisations as an instrument for solidarity and coexistence. The word, the senses, science and conscience, and the mixing of cultures, all become central themes in a cultural programme ready to emphasise both the symbolic capital of Europe and, above all, what Córdoba has to offer the world on the basis of its historical and current experience. Programme section:

2.1 The Word It is no coincidence that the word appears as one of the threads running right through Córdoba’s cultural approach, and as a specific theme in the programme itself. The word is the best expression of diversity, of dialogue, of reflection and of creativity. It stands for democratic values, for human rights, for freedom and for coexistence. It provides the foundation for recognition, by expressing fusion and mixed cultures, by becoming verse or prose, allowing emotions, questions and answers to flow. Without this tool, there can be no talk of civilisation, culture or progress. Today, new technologies have formed an alliance to multiply our options by creating new ways of expressing ourselves. This programme seeks to reclaim the link between Córdoba and the word (written, spoken, sung, published, translated), from Roman Corduba, through Umayyad Qurtuba, to the present day, with all its potential for openness, dialogue and transformation at European level. Mindful of this potential, this programme section can be divided into three factors:

· · ·

The word as generator of horizontal and multidirectional processes. The word as a reflection of change, as the herald of what is emerging. The word as the fruit of plural discourse.

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9 The future of words: being the European Capital of Culture involves exploring ways of meeting the challenge of what the word will be in future. The programme will examine ways, and formats, in which words will coexist in this globalised universe.

This approach forms the basis for various action areas:

Programmes proposed:

1 Polysemous fertility: this will address language’s capacity for complex expression, the fact that the same word can express different realities. 2 The relational approach: focussing on the reference made by US President Barak Obama in his Cairo speech to Muslim citizens. We believe that the word redefines closeness, immediacy and public space 3 Contrasting views: discussion, dialogue and the capacity to persuade are the very function of the word. Thanks to festivals such as Cosmopoética, the programme will include an exploration of orality as the means of exorcising violence, for example in rap, in Málaga’s verdiales and the Latin-American decimistas. 4 From literature to the fine arts: the word embodies a multiple process of representation. The inscriptions from the Qu’ran in Córdoba’s Mosque attest to this. The programme will examine the fluid boundary between literature and fine arts. 5 Creators in the word: the building of the new State Library and the Municipal Central Library in Córdoba testifies to the commitment of Córdoba 2016. Citizens must have the chance to create literature, through workshops for beginners, and by encouraging visits from authors from all over the world. 6 The word in urban spaces: words must penetrate public space; they need visibility; they need to become a normal part of our daily lives. The aim is to flood the city with the word. 7 The word of others / Our word: we cannot close our ears to the outside world. The programme will bring together books from all over the world, and create platforms like a permanent translator’s forum. The creation of an Intercultural Library will be encouraged. 8 The professional word: Córdoba will be a forum for the publishing industry. Local publishing companies like El Olivo Azul currently take part in groups reflecting on the future of the book and its formats. We will widen the scope to include bookshops, scriptwriters, translators and cultural journalists.

1 From Gutenberg to the eBook: from the Europe of the book to the digital revolution Project submitted by: Drafting Committee and Diocesan Library Activities: exhibition, meetings with experts, contemporary creative activities, workshops, electronic book fair

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The poetry festival Cosmopoética. Poets of the World in Córdoba has made Córdoba a veritable home for words and poetry, a place where there is space for all tongues and forms of language. In 2009, the project was awarded the Ministry of Culture’s National Prize for the Promotion of Reading. It brings together literary quality and the involvement of citizens, taking verse onto the streets, in a constant dialogue with the fine arts, the theatre, music, the cinema and video creation. With a view to maintaining and enhancing this distinctive event, four special actions are planned for 2016: ·

The project has been conceived as a large exhibition that will examine the past, the present and the future of the book as an object in itself, as a vehicle for transmitting ideas and as a symbolic element uniting knowledge and innovation. In this exhibition, in which the main archives and libraries in Andalusia, Spain and Europe will take part, the intention is to analyse the history of writing and the book to the present day: from the Rosetta stone to online publishing and the eBook. Running parallel to this exhibition there will be meetings of experts who will reflect on the transition between printing and digital media, contemporary creativity activities and practical workshops on classical binding. At the same time, an electronic book fair will also be organised, bringing together producers and potential consumers of eBooks. All this will link the city to the creation of a permanent forum for professionals and companies working in eBook production, aimed at charting its present and future possibilities. 2 Cosmopoética. Poets of the World in Córdoba Project submitted by: Córdoba City Council Activities: poetry recitals, fine arts displays, theatre, music, film, video creations, educational activities and games for children.

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Cosmopoética 2016: Poets of Europe in Córdoba This will be a “special issue” devoted to European poetry, bringing to Córdoba some of the finest poets from each of the EU member States. Linked interdisciplinary activities will focus on poetry in Europe – and especially in Poland – and explore aspects such as translation, publishing, promotion and marketing, the relationship between poetry and other disciplines, the weight given to poetry within the whole European cultural system, the role of international poetry meetings, social involvement and participation, and the contribution of poetry to Europe’s common imagination. European Poetry Festivals at Cosmopoética: International poetry festivals and meetings are held all over Europe, examples include Le Marché de la Poésie in Paris (France), the Warsaw Autumn Poetry Festival (Poland) , the Krakow Poetry Festival, (Poland) the Malmö Poetry Festival (Sweden) , the Berlin Poetry Festival (Germany), and the Módena Poetry Festival (Italy). The idea is to identify and establish contacts with those festivals most similar in outlook to Cosmopoética, with a view to creating a stable network of relationships and arranging for the main European poetry festivals to bring their own national poetry productions to Córdoba in 2016.


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Poetry as dialogue in Cosmopoética The word as dialogue is not always a harmonious undertaking. Conflicting views and arguments are also part of dialogue; argument at its most extreme, denying the word itself and the possibility of dialogue, can become conflict. Different cultures have different forms of ritual in which poetry can defuse the potential violence of debate, and turn the spoken word into an aesthetic game, imbued with cultural value; throughout history, these forms – in their various guises – have come to characterise certain geographical areas. In Spanish, they include the modern rappers’ cockfights, the verdiales popular in the mountains around Málaga, the troveros in the province of Córdoba, and the various types of decimistas (versadores, payas) all over Latin America. Other European cultures are bound to have similar formulae. From the modern heirs of the sixteenth-century poet Vicente Espinel to the exponents of hip-hop, the project would examine the presence of this art in poetic/musical dialogue, in the culture of Spain, Portugal and other European countries; a research, documentation and exchange network would be set up, culminating, in 2016, in an international meeting on poetic dialogue, which would thenceforth become an integral feature of the annual Cosmopoética programme. · The poetic image of Europe If any language in poetry is universal, it is that of visual poetry and, in general terms, everything related to the link between poetry and the fine arts: poetry in the street (on balconies, walls, hoardings...), installations, videopoetry, photopoems... The idea is to bring celebrated exponents of these disciplines to Córdoba in 2016, to chart the poetic image of Europe, as a way of stimulating a dialogue between poetry and other art disciplines, and at the same time of pooling disparate approaches to the subject in different European countries. ·

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3 Is Don Luis alive? Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: poetry actions, blog, theatre

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The aim is to highlight and link three common elements in the musical repertoire of different European countries and seek their equivalents in other continents: ·

In 1927, a tribute to Góngora was organised in Seville by a group of young writers, under the title “¡Viva don Luis!” (Long Live Don Luis!). The tribute, intended to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the death of this Golden Age poet from Córdoba, gave rise to the famous literary group known as the ’27 Generation. This project seeks to revitalise the legacy of Luis de Góngora y Argote, establishing networks between poets in Córdoba and elsewhere in Europe. Emulating – from a modern perspective – the symbolist poets of Paris and young Spanish poets of the ‘27 Generation, the project aims to examine Góngora’s life and work through a series of poetic actions, both live and online – such as the blog Góngora 2.0 – with a view to promoting the meeting of diversity, and a reflection on the relationship between modernism and tradition, between the legacy of a poetic language and the embracing of a plural, technological world very different to that of the author. This tribute will provide an ideal opportunity to explore Góngora’s plays through a contemporary reading, by means of theatre performances. Luis de Góngora wrote three plays, Las firmezas de Isabela, Comedia venatoria and El Doctor Carlino, the latter unfinished and later completed by Antonio de Solís. The three plays are based on Italian sources. 4 The Voice of the Emotions Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: season of concerts, recitals, theatre, exhibition of paintings and photography A season of concerts and recitals revolving around the relationship between the word in song and the world of emotions and passions, particularly love, in both classical and contemporary music. The repertoire will be very broad, including Spanish carols for voice and vihuela, and English Renaissance songs for voice and lute, as well as some twentieth-century lieder. It will also include nonreligious cantatas on the theme of love (many of Handel’s Italian cantatas), and various operas and arias from operas, as well as more contemporary work by composers that use the word to transmit emotions. The repertoire of modern singer-songwriters will also be covered.

· ·

The role of the voice (or the importance of the vocal genre par excellence: the song and the singersongwriter) The ability of the voice to move, to arouse emotion or passion. That these emotions and passions preferably be of an amorous or romantic nature.

The project will be rounded off by theatre performances on the theme of love, and an exhibition of paintings and photographs with a similar motif. 5 Radio Collage Project submitted by: Marta Jiménez and José María Martin García. Jounalists, Córdoba. Activities: Internet radio. Creation of an ECoC sound archive. The project aims to create an Internet-based radio station which will broadcast during 2016, covering the events taking place during the European Capital of Culture year. The philosophy is that this radio station will be an additional medium for artistic creation, and the Internet its home. It will be structured around sound sections posted on the Internet, so that the listener can download them as podcasts, thus producing a kind of sound map of creativity in the city. These sections will include, as a record, the cultural information generated in Córdoba in the course of the year. The radio station will be a creative adventure in sounds and words, closely linked to the project, and will act as the sound archive for the European Capital of Culture. The programme intends the listeners to hear what the city is saying during 2016, broadcasting whatever happens, constructing sound elements, involving artists in the live performance of pieces on the radio, seeking sounds that have something to say. The geographical target will be the citizens, in the widest and most inclusive sense of the term, paying special attention to social minorities. The focus will be on Europe, with translations of the pieces into English, and with Latin America as an invited continent.

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Programme section:

2.2 Art and the Senses Activities, particularly artistic activities, are the visible face of the Córdoba 2016 bid; they are what the public will perceive through its senses. Stimuli, from the Latin stimulus (goad), can truly goad our awareness, urging the spectator into a sensitive and reflective experience. The arts are a form of non-verbal communication, in which denotation is replaced by different semantics, by a capacity for suggestion, for prompting moods, for expressing more than describing. Since the arts develop within an open code, they promote a whole range of diverse interpretations, making them suitable to multicultural contexts. They are, in a sense, universal languages. The daily life of the citizen in the twenty-first century is peppered with pictures. We are exposed to hundreds every day and, perhaps for that reason, neither art nor publicity can be understood as a simple act of looking, but rather as the stimulation of all the senses as well as the intellect. Today, no product-marketing campaign could conceivably avoid appealing to all the senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste, all come into play at the same time. This multisensorial approach in daily life has been extended to the creative sphere, coinciding with the emergence and development of various new technologies. Although cinema soon incorporated sound and vision, many current works of art demand a more active attitude from the spectator: walk through the room, touch the works, change body posture, smell the pieces, or even eat some of them. Today, works of art are more complex in their construction, and we need more than sight in order to appreciate and understand them. So, contemporary artistic expressions in general, and the “living arts” in particular, seek to awaken all the senses at once, trying to offer multiple elements of enjoyment and comprehension for the spectator. To understand these works in all their dimensions, we have to move away from contemplative attitudes and adopt participatory attitudes, those which demand the activation of all the senses.


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A striking example, in this respect, is Flamenco, a hallmark feature of Andalusian culture, whose roots penetrate deep into Córdoba’s very being 3. Julio Romero de Torres immortalised this intimate relationship in countless canvases, while poets reflected our fascination for this multisensual art par excellence. From the theatre to the street, in clubs and in bars, Flamenco is present in the life of Córdoba; two local Flamenco artists, Vicente Amigo and Joaquin Cortés, are good examples of the close relationship between the city and Flamenco. The Córdoba School of Music is one of the few in Spain where this Flamenco music is officially taught, just as naturally as any other musical speciality. Also striking is the existence of a dynamic Chair of Flamenco Studies at the University, currently held by the Flamenco singer Luis de Córdoba. In short, Flamenco is an art in which the word, music and dance come together, a highly topical art, which this ambitious project seeks to explore from the most varied perspectives, analysing its multiple creative expressions: Flamenco from A to Z. This programme area will thus include the most adventurous and varied projects, offering the visitor a chance to acquire new tools for enjoying and understanding the arts of today, to the greatest extent possible. Programmes proposed:

1 Dada Attitude Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: theatre, dance, poetry, contemporary art, children’s activities If there is one artistic movement, particularly belonging to the European avant-garde, which cannot be reduced to a simple artistic sphere, it is Dada. Since its appearance, the movement has above all defined an attitude, a “way of life”, a way of thinking and acting. To coincide with the centenary of its appearance in 1916, the project proposes to take a look back at the movement; not from the historical point of view, but by charting the marks and traces it has left on the arts today.

3 The Andalusian Regional Council has submitted a request for Flamenco to be recognised by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage

The project will show how Dada has influenced current creativity, and how a Dada attitude has evolved which incorporates irony, humour, the absurd and the provocative. This interdisciplinary project will trace the persistence of the Dada spirit in multiple disciplines: theatre, dance, poetry, and of course contemporary art. A series of games will also be organised in order to enable children to find out about this art movement. 2 Eutopía: International Young Creators’ Festival Project submitted by: Andalusian Youth Institute Activities: concerts, performances, shows, lectures and round tables This international festival is an essential event for young Spanish creators, since it brings together young people from many countries. Eutopia, in addition to involving concerts, performances and shows is, above all, a space for the exchange of ideas and for dialogue between young creators, for research and training, and for reflecting on cultural requirements, values and management. Its 2016 edition will be specifically devoted to creative work by and for young people throughout Europe. The competition has also become an act of celebration of the street as a meeting place. Many of the scheduled activities take place in the open air, are free, and promote the participation of citizens in culture. 3 Capital Music Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: concerts, master-classes, seminars This project is a survey of European music through its cities. The core element of the project is a season of concerts, whose programmes will link a European capital to a given period in European musical history. The idea is to link a given city (e.g. London, Paris, Venice) with a specific musical landmark: a group of composers, a school, the development of an influential form. The city serves as a binding element, given that cities throughout history have made musical practice possible in various ways. The concert programmes will include: Paris and Impressionism, London and the Concerto Grosso (Geminiani, Barsanti), The Court at Versailles, the Musical Schools of Naples and Venice, The Mannheim School in the Eighteenth Century, Córdoba and the Three Cultures (Mudejar and Arab-Andalusí music), Dresden and the Court of Frederick II (the change of style), Vienna at various periods.

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Running parallel to this season of concerts, various training activities will be arranged: workshops, and master-classes with some of the performers taking part, and seminars on different musical periods and forms. 4 Crossroads: European Dialogues Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: exhibitions, lectures, concerts, theatre and dance.

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5 The Performing Arts Laboratory in Europe Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: theatre, dance, circus, performance, training and research activities in the performing arts. This project is intended as a core element in the performing-arts section of the programme, with particular reference to the arts of theatre and dance. It seeks to explore two specific features:

A programme of events in all disciplines, organised around the idea of dialogue and bonding, between creators and artists and also between educational institutions all over Europe. The project will comprise two working areas:

·

a) Masters and students This proposal will focus on the circulation of ideas, and on their transmission from one generation to another within European culture. Culture is renewal and rupture, but it is also transmission and inheritance. Different generations of European artists, linked through their specific master-student relationships, will be explored through exhibitions, performances, concerts and readings. Specific proposals will be selected with the help of European schools of art, music and performing arts. b) Duplex A season of exhibitions, concerts, performances and readings in the form of a dialogue between the work of two artists from different European countries. The meeting of creative universes, and the dialogue between different artistic languages, is increasingly seen as one of the most dynamic and appropriate areas for experimentation. At the same time, these dialogues will foster contacts between artists and institutions, with a view to generating networks that reflect both the diversity and the internal bonds that characterise Europe.

The performing arts laboratory spread across Europe during the second half of the twentieth century. The project seeks to highlight this short history, and focus on the echoes of that research tradition that survive in contemporary practice in the performing arts. At the same time, the idea is to bring together a series of initiatives intended to stress the need to base performingarts practice on research, experimentation and renewal. The project also aims to show how certain structures can be generated which are not limited to the theatre or dance company, or to a simple production structure, but instead integrate training and research as part of the creative process.

·

The performing arts laboratory has become a major concept, linking together the performing arts in Europe. The boundaries between theatre, dance, circus and the fine arts are rapidly becoming very blurred.

In exploring new approaches to the performing arts, the project highlights the core principles informing Córdoba’s ECoC bid: creative innovation, dialogue, interculturalism and interdisciplinarity. The idea of a performing-arts laboratory will thus become a truly European setting for the sharing of initiatives, experience and results. The format will comprise performances, training activities, debates and the exchange of projects on this theme between different European countries.


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6 The Andalusian School of Renaissance Polyphony Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: season of concerts This project seeks to explore, through a season of concerts, a specific feature of the history of music in Andalusia: polyphony, a musical movement which developed in the sixteenth century. As a number of leading specialists have pointed out, Andalusia – because many of the leading composers were either born or lived there – is the centre par excellence of Spanish polyphony. This may arguably have been the only period in which Spanish music developed on a scale comparable to that registered in more active areas of Europe, through the work of composers such as Cristóbal de Morales and Francisco Guerrero (both from Seville) and later Tomás Luis de Victoria, of the Castilian school. In Andalusia, apart from Morales and Guerrero, a number of other composers achieved fame, including Fernando de las Infantas, Pedro Guerrero, Juan Vásquez, Alonso Lobo and Rodrigo de Ceballos. The concerts will be held at key venues, such as the Mezquita (Mosque-Cathedral), Madinat al-Zahra and the Fernandine Churches. 7 Flamenco from A to Z Projects submitted by: “Rafael Orozco” School of Music, Córdoba; Intercultural Chair for Social Inclusion through Flamenco (University of Córdoba); Municipal Institute of Performing Arts, Córdoba (IMAE); Córdoba City Council. Activities: Flamenco singing and dance performances, season of concert-lectures, exhibition on Flamenco and contemporary art, teaching materials, exhibitions, films and documentaries, seminars and courses. Flamenco is one of the truly distinctive features of the Andalusian identity, and Córdoba is one of the areas where it is most important. Beyond the borders of Andalusia and Spain, this music arouses a striking passion; there is hardly a country that does not have Flamenco schools and countless enthusiasts. Since many of these schools have attained a very high level, the aim is to hold a Flamenco singing and dance performance, together with an exhibition focussing on Flamenco and contemporary art. These activities, under the joint title “Flamencos of the World, Unite!”, will enable Córdoba to highlight the universal dimension of this art, testifying to the spread of Andalusian multiculturalism all over the world.

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Flamenco is full of secrets, of codes which to the outsider appear unbreakable. It is an art in which the oral tradition has played a central role. From the days when Flamenco was only performed in private, to its popularisation in the late nineteenth century (in cafés chantants and theatres), the major elements of the art have been passed down from generation to generation in the form of codes; only when you have learnt and understood the codes, can you hope to penetrate the overwhelming mystery of this art that blends poetry, singing, playing and dance. These codes – the “palos” or recognisable Flamenco forms or genres – mark the gateway through which every enthusiast hopes to pass. The project envisages a series of lectures about Flamenco, its history and its multiple forms, together with presentations and concerts covering the different palos or genres, and the production of teaching package entitled “Palos”, from A to Z, to be used in schools and colleges throughout the province. Córdoba has joined the European network of White Nights with its own special initiative, the White Night of Flamenco, which since 2008 has become a major international event. This huge, night-long party comprises a whole host of Flamenco-related events, from large-scale shows with top-ranking artistes to contemporary art exhibitions linked to Flamenco, theatre, small cosy recitals, fashion shows and concerts. For the special 2016 event, the project will focus specifically on Flamenco’s ability to fuse with other types of music and other sensibilities. The Córdoba National Flamenco Art Competition, which has been held every three years since 1956, will also be taking place in 2016, and will be marked by a special edition highlighting the long-standing importance of the competition.

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The bid will also foster initiatives aimed at encouraging the social inclusion of gypsy schoolchildren through Flamenco, in an attempt to address the truancy problem which is highly localised in certain districts of the city. The Workshop on Social Inclusion through Flamenco will thus become a means of integration in which the families themselves will help others to learn about the identifying features of the Gypsy race; over the last few years, other projects in this field, such as the Beat Workshop, have been remarkably successful. The workshop will run parallel to other schemes aimed at exploring the opportunities for fusion and exchange with music from Africa and South America. This course will provide training activities, but will also encourage concerts and promotional tours, which may lead to the setting up of culture companies and the creation of jobs in the music industry; in other words, the project has a sustainable future.

This programme section will bring together projects addressing science and conscience, knowledge and life, through exhibitions and lectures on landmarks in physics, chemistry, medicine or astronomy – sciences intrinsically developed by man, which in turn have had a marked influence on the development and evolution of mankind. The aim is to provide a panoramic survey of European science, country by country.

Programme section:

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2.3 Science and Conscience Europe’s culture is the culture of human rights. The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 opens by declaring that all human beings are equal in dignity and are endowed with reason and conscience. These two factors undoubtedly contribute to making men and women cultural beings. Both factors are currently open to debate, prompting reflection on issues as different as religious identity, the boundaries between science and ethics, the balance between scientific progress and the moral dimension of the individual. To talk of culture in the twentieth century is also to reflect on the spiritual and intellectual questions to which an answer must be sought.

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If anything distinguishes the European identity at global level, it is the confluence of two components formalised in Enlightenment thought and the legacy of the three monotheistic religions: science and conscience. This legacy distinguishes the European model from other forms of civilisation which tilt the balance towards an extreme position (that of logic, of capitalism, or of blind faith), resulting in a complete imbalance or in artificial ethical support. In contrast to the traditionalist stance, there is a need to recover the European model of integration, based on the incorporation of the diverse, on the articulation of the multiple, on the balance between extremes, rejecting any form of exclusion and respecting what is human as a way of reconciling the individual and the social.

Taking these ideas as a basis, Córdoba will provide a focus for reflection on significant issues related to this field: ·

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Individual dimension: examine the rise of a more fundamental meaning of “religious”, overcoming interpretations that are reinforced through dogma and confrontation with anything different, in order to strengthen, in the best sense, the link between the individual and society. The collective: strike a better balance between economy and ecology. The scientific dimension: review the progress made in science, from al-Ándalus (whose great scientists made striking contributions, ten centuries ago, in fields ranging from mathematics to optics) to the latest developments in nanotechnology and organ transplantation in Europe. Publicise the great European commemorations in science scheduled for 2016: · The centenary of the General Theory of Relativity, published by Albert Einstein in 1916 · The centenary of the birth of the scientist Francis Crick, born in 1916 in Northampton (United Kingdom), who won the Nobel Prize for his work in discovering the three-dimensional structure of DNA · The centenary of the invention of the bicycle, by Karl D. Sauerbronn (Germany) in 1816.

Programmes proposed:

1 Fons Sophiae: significant absences and presences in the history of Europe Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: season of lectures, exhibitions and cultural programmes


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A season of monthly lectures throughout 2016, each devoted to the work of two European intellectuals, one man and one woman: e.g. Aristotle-Sappho, Isaac Newton-Madame d’Aulnoy, Immanuel Kant-Madame de Staël, Sigmund Freud-Madame Curie. This would give a gender slant to the lectures, exhibitions and cultural programmes comprising the project. These activities would also have a dimension specific to the world of translation, as one of the routes for the transmission and dissemination of ideas beyond linguistic and ideological borders. 2 In the Shadows of Seneca, contemporary meditations in Europe Project submitted by: Andalusian Institute of Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC), Córdoba Activities: keynote lectures and theatrical performance Seneca is an essential cultural figure in European history. His capacity for reflection and meditation not only on the conditions and the context of his time, but also on the human condition, inform this whole project. Both areas of reflection (context and man) will be addressed in an extensive season of lectures by some of the major thinkers of our time. Part of the project will involve a broad reflection on Europe and the main challenges confronting the Union. The other part will explore how and what Europe thinks, what its concerns are, and how to construct values. The shadow of Seneca favours and provides a particular context for reflection, a way of tackling – through meditation – the question of how we should live in Europe. This forum will be the ideal venue for performing some of Seneca’s plays, comprising eight tragedies: Hercules Furens, Troades, Phoenissae, Medea, Phaedra, Oedipus, Agamemnon and Thyestes. 3 Europe and the New ‘Imago Mundi’: Science and Navigation from Columbus to Copernicus Project submitted by: Monika Poliwka. Independent curator, Madrid Activities: exhibition, congress, publication, astronomical observations, children’s activities

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This is a multidisciplinary project, involving both Córdoba and the Polish city designated European Capital of Culture in 2016. It seeks to provide the public in both countries with an exhibition, a congress, and a publication, focussing on two key personalities in Humanist Europe, whose destinies to some extent ran parallel: Christopher Columbus and Nicolaus Copernicus, born in Torun´, Poland. It should be recalled that Louis Leroy, the famous sixteenth-century French writer, considered these as two great figures, one in navigation and the other in science. Two hundred years later, Voltaire called Copernicus “the Christopher Columbus of Astronomy”, while Sainte-Beuve in his portraits talked about Columbus as that heroic sailor who rivalled not Pizarro and Cortés, but Copernicus and Galileo. The reason this exhibition – which will include navigational instruments, old maps and model ships – is to be held in Córdoba is that the city played a decisive role in the history of mathematics, astronomy and other sciences; Ptolemy’s models of the planet were revised here in the tenth century, and new astronomical tables were constructed whose meridian of reference passed through Córdoba. There is documentary evidence that Christopher Colombus was in Córdoba before embarking upon his voyage. Thanks to Columbus and Copernicus, Europe expanded outwards: it discovered the New World and found how the planet fitted into the Universe. The programme will also include monthly astronomical observations – The Sky Every Month – together with activities about astronomy and navigation, for children.

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4 Bioethics: After Our Likeness Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: seminar, congress, exhibition Man has always wanted to be like the gods, to dominate nature, to create life in his own image and likeness. In the twenty-first century he seems close to achieving it, but not without a debate on the ethical and moral dimensions involved, and the implied reformulation of humanism. This thinking is not new; it has been present throughout time thanks to thinkers in the Córdoba tradition, such as Seneca, Averroes, Fernán Perez de Oliva, Juan Ginés de Sepulveda and Carlos Castilla del Pino. Today, with an advanced University and a leading transplant centre, Córdoba is the ideal platform from which to relaunch this debate at the start of the third millennium. A seminar will be held, with invited international specialists, and various specific blogs open to the whole world, focussing on two broad themes: bioethics (transplants, stem cells, GM products, biochemical engineering, etc.) and artificial intelligence (above all, its potential and its limits). To complete the project, a major congress will be held with the aim of drawing up a reference document to be used as a guide along the path towards science with a conscience. An exhibition on the latest progress in these matters will help to bring such issues closer to local people and visitors. Programme section:

2.4 Mixed Cultures The European culture of human rights leads us to value diversity, to understand cultures as historical processes forged by many disparate influences. The mixture of cultures is not just a characteristic, it is also a tool for the future which will allow us to deal successfully with issues as diverse as cultural politics, urban space, education and thinking. Córdoba’s bid in turn aims to turn the spotlight on the men, women, and societies that have historically been invisible.

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The Córdoba 2016 project seeks to take part in the vital debate on the redefinition of the concept of mixed cultures in the context of an intercultural society, since this is not an unchanging phenomenon. Today, at least, it is no longer just a racial concept. More than a term suitable for describing a reality, mixed culture today is seen as a tool for building the future. Interculturalism has sparked the flames of a mixed culture. This bid will endeavour to explore both the roots of today’s mixedculture society, and the context in which it has unfolded, as well as the potential it provides for building new mixed-culture identities capable of responding to the challenge of interculturalism. A key fundamental element in the new mixed culture is mobility. The mixing of cultures is linked to migratory processes, as well as the arrival of new generations born to emigrants. However, there is another type of mobility; that of the nomadic author or artist. New forms of cultural life, new creative models connected to other lands, and to hitherto unexplored ways of experiencing mobility and its influence on creation. The mixed-culture environment incorporates mobility in various senses: the historical sense adduced by the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, of the mixed and pilgrim cultures, nowadays in the form of migratory flows; but also the sense of a structural dispersal of mixed cultures, an uncontainable hybridisation which can no longer be identified with a single culture or geographical territory, because what we are experiencing today is the renewed strength of mixed culture in many forms, identities, contexts and locations. Mobility today is a channel for new contexts and cultural processes, from which new identities can be constructed. To live between two worlds and adopt a state of permanent mobility and contamination can be a journey which is as much symbolic as it is physical. In defending mixed culture as a core element of interculturalism, one must be on one’s guard for two phenomena intended to constrain or officialise the essence of mixed culture. The first is the appearance of ghettos, through a false connection between cultures which establishes new hierarchies in the flows and spaces of the city. The second is a factor already all too familiar in cultural circles: the tendency to turn diversity into a museum piece, or alternatively to create “official” mixed cultures. This programme section seeks to shun those tendencies.


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Programmes proposed:

1 From Writing in Exile to Nomadic Writing Project submitted by: Jorge Eduardo Benavides. Writer, Madrid. Activities: literary encounter, Spanish-American musical encounters, photographic exhibition Over the last few years Spain has consolidated its position as a beacon for the Spanish American countries, and for many Spanish American writers and intellectuals it has become a place not only to visit but to settle down in. This phenomenon, though by no means new, differs in many respects to that of previous decades, when cultural immigration was prompted by exile or personal issues. It is now a global phenomenon, part of a greater level of immigration, with unprecedented economic and social overtones. This programme, comprising a Spanish-American meeting of people connected to culture, seeks to explore the enriching experience of the exiled writer or intellectual, straddling two cultures: that of the country left behind and that of the place in which he or she lives and has found refuge. The exile, a cultural hybrid, sees the supposedly fixed and homogeneous national identities both from the inside and from the outside, does not fully belong to either, and turns his or her specific position of “nowhere” into a privilege. In addition to the literary encounter, there will be performances of Spanish-American music, and a photography exhibition exploring the realities of exile. 2 The Inca and the ‘garcilasos’: contemporary comments on Spanish-American literature Project submitted by: Fernando Iwasaki. Writer. Peru and Spain. Activities: lectures, workshops, specific seminars Son of a Spanish nobleman and an Inca princess, Garcilaso is the most important mixed-race writer in the history of Latin America. Paraphrasing the title of his book True comments on the Incas (1609), Córdoba seeks to organise a two-week international meeting, which will bring together – under the auspices of the Inca Garcilaso – three generations of new Latin-American narrative, and will promote discussion and reflection on Spanishlanguage literature in general, and on Spanish American literature in particular.

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The first generation will be that born in the 1950s, contemporaries of the Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño. The second is made up of those born in the 1960s, better known in Spain through the anthologies McOndo (Editorial Mondadori, 1996), Lineas Aereas (Lengua de Trapo, 1999) and Pequeñas resistencias (Páginas de Espuma, 2005). The third will include those born in the 1970s, represented by Santiago Roncagliolo and Andres Neuman, winners of the Alfaguara prize in 2006 and 2009 respectively. Activities will include conferences, workshops, and specific seminars.

This knowledge and recognition of the Spanish-language literature created on the African continent is a valuable element in itself, in terms of post-colonial studies and equal relationships, but also as a way of reappraising the cultural heritage represented by a shared language and its role as an element of communication between two continents on different sides of the Mediterranean and with different levels of socio-economic development. But equally important, the meeting will provide an opportunity for dialogue between creators, and between creators and readers.

3 The Masks of the Three Cultures Project submitted by: César Oliva. Theatre specialist, Murcia. Activities: season of plays, exhibition and musical encounter

During the congress, a number of supplementary activities will foster interaction with different audiences: concerts of African music, a food exhibition, and the screening of African films.

The proposal is for a review of one of Córdoba most distinctive features, the meeting of different cultures, through a season of plays. It will comprise texts from the Spanish Golden Age which highlight the influence of the three cultures – Christian, Muslim and Jewish – in the daily lives of the citizens. This is an opportunity to examine the traditional view of the relationship between Christians, Arabs and Jews, as well as adopting a new approach to the staging of Spanish classics. In short, the plays of Lope de Vega, Cervantes and Calderón, with a focus on interculturalism from a contemporary perspective. This will form part of a broader programme to include an exhibition on the coexistence of the three cultures in the city, and a season of concerts with performances by leading exponents of contemporary Christian, Muslim and Jewish music from all over the world. 4 Congress on African Literature in Spanish Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: congress, season of African music, food exhibition, screening of African films. This meeting of critics, specialists and creators will have a twofold aim, focussing on knowledge and on recognition. In part, it seeks to delve deeper into this emerging literature, in which the common language acts as a channel for expressing unique experiences within the great tradition of Hispanic literature. The meeting will also act as a forum for creating projects and exchanging experiences, for presenting work to publishers and readers, which should serve to promote this creative area.

5 Women Feed the World Project submitted by: Asociación Pro-inmigrantes de Córdoba (APIC)-Andalucía Acoge. Activities: photographic exhibition, food workshop This project aims to highlight the fundamental role of women in feeding people, this being something that brings us together, something shared with most other cultures in the world. The project will comprise a touring exhibition of photographs of women from various countries fulfilling this role: women breastfeeding, country women labouring in the field to attain food self-sufficiency, women cooking, etc. The photographs will be collected in collaboration with other NGOs, women’s associations and local social groups. In addition, an intercultural coexistence day will be organised, which will enable local people to learn about representative dishes from the countries of origin of the immigrant population in the city and province of Córdoba. 6 The Roma, a European People Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: international meeting, music, gastronomy, exhibitions, film season, and documentaries The Gypsies arrived in Europe in the fourteenth century, and most of the world’s population of between 12 and 14 million still live in the Old World. Spain’s Gypsy population is around 700,000, representing 1.6% of the total population; estimates suggest that around half of the Spanish Roma population live in Andalusia.

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Gypsies call themselves Roma, the plural of rom, man. Though they have no State, they have their own language, history and culture, these being the strongest evidence of cohesion in any human group. Many distinctive features of Gypsy culture were accepted as common by Spaniards until not very long ago; however, the development of society and the homogenisation of so-called Western culture have side-lined these features. Following the enlargement of the European Union to 27 member States, with the entry of Romania and Bulgaria, the Gypsies have become the largest ethnic minority in Europe. There are large Gypsy communities in Spain, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Croatia and Greece. The programme The Roma, a European People seeks to be a week-long meeting, around the 8th April (International Roma Day), at which Gypsies from all over Europe will be able show and share the various expressions of their culture (music, cooking, language, oral tradition, etc.). Local people and visitors will have a chance to discover and enjoy the work of Roma artists such as the Belgian jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, Helios Gómez (Spanish painter, poster-maker and poet), Santino Spinelli (Italian musician and poet), János Balázs (Hungarian poet and painter) and David Beeri (Hungarian painter). At the same time, there will be a season of documentary and feature films focussing on the Gypsy people, including Time of the Gypsies (Emir Kusturica, 1989), and a photography exhibition with work by photographers like Carlo Gianferro (Italy), Peter Van Beek (Holland) and Lorenzo Armendáriz García (Spain), showing Gypsies in various parts of Europe and elsewhere. A particularly fascinating exhibition will explore the image of the Gypsy – and especially of the Gypsy woman – in advertising throughout Europe, including such landmark images as the packet design for the French cigarettes Gitanes, and the label on the Spanish olive oil brand Carbonell. This project also seeks to highlight the present situation of local gypsies and of Romanian gypsies, one of the most visible immigrant communities in the city.


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The meeting will be supported by the Unión Romaní, a member of the International Romani Union (a UNrecognised organisation), whose first Euro MP was the Gypsy Juan de Dios Ramírez-Heredia, recently appointed International High Commissioner for Gypsy Affairs. Theme III: The City and the Days

This theme includes programmes that establish a connection between the city and citizen participation which, like a river, structures its social, cultural and artistic map. It also seeks to encourage reflection about the function and purpose of the city. The projects involved aim to promote new readings of cultural relations and the future of the daily events occurring in the city’s public spaces; relations between the primary, cultural and service-orientated infrastructures; between the city centre and the outskirts; between the city as a whole and the districts that give it its life. This section is seen as a dialogue between Córdoba and the cities that live in Córdoba. In Córdoba, architecture is a key asset, through which the history of the city can be charted; that history is embodied in the Mezquita (Mosque-Cathedral) This is a landmark recognised worldwide as a source of inspiration in terms of the dialogue between the past and the innovation of the future. Its effects extend, like a shock wave, to dozens of monuments that also illustrate coexistence during different periods of history, between the Renaissance and the Baroque, between domestic and symbolic architecture. This expansion is also palpable in the streets and buildings of the Old Town, designed to be discreet. It is a striking example of how a collection of traces and layers that have become visible in a certain model of use and enjoyment blend – without fanfare – with the shape of both the existing city and the emerging city. The section Revolutionising the Everyday will also address the city as the focus of tensions and challenges posed by different future scenarios, scenarios prompted by the mixing of populations and cultures to produce new urban faces. The intercultural dialogue proposed in this dossier must be turned into an inter-urban dialogue, in which the other cities of Andalusia, Spain and Europe must be included, with their art, their problems and their varying architectures.

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Given these varied city typologies, there is a need for a programme that takes the city as a hub of reflection, enabling an examination of the contrasts between public creativity and urban regeneration, between sustainability and the transmission of cultural values. The idea is to see how this inheritance of nature and heritage, which is what makes a city, is fed by the contributions of its residents, who themselves produce new realities through processes of inclusion and exclusion, conflicts between majorities and minorities, and different capacities for coexistence and dialogue. All these problems are common to Europe and are a topical issue. Córdoba offers an ideal space and time for shaping the model city for 21st century Europe, supported by the conversion of public spaces into authentic places of discovery of common interests and the effective realisation of equality. Much of Córdoba’s cultural programme – aimed primarily at 2016 but also undertaken as a commitment to economic, social and cultural development – is based on this concept, the making of a city through the conversations of its residents The Rivers of Participation section will include those programmes arising from the participation of citizens in their everyday urban environment. The physical space will become the stage, and the actors will be cultural agents and representatives of grass-roots organisations, residents, associations and the entire cast that makes up the city. Programme section:

3.1 Revolutionising the Everyday Córdoba is a city for walking and talking, where time slows the speed of the metropolis down to a sedate pace that enables encounters, reflection and welcoming looks, a city that is built in harmony with nature and the gentle passage of life. A space tailored to suit men and women, where the city is built not as a place of confrontation between the public and the private, but as a place where the two merge, where citizens build their identities and their life projects. It is thus a sum of open spaces where personal and civic experiences interweave, a thriving setting for enjoying aesthetic emotions. In order to move towards those goals, taking advantage of all the guidelines offered by its history and its most recent political experience, Córdoba has opted for programmes inspired by a set of key ideas that express the city’s commitment to culture and to the citizens:

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The revitalisation of public space as the setting for all meetings, as a backdrop for democratic freedoms, as forum and agora, as a place where all contradictions coexist and individual and collective projects intersect. One of the essential pillars of the Córdoba 2016 project is the promotion of public art, seen as mediation, as a way of cultivating a civic sense and of overcoming the isolation of the artist. This concept draws the public into decision-making processes and encourages the creation of networks of cooperation between public and private agents. Making Córdoba a city of cultures, in the plural, through the dialogue of civilisations that has converted it into the varied enclave that it is today, and through the interactions of its neighbours, its inhabitants and visitors. A participatory cultural programme creates spaces for encounter, and thus stronger links between social groups. All activities will be accompanied by educational programmes.

This means addressing all the needs, concerns and expressions of diversity present in society. It means involving artists and innovators, programmers, the various institutions, public and private agents, and also the varied audiences. The city’s districts will become priority areas for these programmes, which will serve as bridges linking the various neighbourhoods and areas of the city, to ensure that there is no division between the city centre and the outskirts, or between the Old Town and the modern city; avoiding a fragmentation seen as alien to the programme’s goals.

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Programmes proposed:

1 The Dream of the City and the Urban Imagination Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: contemporary art exhibition This is an exhibition project that will explore the urban condition through a reconstruction of those attributes and experiences that define the “urban” as identity. This theme will be approached through the view of the city provided by international artists, their conception of how these attributes should be reconstructed. The period reviewed will be from the turn of the century to the present. The aim of this exhibition could be said to be the construction of a meeting place somewhere between Utopian inspiration and a collective project; a place for the future, for resistance, and for rebuilding the urban condition. The artists will review issues such as links, the place, mobility, limits, sociabilities, the collective imagination, flows, and cyberspace as a new public place. 2 Reflections of Themselves: the Suburbs of Europe Project submitted by: Desiderio Vaquerizo, University of Córdoba Activities: scientific meetings, exhibitions, season of lectures, publications Parallel to, and supplementing, the contemporary art exhibition described above, this broad programme will include scientific meetings, exhibitions, a season of lectures, as well as scientific and popular publications. Given the unique characteristics of a city like Córdoba, any study of its suburbs, or areas of urban expansion, will find itself facing a dense, complex and unique archaeological heritage. This makes it a perfect “laboratory of experiences” which can lay the groundwork for a better understanding of the historical heritage, that can be extrapolated to other European cities with similar characteristics. In 2016, therefore, Córdoba seeks to become a setting for European reflection on national and international experiences regarding the concept of suburbium and its evolution/ transformation from Roman times to the present day. The conclusions of these scientific meetings will be made public through a variety of channels. The range of goals is evident in the many town planners, geographers, archaeologists and architects who will be involved in shaping the future on the basis of a proper analysis of the past.


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3 The City as Stage: Public Art Interventions in Urban Spaces Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: contemporary art interventions in public spaces in Córdoba Artistic interventions in heritage settings have become a highly-successful formula for cultural action, not only in terms of their aesthetic value but also because they provide an opportunity to bring contemporary art to the citizens, in places they know, places where they live. Thus, the streets, bridges, squares and walls of Córdoba become a superb stage on which leading artists can speak to the city, display their interventions, and surprise with their creations. Everyday space astounds us with new perspectives, prompting other visions, other approaches. A new feature for 2016, in addition to a strikingly international and contemporary outlook, will be the intensive involvement of the citizens themselves in the installations and interventions devised by the invited artists. 4 The Sky Within My House. Contemporary art in the courtyards of Córdoba Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: contemporary art interventions in the courtyards of Córdoba The Courtyards Festival is of one the most striking and characteristic events in the city. The courtyards themselves are among Córdoba’s quintessential distinctive features; heirs to a Roman and Moorish tradition, they are fascinating not only in terms of their architecture or their relationship with the city, but also because they testify to a special way of life, a way of sharing privacy, of crossing thresholds in relationships. This project seeks to revive an earlier experiment in which the courtyard tradition was combined with the contemporary view of the artists involved. In this way, the dialogue between public and private, and the division between the traditional and modern, are expressed in new idioms and for a new public, attracted by the courtyards themselves. This event was remarkably successful in 2009, and for the ECoC year 16 international artists will again be invited to display their work in Córdoba’s courtyards. Most of the private courtyards belong to elderly people, and the programme will also seek to involve them in contemporary creation.

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5 Des-Bordes. International Mural Art in Córdoba Project submitted by: Oscar Fernández. Independent curator, Córdoba Activities: Mural art on the outskirts of the city This initiative involves the specific intervention of contemporary artists on walls around the outskirts of the city. One artist from each of the 27 EU member States will be invited to design and install works of mural art in areas of Córdoba unaccustomed to hosting cultural interventions of this sort. Once the walls in question have been located and the artists have been selected, a kind of project monitoring office will be set up in the area in question, making use of Córdoba’s network of local civic centres. This modus operandi will bring project management mechanisms and agents closer to local residents, and the residents themselves – once they have seen the designs – will decide which painting will be put up on their walls, in an attempt to stimulate their interest in contemporary art. Des-bordes shares, to a large extent, the spirit of the Community Murals that sprang up in Chicago in the 1960s, and helped to consolidate the reputation of a number of Mexican and US artists, as well as enhancing urban interventions in everexpanding cities. 6 Projectmylife Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: audiovisual production, creation of digital dissemination platforms. This project seeks to generate, collect and disseminate videos, lasting one minute, in which citizens of every European country describe their daily lives. The project will be carried out in collaboration with film institutes and embassies in the various countries. By the end of the project, an archival database will have been built up of the daily lives of Europeans at a given moment in time. This vast document will be stored on a range of web-based platforms which will be responsible for disseminating the project. Copies will be used to draw up a European map of videos on the Internet. The project aims to explore new production, communication and distribution formats, tapping the new potential of technology allied to culture.

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Programme section:

3.2 Rivers of participation The decisive role of the River Guadalquivir in Córdoba’s founding and subsequent development is beyond question. In the distant past, the city’s land relief and strategic location were crucial; today, Córdoba’s ECoC bid seeks to restore the river’s vital strategic importance. By 2016, the river will be a key catalyst, revitalising the city’s layout, its skyline, and its cultural scene. In this sense, the river is seen as a means of structuring a number of strategic initiatives, and as a potential natural stage. But it is also seen as a symbolic landmark, an immensely powerful metaphor for the channelling of resources and energy. It can also be interpreted as a symbol of the city itself, and as the sum of tributaries and flows towards a common course. Equally evocative is its embodiment of the idea of a stream which ends in the opening of new horizons on the world. Taking into account that specific symbolic value, and the role of the river in the regeneration and revitalisation of Córdoba, the title Rivers of participation has been used to encompass an extensive, specific programme of events that will fill the streets of the city in 2016, and will foster the active involvement of residents and visitors alike. Here, the river is a metaphor for collective involvement; public spaces and streets will be part of a group of fortnightly projects that will stimulate both city and citizens. The dominant presence of the river, its strongly Mediterranean character, the natural setting of the Sierra Morena, and the customs of the people, their tendency to live their lives in the squares and courtyards, have together shaped the city and the citizens that Córdoba is eager to display to Europe and the rest of the world as one of the cultural strategies to which the European Union is committed. The programme will focus on three core elements which are closely linked: the street, the people, and everyday life. In daily life, the street is the main stage on which the everyday takes shape, where the city assumes its true physical and human dimension. The city’s streets thus become a spontaneous theatre, in which the citizen is simultaneously actor and spectator. They are the framework for individual and group actions which fuse and interweave with each other.

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The programme events aim to create symbols in the routine of daily life, by including most of the projects presented by and for local people. The idea is not to replace or modify the streets as the stage for the city’s everyday life, but rather to create new meanings for them, and provide them with greater depth. The street has been defined as the spectacle of the possible; these initiatives seek to identify more closely the tools that shape or forge a community, instantaneously, through a gesture or an action. This is an exceptional, exploratory celebration of the everyday and the collective, intended to give meaning to the places through which people routinely move and meet. It will involve both residents’ associations and anonymous citizens; established groups and groups randomly formed by the exceptional current of a given project. Building a human Mosque in one of the city’s squares, filling the pavements with poetry, painting huge placards with the spontaneous aid of thousands of passers-by, creating huge jigsaw puzzles to which every citizen brings a piece, designing and installing collective murals, carrying out grass-roots gardening schemes; all these are activities that help a community to invent itself, or perhaps to find the channels through which it can display itself as a community. Programmes proposed:

1 Córdoba in the River Project submitted by: Town Planning and Land Management Laboratory, University of Granada. Activities: permanent audiovisual installation, social networks, videocreation This interdisciplinary town-planning project aims to erect an installation that will turn the River Guadalquivir and the surrounding area into a sort of river screen. Projection, lighting and filming technologies will be used to enable the river to communicate local and global events. A set of projectors placed at different points along the river will project images onto the surface of the water, the gardens and nearby buildings and monuments. The material screened will combine information about the progress of various events, pictures and comments sent in by citizens using SMS technology or Internet-based social networks, and both generic and site-specific video creations. The project will enhance the area as a backdrop for events taking place nearby (concerts, inaugurations, performances or festivals).


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At the same time, a set of cameras installed in the area will capture everything that is going on in the area, relaying it to viewers via Internet or via any television channels that decide to link up to it. A combination of macro cameras, wide-view cameras and stage cameras will capture all aspects of life in the area, the daily comings and goings of the people, the range of plants and animals, the real-time state of the city, and people’s gestures and faces in response to different situations. The infrastructure thus created (linked cameras and projectors) has enormous potential. The River Guadalquivir – a physical setting of great environmental, urban and landscape value – will host key social and cultural events during the ECoC, whilst the infrastructure will be linked up to the Internet, the universal social network, thus fully exploiting its immeasurable capacity. In short, this project will connect Córdoba with the world. 2 Pictures of Europe, Words of Europe Project submitted by: Goval, artists; and Javier Lucena, staff member, Cultural Capital Office, Córdoba. Activities: international group art interventions and similar activities in various streets in each of Córdoba’s districts In Córdoba there is a street called Imágenes, which for the last five years has played host to a project led by an artist known as Goval, who lives in the street. During April and May, all the residents carry out a collective artistic intervention in the street, as an excuse to meet up and work together on a common project involving adults and children. The project is self-financing, receiving no institutional or external funding. This project seeks to make use of that idea and give it an international dimension, by locating similar cultural activities in other European cities and bringing them to Córdoba. In the years prior to the ECoC, the residents of Calle Imágenes will contact those responsible for similar collective actions elsewhere in the EU, to exchange knowledge and experiences with a view to organising those actions in 2016. That year, the interventions in Calle Imágenes will be extended to other districts of Córdoba. It is envisaged that these exchanges will continue in subsequent years.

3 The Atlas of Córdoba Project submitted by: Drafting Committee Activities: contemporary art, creative expression by children and young people, educational activities, photographic atlas, documentaries This project, a tribute to the great European cartographer Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594), seeks to work at several creative and narrative levels (from contemporary art to creative expression by children and young people) in exploring the potential of cartography as a tool for thought, and charting the way in which maps articulate mental and symbolic images. The idea is to provide educational and creative possibilities for children and young people, who will produce their own maps and atlases, by giving spatial expression to the symbolic images they have or perceive of Córdoba, Europe and the world. The project will also serve as a platform for exploring man’s mental categories through the work of various contemporary artists. The project will include the following specific activities: ·

·

· ·

Networking involving 27 schools (one in each EU member State), where students will produce an atlas, as an exercise in imaginary geography. One institution in each country will help to coordinate the work. Exhibition of work by contemporary artists based on cartography or on the idea of the mappa mundi, aimed at questioning our symbolic representations and offering alternative visions and readings. Production of a photographic atlas of Europe. Production of a set of 27 specially-made documentaries on the work of 27 European NGOs, with a view to examining the problems faced by each European country.

4 Re-encounters Project submitted by: DosdeCatorce Producciones SL. Independent producer, Córdoba. Activities: collective audiovisual production This will be a film in ten episodes, each lasting ten minutes, and each made by a different leading director, on a single theme: encounters and the dialogue of cultures. A similar experiment has been attempted in films such as Paris, je t´aime and New York, I love you. After its première in Córdoba, the idea would be for it to be screened in commercial cinemas all over the world.

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5 Under the Eyes of Europe Project submitted by: Association of Mentally Disabled People and their Families (Asaenec). Córdoba Activities: international competition for young artists, and creation of a mural of photographs taken by mentally-disabled people The installation, in a public space in Córdoba, of a giant collage made of photographs taken by mentallydisabled people all over Europe. This mural will provide a representative image of Europe and its culture. It will be designed by the winner of an international competition for young artists. The project is based on two major concepts: the participation and involvement of citizens, since information and photograph delivery points will be installed in the main cities of Europe; and the inclusion and integration of mentally-disabled people into the world of culture. Advised by monitors, and in the presence of the winning artist, they will make a vast collage to be mounted somewhere in the city. The photograph delivery points all over Europe will also be staffed by mentally-disabled people belonging to the European associations collaborating with the project. A permanent information point will be set up in the place where the mural is mounted. It will be staffed by mentally-disabled people, who will be responsible for telling local people and visitors and how the project was created. 6 Journey to the Kingdom of Knowledge Project submitted by: Drafting Committee. Activities: city-scale game, cultural route, trip abroad This game-based project will begin in 2012 and last at least until 2016. A “passport” will be published containing the city’s main cultural and heritage-related resources, laid out in stages like points on a tourist route. A passport will be given to everyone who wants one, and a publicity campaign will be run in the media. Passport in hand, users will be invited to visit all the places featured; at each one, the passport will be stamped, and the user will be given a word that forms part of a riddle that can only be solved once all the words are collected, i.e. once all the cultural sites have been visited.

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It will be suggested that the Polish city designated ECoC in 2016 organise the same project, with a view to strengthening cooperation and enhancing mutual knowledge of the two cities. There will be three types of passport: for under-18s; for people aged 18-65; and for over-65s. Children who fill up their passport will receive educational prizes. Adult participants will be able to take part in a draw for one of four trips per year to the Polish European Capital of Culture, all expenses paid, with a full programme of visits. A similar arrangement will be suggested to the Polish city with regard to Córdoba.


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Projects approved by the drafting committee

How does the city plan to choose the projects/ events which will constitute the programme for the year? (The answer to this question is optional at the pre-selection stage)

Source: personal compilation.

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The Cultural Programme set out here accounts for between 60% and 70% of the final ECoC programme; new projects or changes may of course arise between now and 2016. Consistent with the participatory spirit underlying the Córdoba 2106 project as a whole, the procedure for choosing projects/events is as follows:

·

Projects submitted by citizens following a public call lasting from December 2009 to March 2010, open to any person or organisation and any public or private body, as long as the projects comply with the criteria established by the Drafting Committee. A selection committee created for that purpose was responsible for choosing the projects to be implemented in 2016, from all those submitted. The selection committee submitted its conclusions to the Board of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation (CCCF) for final approval. A total of 192 proposals were received, of which 100 were approved by the Drafting Committee. This whole procedure was implemented using the website www.cordoba2016.es. Those submitting proposals were required to complete a questionnaire which set out the minimum requirements with which all projects were expected to comply. The inspiration for this was the form used by Luxembourg 2007. With regard to the final ECoC programme, measures will be taken to encourage more proposals from local society. Indeed, the real potential of this bid lies in maximising the number of shared proposals, resulting from dialogue, negotiation and consensus between the various players involved in common and shared initiatives.

For that reason, once the final selection of projects to be included in the ECoC programme has been completed, the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation will endeavour to ensure that people who have presented conceptually similar proposals work together on them. A consultant, appointed by the Artistic Directorate, will advise the various cultural agents, and will assist them in developing their projects in order to guarantee their quality, and ensure the proper development of the proposals formulated, following the successful initiative of Luxembourg 20074 in this respect. · Projects proposed directly by the Drafting Committee. These were projects, actions and events that the Commmittee deemed necessary in terms of the aims and principles for the EcoC, or covered programme areas not sufficiently embraced by the projects received following the public call for proposals. These will be commissioned directly by the CCCF or by one of the Founding Institutions, through established legal procedures, from cultural promoters, managers, companies, artists, etc.

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Of the proposals included, 26% were proposed by the Committee itself, 27% by local public institutions, and 47% by citizens, grass-roots organisations, cultural agents or independent associations.

4 We are referring to the forms and procedures used for the reception and management of projects submitted by external agents

27

·

%

Proposed by the Drafting Committee

26

26%

Proposed by public institutions

27

27%

Proposed by citizens, external groups etc.

47

47%

Total approved projects

100

100%

To complete the remaining 30-40% of the final programme, the following channels will be used: ·

quantity

Projects and events agreed with local, national or international cultural bodies (preferable belonging to the European Union); and in particular, with the major local, Spanish and European cultural institutions: EU and Council of Europe cultural organisations, Spanish Ministry of Culture, Andalusian Regional Council Department of Culture … Specific events and proposals will be commissioned, in accordance with the general programme for the year, from local, provincial and regional cultural agents, in order to ensure a lively programme for the cultural year. These agents would include, among many others, the City of Córdoba Orchestra, local and provincial cultural foundations, the Municipal Institute of Performing Arts, art galleries, exhibition halls, and artistic creation centres, schools of music, Andalusian centres of Literature, Arts, Innovation, Flamenco, and Crafts. There will also be input from the Andalusian Film Institute, the University of Córdoba, the Schools of Theatre and Dance, and many other bodies. All these organisations, which have already expressed their enthusiastic support for the ECoC project, will be invited to take part in projects and events throughout 2016, ensuring the cultural effervescence of the city; projects will at all times comply with the overall aims of the general programme.

·

Preferential agreements and conventions will be signed with the Polish city designated ECoC, with a view to sharing the event, developing and coproducing projects of mutual interest with a view to contributing to the exchange of ideas, people, proposals and activities between the two cities.



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Organisational structure 1.1 What sort of structure is envisaged for the organisation responsible for implementing the project? What type of relationship will it have with the city authorities? (This question must be answered in greater detail at the final selection stage, by enclosing in particular the statutes of the organisation, its staff numbers, the curricula vitae of those primarily responsible, information concerning its financial and management capacity, and a graph of the structure with comments on the respective responsibilities of the different levels) 1

On 7 June 2006, the Córdoba City Council, the Provincial Council, the Andalusian Regional Council and the University joined forces to create the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, as a stable structure representing all the institutions. The ECoC project thus succeeded in channelling the political views and agendas of the four institutions towards a single shared purpose. The Board of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation (CCCF), the maximum representative organ, currently consists of 17 members: four representatives from each of the founding institutions, together with the President of the Advisory Commission. The Mayor acts as Chairman of the Board, whilst the President of the Córdoba Provincial Council acts as Vice-Chairman. All these institutions have organised and centralised the drafting of the ECoC cultural programme.

Thus, the structure for the implementation of the project would be the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation as the body responsible for managing the ECoC bid; the Foundation has proved itself efficient and well-managed. Since the Foundation already exists, has achieved positive results, and is willing to continue, there are plenty of reasons why the Foundation should go on to implement the ECoC if the bid is successful. This would have three major advantages. The most evident advantage is flexible management. An event on this scale requires a versatile approach that cannot be guaranteed by other types of legal body, such as a consortium, due to the legal framework through which this kind of body is regulated.

CCCF BOARD FOUNDING INSTITUTIONS City Council: · Andrés Ocaña Rabadán (Chairman) · Rafael Blanco Perea · Rosa María Candelario Ruiz · Manuel Pérez Pérez (Chairman of the Advisory Committee) · Juan José Primo Jurado Provincial Council: · Francisco Pulido Muñoz (ViceChairman) · Elena Cortés Jiménez · José Mariscal Campos · Mª José Montes Pedrosa

ADVISORY COMMITTEE Chairman: · Manuel Pérez Pérez Members: · Mª Dolores Baena Alcántara · Carmen Fátima Blanco Valdés · Juan Carlos Limia Mateo · David Luque Peso · Javier Martín Fernández · Alfonso Muñoz Fernández · Manuel Pimentel Siles · Diego Ruiz Alcubilla · Octavio Salazar Benítez · María Serrano García

University: · José Manuel Roldán Nogueras · Manuel Torres Aguilar · Angelina Costa Palacios · Ramón Montes Ruiz Andalusian Regional Council: · Mª Isabel Ambrosio Palos · Joaquín Dobladez Soriano · Rafaela Valenzuela Jiménez · Juan Torres Aguilar

The second advantage lies in the legislative framework regulating fiscal incentives for sponsorship and patronage, and its practical application to donations, gifts and contributions that may be made to the Foundation for the financing of Córdoba 2016. Of particular interest in this respect is Article 25 of Law 49/2002, which regulates the tax regime for non-profit-making bodies and tax incentives for sponsorship and patronage (Official State Gazette 307/2002, of 24 December 2002), whose provisions regarding corporate partnership agreements for activities of general interest include the following:

“For the purposes of this Law, the term “corporate partnership agreement for activities of general interest” will be held to refer to any agreement by which the body referred to in Article 16 [foundations are specifically mentioned in Article 16], in exchange for financial support for activities carried out in compliance with the aims of that body, undertakes, in writing, to publicise – by any agreed means – the participation of the partner in those activities”. Given the need for flexible management, coupled with the legal provisions regarding tax incentives for patronage and sponsorship, the ideal option would clearly be to maintain the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, which is already capitalising upon the synergies created during the preparation of this bid.


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If specific legislation were to be approved declaring the ECoC an “event of exceptional public interest”, the current management instruments would meet the requirements as laid down in Law 49/2002. This public-interest declaration would clearly be of great benefit for Córdoba 2016, since it would enable application of the tax incentives provided for in Article 27; to obtain this declaration – which would require the approval of a specific law . is a key priority objective in terms of year-round funding. Indeed, if the law is not modified before 2016, its provisions will generate most of the financing available through sponsorship and patronage. Section 2 of Article 27 states that:

Organisational chart

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Organisational chart of the european capital status of culture Source: personal compilation.

The organisational structure adopted for the implementation of the ECoC seeks a fundamental balance between programming, coordination, promotion and funding. In synthesis, it is a four-pillar structure covering: art-related aspects, promotion, finance & administration, and sponsorship management. Each pillar covers one of the four areas of work in which the management of the project will be divided: · ·

“The Law which will approve each of these programmes will regulate at least the following: a) the duration of the programme, which can be up to three years. b) The creation of a consortium or designation of an administrative body which will be responsible for implementing the programme and which will certify the suitability of the expenditure and investments made with regard to the programme’s plans and objectives. The said consortium or body will include representatives of the public administrative institutions with an interest in the event and, in all cases, a representative of the Ministry of Finance. Certification can only be issued if the representative of the Ministry of Finance votes in favour”.

·

It would appear that the Foundation – which already exists – would be acceptable as an “administrative body” within the terms of the legal provision stipulating the type of body to be created. The Foundation would enable a certain degree of management flexibility, with regard both to the application of rules and to the management of human resources, making it the ideal type of body for the purpose in question. Should this not be possible, and given that the viability of one key source of finance is currently being analysed, the legal form of the Foundation would be modified to turn it into a Consortium.

·

·

Content: developing a programme of activities. Promotion: ensuring that everyone knows about the project. Financial and administrative management: the “engine-room” of the project. Sponsorship: providing the essential basis for sponsorship and patronage

The organisational structure of the body which will in future be responsible for managing the Córdoba 2016 would be as follows:

ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT FOUNDING INSTITUTIONS

NEW PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BODIES FOUNDATION BOARD/BOARDS OF DIRECTORS

Córdoba City Council Pórdoba Provincial Council Andalusian Regional Council University of Córdoba

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

MANAGEMENT ORGANS

ECOC MANAGEMENT

·

·

·

Founding institutions. Currently: Córdoba City Council, Córdoba Provincial Council, the Andalusian Regional Council and the University of Córdoba. New public and private bodies invited to join the project (including Ministries and companies,…) The Foundation Board or, should a Consortium eventually be created, the Board of Directors. This will comprise members of the two bodies indicated above. Executive Committee. The Executive Committee has been created as the first link for the representational organs (Board/Board of Directors), given the need for a management body with executive powers, which can operate flexibly and take rapid decisions.

2 Management organs of the ECoC:

Director General. A professional with recognised prestige, responsible for directing the project, and for establishing the basic structure required to ensure smooth communications between the governing bodies and the executive organs. This person will draw up the European Capital of Culture programme and will direct the technical team responsible for its implementation.

CÓRDOBA 2016 SPONSORS’ CLUB - macrosponsorship - microsponsorship

Director General

1 Organs of Government:

· The third advantage concerns human resources. In a long-term project like the ECoC, it is clearly wise to bear in mind the benefits of having a ready-formed, experienced team of professionals who are thoroughly familiar with the project and fully involved in it.

Organisation AND FINANCING OF THE EVENT

General Coordinator Objectives, results and finance Commission

EXECUTIVE ORGANS

Promotion and Participation Directorate

Artistic Directorate

Programme coordination

Publications, Advertising and Image

Communications and Press

Participation and Volunteers Technical Office

Music

Sponsorship Management (outsourced)

Economic and Financial Directorate

Institutional Relations

Financial and Economic Management Management of European Projects Management/ Human Resources

All Programme Areas

Performing Arts

Audiovisual art and new technologies

Exhibitions

Literature and thought

ECoC/city/ province


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·

General Coordinator. This person will be responsible for the executive management of the project and the programmes, and for directly supervising the three specific directorates which will form the basic support group for the Director General. The Directors of the three areas will need to form a wellcoordinated core with a clearly executive character, in which relations will be predominantly horizontal.

3 Executive Organs:

1 Artistic Directorate 2 Promotion and Participation Directorate 3 Economic and Financial Directorate 4 Sponsorship management: fund-raising and sponsorship management will be outsourced to a specialist company.

It should be stressed that the ECoC seeks to promote citizen participation, through the creation of two departments which will be specifically responsible for this area. In the proposed organisational structure, issues relating to citizen participation will be shared between programming (since activities proposed by the citizens will be implemented) and institutional relations (which covers citizen volunteers). Those responsible for programming will provide the necessary assessment and support to ensure that grass-roots proposals are of suitable quality; those responsible for institutional relations will take appropriate measures to increase the number of activities proposed by local grass-roots organisations and associations during the years prior to the ECoC. With a view to increasing citizen participation in the programme for 2016, and to facilitating the management and governance of relations between the ECoC and the citizens, the Federation of Neighbourhood Associations will be given an integral advisory role within the organisational structure. The Federation, an independent body, is the city’s largest residents-association representative; its membership currently comprises 101 neighbourhood associations which are active in all the urban and periurban districts of Córdoba.

Organisation AND FINANCING OF THE EVENT

Staff structure: overview and functions

This section provides a summary of the main departments and their functions; it should be noted, however, that the organisational structure as a whole will comprise 40 staff members. 1 Artistic Directorate

The priority target for the resources channelled into the ECoC is the art-related area, since much of the content will be artistic in nature. Staff will be expected to devote all their efforts, as a team, to drawing up and implementing a programme of artistic activities which – though not the sole content of the programme – will account for a large share of it. This department should be the mainstay of the organisation of ECoC activities. Given its prominent role, two intermediate levels have been created: Programme Coordination and Technical Office management. Their functions, which will cover the various areas of the programme, are as follows: Programme coordination: To develop and supervise the executive production of programmes in the various areas, and endeavour to rationalise the technical processes required for that purpose; and to manage the production of content from an organisation standpoint. This department will be responsible for organising rehearsals, arranging travel for artists and companies, receiving the artists taking part in the various events, insurance, transport of works of art, and so on. As indicated earlier, once the projects to be included in the programme have been selected, the Foundation will appoint a person to assess, advise and supervise the implementation of the activities proposed by external agents, to monitor their implementation and to ensure that they are of suitable quality. The positive experience of previous Capitals of Culture will be taken in account, particularly that of Luxembourg 2007, which achieved particularly effective management in this area. This area is referred to as ECoC/City/province. The programme coordination section will comprise six working areas: · · ·

Music Performing arts Audiovisual art and new technologies

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Exhibitions Literature and thought ECoC/city/province

The Technical Office management section will be responsible for the unified management of infrastructure and facilities, management of the technical production of the programme, and maintenance and rationalisation of existing resources. It will be the department responsible for all aspects of installation, management of equipment, facilities and infrastructure, as well as the recruitment of the temporary staff required to implement the programme. This office will deal, in a coordinated and unified manner, with the needs of the various areas with a view to making the best and most rational use of resources and avoiding the duplication of work and equipment. The ECoC programme is likely to give rise to multiple needs at the same time. Several events are likely to be scheduled for the same day, so that equipment will need to be put up simultaneously at various venues, or will need to be erected in one venue whilst a performance is taking place at another. The Technical Office will be aware of the needs of the various areas, and will be responsible for ensuring an even-handed distribution of material and resources; contracting additional resources where necessary.

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For this basic reason, it was decided that a single Directorate should take responsibility both for clearlydefined activities related to the media and to design issues, and for more open-ended activities such as hosting, customer services and volunteer services. Equal importance will be attached – within the same working context – to Internet-based promotion and participation initiatives, to social networks and to any new tools which may emerge between now and 2016. Accordingly, and in line with our policy on this issue, the idea is to bring the events to the attention of media professionals, the public and the volunteer services. Promotion is thus seen as an overall strategy, to be implemented physically at local level, or virtually, at global level. The Directorate will comprise four areas: ·

·

·

· The Technical Office will comprise four areas: · · · ·

Exhibition area Performing arts area Musical Area City area

2 Promotion and Participation Directorate

The Promotion and Participation Directorate and its working areas are seen as a structure which should function equally effectively at local, regional, national and international level, and especially at European level. In other words, both within the city and beyond the city, addressing those who have already decided to attend ECoC events, and those who have not yet decided; the hosts and the guests; the volunteer helpers for Córdoba 2016 and the visitor; the artist and the spectator; those who participate in person in Córdoba, and those who can only take part at a distance.

Communications and Press: Press, management of the Córdoba 2016 website and digital communication (Digital Córdoba). Publications, advertising and image: Publications; design and monitoring application of the corporate logo; publicity and marketing. Institutional relations: Protocol and public relations; organising receptions, welcoming and informing visitors; evaluation and overall view Citizen participation and volunteer services: to work very closely with the Artistic Directorate area designated ECoC/City/Province.

3 Economic and Financial Directorate

The core function of the Directorate will be the economic and financial management of all aspects of the ECoC. It will be responsible for all activities relating to the preparation and implementation of budgets, administration, apportioning and management of resources, accounting, financial management and controls, as well as matters relating to human resources, in terms of financial dealings, training and monitoring of occupational hazards, it will also supervise fund-raising activities. A professional will be appointed to manage the funding of European projects; this person will be accountable to the head of the Economic and Financial Directorate.


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4 Sponsorship management

Given the financial requirements, it is deemed essential to create a specific department responsible for sponsorship deals that will generate the resources required to sustain the activities envisaged under the ECoC programme. This department will be responsible for securing, managing and maintaining sole sponsorship deals with private companies and public, state and international institutions wishing to support the project. This task should be outsourced to a company specialising in securing sponsorship; however, that company will work closely – within the ECoC organisation structure – with three specific Directorates: · ·

·

With the Director General, who will be responsible for institutional relations. With the Economic and Financial Directorate, which will be responsible for budgeting and accountancy issues. With the Promotion and Participation Directorate, in order to maximise the impact of sponsorship and patronage.

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Organisational structure 1.2 If an area around the city is involved in the event, how will the coordination between the relevant local and regional authorities be organised? 1

The province of Córdoba comprises 75 municipalities, including Córdoba, the capital city; all these municipalities are represented on the Córdoba Provincial Council. The Cultural Programme, though aware that the designation of ECoC is intended for a city, makes clear that the whole province – with all its wide-ranging diversity – will be involved in the programme. A city and province with the same name: Córdoba. From the outset, the political and administrative structures both of the province of Córdoba and of the Andalusian region have been fully integrated into the structure of the Foundation, as founding institutions. Consequently, all the public authorities involved in the bid have been part of it since the first moment, and are all represented on the Foundation’s managing Board. Moreover, these founding institutions, which have their own departments specifically devoted to cultural programming and development, are represented on the Advisory Committee, a consultative organ of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, which comprises a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 15 members: four cultural specialists nominated by the founding institutions, and the remainder independent experts appointed by the Board. The Committee meets regularly to coordinate the cultural programmes devised by the city’s various organisations, and to regulate relations with representatives of local and regional groups. It also deals with other matters relating to the organisation and logistics of cultural events devised by the Foundation itself, such as security, authorisation for the use of public spaces, use of infrastructure, training plans, etc.

Relations with other municipalities in the province will be coordinated through the Foundations’ Advisory Committee, where full voting members include the Córdoba Provincial Council Department of Culture, and the Provincial Branch of the Andalusian Regional Council Department of Culture. It should be borne in mind that in 2016 only one Spanish city will be representing the whole of the Spanish State, so that the involvement of the Andalusian Regional Council through its Provincial Branches, and of the National Government, will be crucial for the event.


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Organisational structure 1.3 According to what criteria and under which arrangements has or will the artistic director of the event be chosen? What is or will be his/her profile? When will he/she take up the appointment? What will be his/her field of action? (This question must be answered in greater detail at the final selection stage) 1

Having defined the function, working processes and coordination channels governing the work of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, the Board members decided to appoint from outside a person to manage the Board’s affairs. Board Members were asked to suggest possible candidates for selection, of the seven original candidates, a short-list of three candidates was produced.

At the end of the selection process, the Board – meeting on 29 September 2008 – agreed to appoint Carlota Álvarez Basso, a cultural manager with a demonstrable track record at national and international level, as manager of the CCCF.1 To date, Álvarez Basso has carried out the duties of Manager and of Artistic Director.

The selection criteria were: · · · ·

Demonstrable professional track record at national and international level. Broad experience as a cultural manager Experience of start-to-finish implementation of cultural projects. Good working knowledge of at least three European Union languages.

1 Maîtrise en Sociologie from the University de Nanterre, Paris X, France (validated as Degree in Sociology from the Complutense University of Madrid), Carlota Álvarez Basso has completed PhD

Financing of the event 2.1 How is the event budget to be organised? 2

For ECoC budget management purposes, the structure chosen was a legally-independent Board able to establish and implement its own budget in an independent and flexible manner, complying at all times with current legislation and regulations governing tax incentives for sponsorship. The Córdoba Cultural City Foundation is the body responsible for receiving and channelling the synergies created by the development and definition of the ECoC bid; it is independently managed in terms of both budget allocation and management of human resources. The Statutes of the CCCF require that an ordinary budget be established and approved every financial year, showing current expenditure and all income received under any heading. Should the Foundation need to adopt, for legal reasons, another organisational form, it would adopt that of a Consortium, with a view to enabling representation of the Ministry of Finance in addition to the other Public Administrations already represented on the Board.

courses at that University, specialising in Cultural Consumption in Spain. In 1992, after one year in the Department of Video Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Álvarez Basso joined the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, where she set up the Department of Audiovisual Artworks, which she directed until 1999. That

This person, in the view of the Board, would be responsible for managing the bid; for guiding the ECoC cultural programme; for Board agreements made by the Board; for verifying compliance of public and private contracts; for selecting and directing staff; and, most important, for drafting the pre-candidature and candidature dossiers in support of Córdoba’s bid to be European Capital of Culture.

Organisation AND FINANCING OF THE EVENT

The Budget will be divided into Income and Expenditure, in the following manner: Income:

year, she moved to Pontevedra to run the Congress and Exhibition Centre; shortly afterwards, she left to set up the Museo de Arte Contemporánea in Vigo, which she directed from 2001 to 2005.

·

From 2005 to 2008, she held the post of Project Manager for the State Cultural Commemorations Company, run by the Ministry of Culture; there, she was responsible for managing the hundred or so projects implemented every year by the Company, all over Spain; exhibitions, operas, congresses, concerts, documentaries and publications. Álvarez Basso has also curated numerous national and international exhibitions, as well as being Founder and First President of ADACE (Spanish Association of Directors of

· · · ·

Museums and Centres of Contemporary Art). She has also served on Panels and Advisory Boards for a number of Spanish cultural institutions. She has written numerous critical essays for catalogues, and has served on many Juries for prizes and festivals, as well as taking part in conferences and round tables in Spain and abroad. She speaks and writes fluent Spanish, French, English and Portuguese.

· · ·

Contributions received from the Founding Institutions: Córdoba City Council, Córdoba Provincial Council, the Andalusian Regional Council, and the University of Córdoba. Contributions received from the National Government Other public subsidies The European Commission Melina Mercouri Prize Cofinancing of European projects under community policies and programmes Private sponsorship at local, national and international level Donations Own resources (sale of tickets, sale of publications, etc.)

Expenditure: · · · · ·

Cultural programme Management and running costs Personnel Communications and Promotion Other


INCOME 2016 Córdoba City Council Córdoba Provincial Council Andalusia Regional Council University of Córdoba Spanish National Government European Union Private sponsors Other income* TOTAL INCOME

*Ticket

12.000.000,00€ 3.000.000,00€ 15.000.000,00€ 1.200.000,00€ 18.000.000,00€ 1.800.000,00€ 7.800.000,00€ 1.200.000,00€ 60.000.000,00€

sales, merchandising, etc.

2 Palmer Report and the Ex Post Evaluation of 2007 and 2008 European

Capitals of Culture, Final Report, ECOTEC, November 2009

a) Public-interest bodies. Admission to the Board is available to those bodies meeting the following requirements: they must be institutional, economic or social bodies, with local representation, and they must have been officially declared of public interest. Once admitted, they can be represented on the Board by no more than three representatives. The minimal annual contribution in order to have one representative on the Board is €20,000; for two representatives, €80,000, and for three, €160,000. b) Private partners. These are any private bodies considered to be of interest for the project. The minimal annual contribution in order to have one representative on the Board is €160,000 for two representatives, €320,000, and for three, €500,000. 1.052.141,80€ 1.149.271,88€ 208.236,00€ 0,00€ 0,00€ 5.559.572,66€

50.000,00€ 50.000,00€ 50.000,00€ 0,00€ 0,00€ 1.253.483,08€

Córdoba Provincial Council Andalusian Regional Council University of Córdoba Donations Collaborating Bodies

5.559.572,66€ 0,00€ 0,00€ 0,00€ 5.559.572,66€

580.473,54€ 324.697,12€ 348.312,42€ 1.253.483,08€

Management and operation Communications and Promotion Personnel

6.813.055,74€

348.312,42€

324.697,12€

580.473,54€

5,11%

4,77%

8,52%

5.559.572,66€ 81,60%

1.423.460,95€

440.125,95€

336.000,00€

647.335,00€

0,00€

% Total

1,18%

1,66%

3,06%

8.420.486,83€

440.125,95€

336.000,00€

647.335,00€

5,23%

3.99%

7,68%

6.997.025,88€ 83,10%

TOTAL

8.420.486,83€

100.000,00€

140.000,00€

258.236,00€

1.094.271,88€ 12,96%

1.086.500,00€ 12,90%

1.283.460,95€

440.125,95€

266.000,00€

577.335,00€

0,00€

Running costs, Promotion and Personnel

2011

1.283.460,95€

100.000,00€

0,00€

50.000,00€

50.000,00€

50.000,00€

1.033.460,95€

Running costs, Promotion and Personnel

6.997.025,88€

0,00€

0,00€

0,00€

6.997.025,88€

Events held as part of “Córdoba in 16 Mode”

6.997.025,88€

0,00€

0,00€

208.236,00€

1.044.271,88€

1.036.500,00€

4.708.018,00€

Events held as part of “Córdoba in 16 Mode”

% Total

% Total

1,20%

0,00%

3,11%

8.280.486,83€

440.125,95€

266.000,00€

577.335,00€

5,31%

4,11%

6,97%

6.997.025,88€ 84,50%

TOTAL

8.280.486,83€

100.000,00€

0,00€

258.236,00€

1.094.271,88€ 13,21%

1.086.500,00€ 13,12%

5.741.478,95€ 69,33%

TOTAL

(**) EVENTS PROGRAMMED UNDER “Córdoba in 16 Mode” in 2010: EU Film: 27 weeks, 27 countries, “Pilar Citoler” Photography Prize, Cosmopoética, Córdoba in May, White Night of Flamenco, International Guitar Festival, Summer Cinemas, Periféricos, Eutopía, Océano Digital, Animacor, Flamenco Art Competition, Photography Biennale, 16 Iconos for 2016 Exhibition, Cultures of Oil and Contemporary Art, Córdoba, a Reflection of Rome.

6.997.025,88€

0,00€

0,00€

0,00€

6.997.025,88€

% Total 5.741.478,95€ 68,18%

TOTAL

Organisation AND FINANCING OF THE EVENT

(*) EVENTS PROGRAMMED UNDER “Córdoba in 16 Mode” in 2009: Modernstars, “Pilar Citoler” Photography Prize, Forum on Diversity and Interculturalism, Cosmopoética, Córdoba in May, White Night of Flamenco, International Guitar Festival, 4+4 The City as Stage, Pressjovem, Scarpia, Eutopía, The Sky Within My House, Animacor, Beyond the Barbed Wire, The City of All Time,16 Icons for 2016.

Programmed Events

% Total

Events held Running part of costs, Promo- as “Córdoba in tion and 16 Mode” Personnel 2010 (**)

6.997.025,88€

0,00€

0,00€

208.236,00€

1.044.271,88€

2010

1.423.460,95€

100.000,00€

140.000,00€

50.000,00€

50.000,00€

1.036.500,00€

Events held Running part of costs, Promo- as “Córdoba in tion and 16 Mode” Personnel 2009 (*)

TOTAL

0,00%

0,00%

3,79%

50.000,00€

2009

0,00€

EXPENDITURE

6.813.055,74€

0,00€

0,00€

258.236,00€

1.199.271,88€ 17,60%

1.102.141,80€ 16,18%

4.253.406,06€ 62,43%

3.149.922,98€

1.103.483,08€

4.708.018,00€

TOTAL

2011

Candidacy phase 2009-2010-2011

1.033.460,95€

Events held Running part of costs, Promo- as “Córdoba in tion and 16 Mode” Personnel 2010 (**)

What are the sources of financing and the respective importance of their contribution to the total?

Córdoba City Council

2010 Events held Running part of costs, Promo- as “Córdoba in tion and 16 Mode” Personnel 2009 (*)

Although to date most of the funding for the bid has been provided by the Córdoba City Council, since the programme is primarily municipal in scope, since the creation of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation the three original founding institutions have been joined by a number of local social and economic agents who have been named “collaborating bodies”. At a Board Meeting on 13 July 2009, the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation approved the Regulations Governing the Participation of Partner Organisations in the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation; these regulations provide for project partnerships with new organisations and social agents. The regulations lay down the conditions for the admission of partners, of which three categories are established:

2009 % Total

Analysis of the income and expenditure of other cities that have already been ECoC, including Stockholm 1998, Oporto 2001, Salamanca 2002, Graz 2002, Lille 2004 and Luxembourg 20072, suggests that the general budgets for the year ranged between €40 m. and €80 m. Given the current economic climate, and making an effort to achieve greater austerity by limiting costs, the budget forecast for Córdoba 2016 has been set at around €60 m.

InCOME

What is the total amount of resources earmarked for organising the “European Capital of Culture” year?

Bid phase: 2009-2010-2011

I ii

Source: personal compilation.

112 113


114

c) Collaborating bodies. These are people or companies that have expressed interest in working actively with the Foundation. The minimum annual contribution in order to be granted this status is €10,000 either in cash or in kind, through the provision of services deemed by the Foundation to be of interest; the value of the services is assessed to ensure its equivalence to the cash amount established. These bodies are in no circumstances entitled to a seat on the Board. “Collaborating bodies” are companies of various types who have agreed to become project partners. To date, nine Córdoba companies have been accepted by the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation as Collaborating Bodies: ABC Córdoba ; Diario Córdoba; El Día de Córdoba; Comercial Piedra Trujillo; Formación e Innovación Rural (FIR); Montealto; Fundación Bodegas Campos; Andalusian Institute for Advanced Social Studies (IESACSIC); Real Círculo de la Amistad. Since the 2011 budgets of the institutions that together make up the Foundation will not be approved until late 2010, the preceding table has extrapolated this year’s figures to next year. However, if Córdoba passes the pre-selection stage, the budget for 2011 will receive considerably more backing and will be increased with a view to ensuring Córdoba’s final designation. Project implementation phase: 2012-2016

If Córdoba is designated ECoC, four levels of funding are envisaged: ·

Direct contributions to the budget by full members of the specific body created to manage the ECoC: public administration, all the local, provincial, regional and national institutions belonging to the management foundation or consortium. · The European Commission Melina Mercouri Prize and other EU funding in the form of joint financing of European projects through policies and community programmes. · Sponsorship and patronage in the form of transfers from private companies at local, national and international level. Donations. · Resources generated by the foundation or consortium itself through royalties, sale of tickets, sale of publications, merchandising, etc.

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Organisation AND FINANCING OF THE EVENT

As founding institutions, the local and provincial councils and the University of Córdoba will continue to contribute the sums approved in their own respective budgets. Given that the ECoC is a programme of regional and national interest – since the designated city will also be representing the region and the country for a year – and bearing in mind the data provided by ECOTEC,(Final Report, 2009), which analyses the results of Luxembourg 2007, Liverpool 2008, and Stavanger 2008 (Norway), it may be concluded that the contribution of the regional administration (Andalusian Regional Council) in 2016 should be around 25% of the overall budget, whilst the contribution of the national government should be around 30% of the total. In addition to existing relations with the Ministry of Finance, links would be established with other Ministries for the funding of specific projects: Culture; Education; Industry, Trade & Transport; and Science & Innovation. The contribution of the European Commission would comprise the current value of the Melina Mercouri Prize (€1,500,000), plus an estimated €300,000 in the form of cofinancing for part of the ECoC programme through European projects based on EU networks or programmes, including: Culture 2007-2013; Lifelong Learning; Europe for Citizens; Youth in Action; Euromed Heritage IV; Media, URB-AL 2007-2013; UrbAct, INTERREG; European Neighbourhood and Partnership, ESF (European Social Fund). The sponsorship and patronage section requires more detailed analysis, since contributions from this source will make up a large proportion of the total ECoC budget. According to the final European Commission report (ECOTEC Final Report, 2009), private funding for Luxembourg 2007 accounted for roughly 8% of the total; for Liverpool 2008 (United Kingdom) this figure rose to 10.2%, and for Stavanger 2008 (Norway) it climbed to 21.4%; the previous European Commission report, drawn up by Palmer/ Rae Associates in 2004, also estimated private funding at around 13% of the total. Accordingly, it is safe to estimate that private-sector funding should lie between 8% and 15% of the total budget. It would be realistic to suggest that Córdoba might aspire to private funding for 13% of the total project budget. Finally, revenue will be generated by the Foundation itself during 2016 through royalties, ticket sales, sale of publications, merchandising, etc.

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Organisation AND FINANCING OF THE EVENT

115

Córdoba 2016 income and expenditure forecasts Source: personal compilation.

INCOME Córdoba City Council 20%

Other inome 2%

Córdoba Provincial Council 5%

Private sponsors 13% European Union* 3%

Andalusia Regional Council 25%

Córdoba City Council 20% Córdoba Provincial Council 5% Andalusia Regional Council 25% University of Córdoba 2% Spanish National Government 30% European Union * 3% Private sponsors 13% Other income (ticket sales, merchandising, etc.) 2% TOTAL INCOME 100,00%

Cultural programme Management and running costs Communication and Promotion Personnel Other TOTAL EXPENDITURE

Spanish National Government 30% University of Córdoba 2%

EXPENDITURE Cultural programme 60%

Other 4%

Management and running costs 10%

Personnel 13% Communication and Promotion 13%

60% 10% 13% 13% 4% 100,00%


116

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117

Organisation AND FINANCING OF THE EVENT

I ii

Financing of the event 2.2 Have the finance authorities of the city already voted on or made financial commitments? 2

Córdoba City Council, as the city’s chief political authority, has been committed since 2003 – as reflected in its annual budgets approved in Plenary Session – to the development and promotion of Córdoba’s bid to be ECoC. This gives an idea of the firm resolve of the local authority to work towards Córdoba’s designation. This resolve and the underlying financial commitment were made long before the modifications to the ECoC programme made by the European Parliament and the Council in their Decision No. 1622/2006/EC of 24 October 2006. As indicated earlier, since the Foundation was established in 2006, the other Founding Institutions – Córdoba Provincial Council, the Andalusian Regional Council and the University of Córdoba - have confirmed their stable financial commitment through regular contributions.

When will they do so? The four major public institutions in Córdoba – the City Council, the Provincial Council, the Andalusian Regional Council and the University of Córdoba – have been working together since the CCCF was created, on 7 June 2006; the CCCF is a stable supramunicipal body which is likely to remain in existence after 2016. It symbolises the joint nature of this bid, since the four founding institutions represent different levels of Public Administration. The content of the Cultural Programme set forth in this dossier was approved by the Board at a meeting on 14 June 2010; that approval implies that all four founding institutions engage to finance the ECoC event. Firm financial commitment on the part of the Andalusian Regional Council and the National Government can only be made once Córdoba has been designated European Capital of Culture for 2016.

Organisation AND FINANCING OF THE EVENT

Financing of the event 2.3 What is the total expenditure planned strictly for the event? 2

The main themes of the project have been arranged around the idea of constellations, highlighting the linked intercultural network of relationships between cities and citizens. The total expenditure strictly for the event – i.e. not counting management and running costs, or expenditure on communications, promotion and personnel – is estimated at €48 m., i.e. 60% of the total expenditure for the event. Since themes I and II are international in scope, whilst theme III comprises more local programmes, expenditure has been broken down as follows, so that the same degree of coverage and quality can be ensured in all three themes: Theme I, Córdoba in the World: €14,400,000 1 The Córdoba Paradigm: €4,800,000 2 Córdoba Routes: €4,800,400 3 Córdoba-Poland: €4,800,000 Theme II, Culture: the European common denominator: €14,400,000 1 The Word: €3,600,000 2 Art and the Senses: €3,600,000 3 Science and Conscience: €3,600,000 4 Mixed Cultures: €3,600,000 Theme III, The City and the Days: €7,200,000 1 Revolutionising the Everyday: €3,600,000 2 Rivers of Participation: €3,600,000 Total THEMES I + II + III: €36,000,00


118

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Financing of the event 2.4 How much expenditure is planned for infrastructure? 2

Special mention should be made here of the major investments in cultural infrastructure made over the last few years by local, provincial, regional and national public administration institutions with a view to providing Córdoba with the cultural facilities appropriate to a European city of its size. We can proudly assert that the current map of cultural infrastructure provides adequate coverage for the city’s various cultural and artistic requirements: exhibition halls and centres, theatres, Congress Centre, etc.

name old town

Expected investment in cultural infrastructure for 2016 is outlined below:

Precisely because the investments and facilities required for the ECoC (as outlined in Chapter 6) are already in place, we can claim, unreservedly, that Córdoba has done its duty well, will have sufficient capacity in terms of infrastructure to embark upon an extensive, varied programme of events for 2016 which will be truly international in scope, and will be able to guarantee the quality and excellence of the events organised for the ECoC. In this sense, it should be noted that the ECoC management body will have no say in the management or adjudication of large-scale cultural infrastructure, but will advise on the temporary fitting-out of buildings and premises which will be hosting ECoC events.

Promoter

cost

Góngora House – Centre for Góngora Studies

2008

Córdoba City Council

879.546€

Orive Palace and Chapter House

2009

Córdoba City Council

1.113.962€

Posada del Potro- Fosforito Flamenco Centre and Museum

2010

Córdoba City Council

856.868€

Iniciarte Hall - Department of Culture, Andalusian Regional Council

2010

Andalusian Regional Council

Tourist Reception and Visitor Centre

2010

Andalusian Regional Council

Pepe Espaliú Contemporary Art and Architecture Documentation Centre

2010

Córdoba City Council

Extension of the Córdoba Archaeological and Ethnological Museum

2010

Ministry of Culture

9.325.605€

The Rafael Botí Art Centre

2011

Córdoba Provincial Council

1.878.989€

The Mudéjar House – permanent headquarters of the Arab House and the International Institute of Arab and Muslim World Studies

2011

Córdoba City Council

2.854.372€

The Teatro Góngora

2011

Córdoba City Council

4.486.135€

The Bullfighting Museum

2011

Córdoba City Council

3.011.514€

Royal Mews – Alcázar of the Christian Monarchs

2012

Córdoba City Council

57.625.956€

The Teatro de la Magdalena

2012

Córdoba City Council

2.127.230€

The Diocesan Museum, Mosque-Cathedral

2012

Episcopate

5.300.000€

The Contemporary Architecture Foundation and the San Pablo Block

2013

Contemporary Architecture Foundation

2.000.000€

Restoration of the Convent of Santa Clara, The future City Museum

2014

Córdoba City Council and Caja Madrid Foundation

6.377.000€

The Synagogue Visitor Centre THE RIVER AND THE CULTURAL RIVERBANK

opening date

Being planned

— 5.554.019€ 371.545€

Córdoba Centre for Contemporary Creation (C4)

2012

Andalusian Regional Council

23.657.001€

Córdoba Congress Centre (Palacio del Sur)

2013

Córdoba City Council

67.000.000€

Córdoba Museum of Fine Arts

2013

Andalusian Regional Council

The Guadalquivir Watermill Network (Completed projects: Molinos de Martos, Molino de San Antonio and Molino de la Alegría)

2015

Córdoba City Council

— 3.212.908€


120

121

name THE DISTRICTS

GREATER CÓRDOBA

opening date

Promoter

cost

The Children’s City

2007

Córdoba City Council

2.500.000€

The Victoria Marquee

2007

Córdoba City Council

1.174.532€

Lepanto Central Municipal Library

2008

Córdoba City Council

5.091.414€

Open Citizens’ Activity Centre

2010

Córdoba City Council

4.800.000€

Environmental Education Centre

2011

Córdoba City Council

1.600.000€

Restoration of the Axerquía open-air theatre

2010

Córdoba City Council

7.932.505€

The New Professional School of Music

2011

Andalusian Regional Council

5.333.256€

State Public Library

2012

Ministry of Culture

The School of Arts and Popular Culture

2013

Córdoba City Council

5.801.800€

Archaeological sites and parks

2013

Córdoba City Council

2.839.744€

The La Asomadilla Park

Córdoba City Council and Andalusian Regional Council

7.100.000€

The New Provincial History Archive

Ministry of Culture, Córdoba City Council and Andalusian Regional Council

The Fidiana Art Centre

Córdoba City Council

1.170.000€

2009

Andalusian Regional Council

23.375.000€

Museum and Institutional Headquarters of the Madinat al-Zahra Archaeological Complex

Source: Córdoba City Council Town Planning Department

Given the foregoing, and although a detailed breakdown of the costs for some infrastructure is not yet available, since work is still only at the planning stage – such as the New Provincial History Archive and the Synagogue Visitors’ Centre – and therefore reliable figures are not yet to hand, it is reasonable to conclude that projected expenditure on new infrastructure for the ECoC 2016 project will exceed €278,701,868.

total

12.350.967€

278.701.868€

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Organisation AND FINANCING OF THE EVENT

Financing of the event 2.5 What is the plan for involving sponsors in the event? 2

The ECoC bid has itself generated new scope for collaboration in the city. Given both the current economic crisis and the uncertain outcome of the bid, efforts to secure sponsorship have to date focussed primarily on local and provincial companies. Of the many meetings held with the city’s social and economic agents, attention is drawn to a meeting between the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation and various local and provincial business representatives. During the meeting, the Chairman of the Foundation, the Mayor Andrés Ocaña, set out the key strategies of the bid and outlined the impacts and benefits of ECoC status for the city as a whole. This meeting led to the signing of the Manifesto of Córdoba’s Entrepreneurs in support of Córdoba’s bid to be designated European Capital of Culture in 2016. A total of 24 companies from all over the province signed this manifesto, thus declaring their support for the bid; among them were the Córdoba Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Bodegas Campos Foundation, the Cruzcampo Foundation and the Sánchez-Ramade Foundation. In this declaration, the signatories engaged to provide financial backing for the project, in the event of Córdoba’s being designated ECoC, from the moment of designation onwards, either through direct contributions to the CCCF or by sponsoring specific cultural programmes.

Moreover, the Foundation is of the opinion that it would appear perfectly feasible for the Government to support fund-raising and sponsorship attraction through the application of the same tax benefits approved for major events (these benefits were approved specifically for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and for the America’s Cup, and were also planned for Madrid’s Olympic bid for 2016)4. Extension of those tax incentives to the European Capital of Culture would provide an immense boost to fund-raising among private companies. At the same time, the placing of the Córdoba 2016 brand all over the world will clearly enhance the marketing policies of many Spanish and European companies which have – or hope to have – business interests in Poland or Eastern Europe, the Arab countries, or Latin America: it will also benefit those companies with an ongoing cultural sponsorship or patronage programme. If Córdoba is designated, i.e. once the uncertainties are removed, the first aim will be to arrange for the ECoC in 2016 to be declared “an event of general interest” by the Ministry of Finance, since it is hoped that most funding will come from the private sector, and this would be stimulated by volume-related tax relief on contributions to the ECoC made by private companies. Sponsorship will be structured through the Córdoba 2016 Sponsors Club, in which the rules governing participation, contributions, use of the ECoC logo, right, obligations and value considerations will be established by the competent body in compliance with the principles of flexibility and transparency.

4 On 5 May 2008, the Prime Minister announced that the tax incentive scheme would be extended to the Madrid 2016 bid. All financial sponsorship funds paid to the Olympic Organising Commmittee (COJO) in support of Madrid’s bid to host the Olympic Games would be considered for tax purposes as contributions to a non-profit-making body. All revenue obtained by that body would also be tax-exempt.


122

123

Flexibility means that contributions may be either generic or specific to one or more events. Transparency involves the commitment of the ECoC management body to provide the sponsors with detailed information and justification of the way their money has been spent. Sponsors will receive regular information, and also a final report containing a breakdown of expenditure. Two types of sponsorship will be established, depending on the size and scale of the contributions: · ·

Macrosponsorship: sponsors whose operations are regional, national, or international in scope. Microsponsorship: sponsors operating only at local level.

Finally, revenue will be generated by the Foundation itself during 2016 through royalties, ticket sales, sale of publications, merchandising, etc.

What is the estimated level of financial participation by sponsors? As indicated above under “Income”, the ECOTEC, Final Report, 2009) and the report by Palmer/ Rae Associates in 2004 suggest that private sector participation in Córdoba might amount to 13% of the overall project budget.

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Organisation AND FINANCING OF THE EVENT

Financing of the event 2.6 According to what timetable should this expenditure be committed if the city receives the title of Capital of Culture? (The answer to this question is optional at the pre-selection stage) 2

Budgeted expenditure will increase gradually over the run-up period to 2016, although it should be stressed that since the project as a whole is based on strategic alliances and coproductions, the production of many of the projects will need to start in 2014 and 2015.

Similarly, expenditure on communications, administration and personnel will gradually increase during the run-up to 2016.

Schedule of expenditure 2012-2016 Source: personal compilation.

EXPENDITURE

2012

Cultural programme 6.000.000,00€ Management and running costs 1.500.000,00€

2013

2014

6.000.000,00€ 1.600.000,00€

7.000.000,00€ 10.000.000,00€ 2.000.000,00€ 4.000.000,00€

2015

2016

% 2016

36.000.000,00€ 60% 6.000.000,00€ 10%

Communication and Promotion 400.000,00€ 450.000,00€ 500.000,00€ 1.500.000,00€ 7.800.000,00€ 13% Personnel 500.000,00€ 550.000,00€ 600.000,00€ 2.500.000,00€ 7.800.000,00€ 13% Other 150.000,00€ 200.000,00€ 250.000,00€ 600.000,00€ 2.400.000,00€ 4% TOTAL EXPENDITURE 8.550.000,00€ 8.800.000,00€ 10.350.000,00€ 18.600.000,00€ 60.000.000,00€

60.000.000€ 50.000.000€ 40.000.000€ 30.000.000€ 20.000.000€ 10.000.000€ 0€ 2012

2013

2014

2015

2016



Algeciras

Algeciras

126

127

I v the city’s infrastructure

What are the city’s assets in terms of accessibility (regional, national and international transport)? 1

Key to mounting such a large event as the European Capital of Culture is the ability of the transport system to meet the needs of visitors, equipment, production teams and international officials. Córdoba’s central location in the Guadalquivir valley has allowed it to take advantage of the major transport projects carried out by successive national administrations, especially the project undertaken for the Seville Expo in 1992. Connections to the city have been improved by a series of subsequent projects and it now constitutes an extremely important logistical hub.

Transport Infrastructure

We are fully aware that transport infrastructure is not only a matter of steel and concrete. Such infrastructure opens the door to knowledge, to the interchange and flow of people and ideas. The city has taken a giant leap forward in its connections with the wider world, both in its capacity to receive travellers and in its capacity to despatch them. Today Córdoba has the best transport links of any city in Andalusia thanks to series of initiatives that have made it a European gateway to and from southern Spain, Portugal and North Africa.

The Spanish government’s commitment to extending the high-speed network across the country puts Córdoba in a central position, not only because of its connection with the capital city, Madrid, but also because of its direct connection with Barcelona and other regional capitals in the north of Spain and, when the line is completed between Spain and France, cities in the rest of the continent. This new network brings us considerably closer to the major European capitals.

It is also worth emphasising that, thanks to the AVE high-speed train, Córdoba can now be reached in unbeatably fast times, bearing in mind that what matters most are journey times and the ease of travel, not geographical proximity: there are 34 trains every day between Madrid and Córdoba, the equivalent of a train almost every 30 minutes, meaning that Córdoba has some of the best transport links of any city in Spain. We believe it is particularly important to implement all the projects independently of the ECoC, in a process of regional regeneration laid out in detail in the Cultural Programme section. Outlined below are the most important elements that will benefit the organisation of the European Capital of Culture and the provision of visitor services.

Time map for the connections Córdoba-Europa

Time map for the connections Córdoba-Andalusia

Source: Contemporary Architecture Foundation

Source: Contemporary Architecture Foundation

Warszawa Córdoba Amsterdam

Jaén

Sevilla

Railway infrastructure

Granada Cádiz

A National and International Córdoba has had a high-speed rail service since 1992, with the inauguration of the Madrid-Córdoba-Seville line. According to the state railway company Renfe, a total of 50.7 million passengers have travelled on the line to date.

The trains are remarkable for their frequency as well as their speed: a train leaves Madrid for Córdoba every half an hour. The service creates what is effectively an uninterrupted link between the two cities.

Paris

Málaga

Wien

Barcelona

· · · · · ·

Córdoba-Madrid by AVE (high-speed train): 1 hour 45 minutes (one train every half an hour) Córdoba-Ciudad Real by AVE: 40 minutes Córdoba-Puertollano by AVE: 42 minutes Córdoba-Zaragoza by AVE: 2 hours 35 minutes Córdoba-Lleida by AVE: 3 hours 35 minutes Córdoba-Barcelona by AVE: 4 hours 40 minutes

Granada

Huelva

Milan

Cádiz

Málaga Almería

Roma

Córdoba

Only direct services were used for the purposes of this table. The high-speed network has been significantly extended thanks to state initiatives. Cities such as Valladolid and Valencia also now benefit from the advantages of this technology. Spain is one of the leading countries in the world in the use of this type of transport. The high-speed train network also links Córdoba to cities with intercontinental, international and national airports, which give Córdoba travelling times that are extremely competitive on a national scale of comparison. These links are as follows:

Córdoba’s main high-speed rail links with the rest of Spain are currently as follows:

Lond

Marseille Madrid

Almería

Am

Jaén

Sevilla

Frankfurt

London Huelva

Córdoba

Berlin

·

·

With Madrid (Madrid-Barajas Airport) Connection by high-speed train journey lasting one hour 45 minutes via Atocha station. Madrid-Barajas is the largest airport in Spain, and the fourth largest in Europe, with 50 million passengers per annum. It is the continent’s main gateway to Latin America. With Málaga (Málaga-Pablo Ruiz Picasso Airport) 50-minute connection via María Zambrano station, and in the future a direct connection with the airport terminal is planned. Málaga airport, recently revamped, is the fourth largest in Spain and the twenty-second largest in Europe, with 13 million passengers every year. It plays an important role in serving tourism for the whole of the Andalusian coast.

Madr

Córd

·

With Seville (Seville-San Pablo airport) 45-minute connection via Seville-Santa Justa highspeed train station. Seville-San Pablo airport is the twelfth largest in Spain with 4.4 million passengers a year. It offers flights to the Canaries, North Africa and major European cities.

B Regional Córdoba occupies a strategic position in the railway network in southern Spain. The line from Madrid forks in Córdoba, heading respectively for Málaga and Seville, from where there are services to Huelva and Cádiz. In future there will be high-speed link from Antequera, in Málaga province, to Granada, a project that will be completed with the Transverse Rail Link, a line that will connect Huelva and Seville with Granada and Almería and form the new backbone for the Andalusian rail network. This investment has the potential of producing great benefits for the ECoC, in the event of Córdoba being chosen. It brings the number of visitors who will be able to travel to Córdoba to participate in cultural activities – even returning to their homes the same day – to four million, i.e. half the population of Andalusia.


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THE CITY’S INFRASTRUCTURE

AVE and airport accesibility Source: personal compilation

25’ Córdoba-Jaén

25’ Córdoba-Jaén

SPAIN

25’

AVE train: train stops and travelling time

AVE train: train stops and travelling time

AVE train: To be constructed

AVE train: To be constructed

Córdoba-Jaén

SPAIN

SPAIN

AVE train: train stops and travelling time AVE train: To be constructed

4h50’

Madrid

4h50’

Cordoba-Barcelona

-M ad rid

ba

Co

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ba

1h

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evilla

30’

Cadiz-S

evilla

30’

Cadiz-S

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Cadiz-S

30’

alaga

ba-M

2h

Jerez

Jaen Granada

30as-’Malaga

Granada

30as-’Malaga

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Al

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Almeria

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Almeria

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Almeria

Malaga

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Algeciras Aside from the 330,000 people living in Córdoba and the 800,000 inhabitants of the wider province, the main cities of Andalusia will have journey times of between one and two hours once the network extensions mentioned above are completed. These cities are:

· · · ·

Seville: 700,000 inhabitants and a metropolitan area of 46 municipalities and 1.5 million people. Málaga: 560,000 inhabitants and a metropolitan area with 1.5 million people. Granada: 240,000 inhabitants. Jaén: 120,000 inhabitants.

Currently the number of travellers coming to Córdoba via the airport is very small, for the reasons mentioned. Of those who travel to Andalusia by aeroplane, the majority of Córdoba’s visitors come via the airports in Seville (142 km.), Málaga (159 km.) and Granada (237 km.). Córdoba airport plays a role in health, leisure, courier and spraying operations.

In addition there is a connected system of mid-distance and local train services, currently being improved with a planned transfer of responsibilities from the Ministry of Public Works to the Andalusian Regional Council. There are plans to establish a permanent service in the Guadalquivir Valley that will improve connections between provinces as well as helping to protect the environment. Córdoba currently has a local train service, running every ten minutes, connecting the city’s main station to the university campus at Rabanales.

Access by road

Airport infrastructure

Sevilla-Granada

Cordoba-Jaen

Sevilla-Granada ga ala as-M ecir Alg

Algeciras

25’

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Part-way stations in the province of Córdoba have been added to these regional high-speed lines, which benefit or will benefit surrounding municipalities. The CórdobaMálaga high-speed line stops at Puente Genil, while to the north of Córdoba a station is being added in the area of Los Pedroches, in the town of Villanueva de Córdoba.

Jaen

56’

Jerez Cadiz

2h ’ 30

Cordo

Jerez

Jaen

alaga

Cadiz

ba-M

Hu

Cadiz

ba

rdo

Se

56’

Huelva

elva-Sevilla

a-C

vill

Se

Cordo

25’

Sevilla

2h ’ Sevilla-Granada 45ordoba

alaga

Huelva-Sev

ba-M

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Huelva

Cordoba

56’

25’

illa

Huelva-Sev

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Cordoba-Jaen

25’ 45’

Sevilla

Barcelona

25’

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Cordoba

Cordoba-Jaen lla-Co vi

Cordo

Sevilla

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Barcelona

Cordoba-Barcelona

46

Cordoba

Barcelona

4h50’

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1h

46

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1h 46 ’

Cordoba-Barcelona ANDALUSIA

Madrid

THE CITY’S INFRASTRUCTURE

ANDALUSIA

ANDALUSIA

Madrid

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This reduction in journey times to neighbouring cities will undoubtedly improve the mobility of all Andalusians. The existing lines enable passengers to travel from Córdoba to Seville in 40 minutes, to Málaga in 60 minutes, to Granada in 90 minutes, while the journey time to Jaén promises to be very similar. The railway network in Andalusia is thus made up of a combination of high-speed lines and other systems such as those that serve Cádiz, Huelva and Jaén. The journey to Cádiz takes two hours 45 minutes while the journey to Huelva takes one hour 52 minutes.

Córdoba has an airport dating from the 1950s, six kilometres from the city centre, classified as a ‘third category’ airport. In aeronautical terms it is an aerodrome open to national and international traffic from countries party to the Schengen treaty, but does not have air traffic control services. The Spanish government, through the publicly-owned company AENA, is tackling the lack of operating infrastructure through a modernisation programme for the current airport, with an estimated budget of €100 million. The work includes the extension of the existing runway, a new terminal and the infrastructure necessary for receiving national and international flights. Among other things it is currently used for military flights, passenger charter flights, aerial photography, flying courses, parachute clubs, crop-spraying flights and organ transplant flights for Reina Sofía Hospital. The extension works in progress will firmly place Córdoba on the map of national and European public civil airports. They are set to finish prior to 2013. With the extension of its runway and apron, the airport will be suitable for normal short-haul aircraft. It will be possible to fly to Córdoba from Europe and North Africa.

Córdoba is connected to the rest of the country by an excellent network of roads, ensuring ease of access for private and public vehicles alike. The A-4 dual motorway, connecting Madrid with Cádiz, runs next to the city, north of the A-92 (which crosses Andalusia) and the N-432 which runs diagonally from Badajoz via Córdoba to Granada. There is also the recently-built Costa del Sol dual motorway, the A-45, which has brought the cities of Córdoba and Málaga even closer together. The N-331 had previously been the road used for this journey. Three projects will improve this strategic position even more radically. The first is the A-81, an ambitious motorway that will link the Extremadura region, near the border with Portugal, and Granada in the east of Andalusia. In the north, this motorway will connect with the A-43 running between Puertollano (Ciudad Real) and Mérida. The A-81 will improve Córdoba’s traffic circulation, thanks to a new section for heavy goods vehicles that will thus run further from the built-up area. The second important project is the Córdoba-Toledo motorway, currently at the pre-planning stage, which will improve the Iberian Peninsula’s north-south transport links. Finally, it is worth highlighting the projects that make up the Infrastructure Plan for Transport Sustainability in Andalusia (Spanish acronym: PISTA), which will strengthen road links in the region, with schemes such as the Olivar motorway linking Úbeda (Jaén) and Estepa (Seville), passing through Córdoba province en route. Other projects deriving from this plan that will lead to improvements in transport connections are an upgrading of the A-431 in the Guadalquivir Valley, linking Córdoba and Palma del Río; improvements in access routes to Puertollano and Ciudad Real (Castilla-La Mancha) via the N-420 and the creation of the A-306 trunk road between El Carpio (Córdoba) and Torredonjimeno (Jaén). The continuous programme of improvements in the secondary road network is also very important because these roads are essential in maintaining connections between the municipalities and the provincial capital.


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The principle approach roads to the city of Córdoba are the A-4, A-45, N-331, N-432, CO-31, CO-32, A-431, A-3051 and the CP-021. There are by-passes to the south, east and west of the city. The most recent to come into service was the western by-pass, which includes a new crossing over the Guadalquivir, christened Andalusia Bridge. This road enables convenient and practical access to the expanding areas at the edge of the city. The western by-pass, which is in the process of being built, will connect the A-4 with the industrial areas to the west of the city crossing the new Ibn Firnas Bridge, dedicated to the first man to attempt to fly. A northern by-pass is also planned; this will complete the ring-road going all the way round the city and will be built by a public-private initiative with an initial budget of €220 m. The city of Córdoba, aware of the importance of energy sustainability, has made a significant commitment to promoting public transport and modes of transport that minimise pollution. Urban mobility initiatives

Urban transport Urban public transport in Córdoba comprises bus and taxi services. The buses are run by a publicly-owned company, AUCORSA, which currently operates 17 urban routes and 6 peripheral routes. The company has made a significant effort to adapt its vehicles to the needs of disabled passengers. The fleet comprises 112 buses. There are approximately 500 licensed taxis in the city and there is a programme of specially-adapted vehicles. Córdoba by Bike The first sections of cycle lane in Córdoba were built in the 1990s. By 2007, Córdoba had more than 35 kilometres of paths exclusively for bicycles, including two-way sections. To encourage clean and sustainable transport, it is planned to extend this system of cycle lanes both in the city centre and in newly-built neighbourhoods. The City Council has provided four points for the collection and return of bicycles using the Cyclocity scheme; these points have 35 ‘eco-bikes’ that can be used by anyone who has obtained a free access card, which allows the bikes to be released.

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Córdoba Tram System With the aim of joining the ranks of cities that have opted for clean modes of transport contributing to a reduction in greenhouse gases, Córdoba has plans to put a tram network into operation. The Andalusian Regional Council has taken on the planning of a system that, due to the nature of conditions on the ground, will connect neighbourhoods surrounding the city’s Old Town. The tram network will also enable anyone visiting Córdoba by car to leave their vehicle in a car park at the periphery and enter the city by tram, a sustainable solution that gives priority to public transport, pedestrians and bikes. Towards a pedestrianised Córdoba Córdoba City Council has undertaken a range of measures aimed at extending pedestrianised areas in the historic centre. There is a Historic Centre Accessibility Plan in force, based on the creation of unrestricted traffic flows in the area around the heritage zone, the building of public car parks (a specific municipal plan has been approved) and the setting up of restricted ‘enclaves’, accessible by private vehicle only to residents and business-owners. The Council submits its projects to the UNESCO Mobility Advisor and has started to develop a Sustainable Mobility Plan for the whole municipal area.

I v the city’s infrastructure

What is the city’s absorption capacity in terms of tourist accommodation? 2

Tourism is an inherent feature of the city of Córdoba. The city’s prominence as a destination for cultural tourism and the professionalisation of the tourist industry have made it a leader by most measures of tourism success, especially in two areas: the quality of customer service and the sustainability of the activities and projects developed.

As for hotel capacity, Córdoba boasts more than 6,000 beds (10,000 in the entire province of Córdoba), made up of 5,000 beds in 5-star to 1-star hotels, and another 1,000 shared between hostels and guest houses, rural guest houses, tourist apartments, a campsite and a youth hostel. The full breakdown is as follows:

HOTELS

Nº ESTABLISHMENTS

Nº BEDS

5* Hotels 4* Hotels 3* Hotels 2* Hotels 1* Hotels TOTAL HOTELS AND BEDS

3 11 11 16 7 48

527 2,349 1,111 672 388 5,047

HOSTELS

Nº ESTABLISHMENTS

Nº BEDS

2* Hostels 1* Hostels TOTAL HOSTELS AND BEDS

4 7 11

104 195 299

GUEST HOUSES

Nº ESTABLISHMENTS

Nº BEDS

2* Guest houses 1* Guest houses Basic Category Guest House TOTAL GUEST HOUSES AND BEDS

7 20 4 31

297 308 119 724

RURAL GUEST HOUSES

Nº ESTABLISHMENTS

Nº BEDS

Rural Guest houses

5

45

TOURIST APARTMENTS

Nº ESTABLISHMENTS

Nº BEDS

Apartments

8

196

TOTAL LODGING ESTABLISHMENTS

103

TOTAL BEDS

6,311

Source: Andalusia Tourism Register, Department of Tourism, Commerce and Sport. 2010


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Other accommodation options

Córdoba has one youth hostel, named Albergue Inturjoven de la Creatividad, located in the heart of the city’s Old Town (Judá Leví Square, in the Jewish quarter), with accommodation for 212 people, meeting rooms and its own exhibition space; it comes under the responsibility of the Andalusian Youth Institute and is a member of the Andalusian youth hostel network operated by the publicly-owned company, Inturjoven. Since 2008, the Asociación de Patios Claveles y Gitanillas has offered all those wishing to experience authentic Córdoba courtyard life the chance to stay in a house with a typical courtyard. This accommodation is available all year round, but it is without doubt in May, month of the famous Courtyard Festival, that these enchanting places reach the height of their splendour. The Festival is a contest that is deeply-rooted in the popular imagination and has managed to transcend frontiers to the extent that the courtyards are now the first port of call for any tourist circuit of the city. The neighbourhoods where courtyard accommodation is offered are two of the most delightful in Córdoba: San Basilio and the Axerquía. The campsite in El Brillante, in the northern part of the city, is small and friendly. It is only 800 metres from the city’s main shopping district and 1½ kilometres from the Mezquita-Cathedral and the Old Town. Tourism in Córdoba

In keeping with the tourism goals referred to at the start of this section, the creation in 2002 of the Córdoba Tourism Consortium, the outcome of collaboration between Córdoba Council and the business sector, was a major step forward. At the same time, the Córdoba Excellence in Tourism Plan was put into operation; this was also the fruit of collaboration, in this case between the City Council, the Andalusian Regional Council, the central government and businesses (with significant funding from the European Regional Development Fund). A Córdoba Strategic Tourism Plan was drawn up in 2009, with the active participation of the city’s entire tourist industry, outlining approaches in this field for the next four years.

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THE CITY’S INFRASTRUCTURE

With regard to tourism quality, Córdoba prides itself on being at the forefront in commitment to excellence in tourism services. The city was one of the first in Spain to implement the Integrated Tourism Quality System (Spanish acronym: SICTED), a project sponsored by the central government to extend the culture of tourism quality at national level. Moreover, the city’s tourist information and visitor advice services pride themselves on being quality-certified in tourism. This is a reflection of the professionalism of Córdoba’s tourism industry and the welcoming tradition of a city exemplifying the characteristics that have turned Spain into one of the most powerful forces in world tourism. The Conferences Office and the City Events Office have achieved the same standard. The first industry-wide Regional Delegation of the Spanish Institute for Quality in Tourism (Spanish acronym: ICTE) in Andalusia has recently been established in Córdoba. This will be run by the Córdoba Tourism Consortium with the aim of spreading the culture of quality. Sustainability has been the main aim of all the city’s tourism initiatives in recent years. The Excellence in Tourism Plan itself has devoted the vast majority of its resources to projects targeting this goal. Examples include: improving the city’s tourist signage and the permanent visitor information infrastructure; refurbishment projects in parts of the World Heritage Site Old Town; the restoration and conservation of monuments; improvements in the lighting and general image of the Old Town; and the extension of heritage-access and activities aimed at broadening and diversifying the tourist facilities available – activities that are self-financing and can be maintained and improved indefinitely.

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THE CITY’S INFRASTRUCTURE

The Excellence in Tourism Plan is committed to all aspects of accessibility, to top-quality information and visitor advice services, conference and event advice, the revitalisation of tourist facilities and product creation, access to heritage, marketing, promotion, analysis (by a panel of experts), quality, institutional coordination and planning. Commitment to heritage access stands out among these, and is evident in various services aimed at facilitating access to monuments and heritage areas. Outstanding examples include the daily bus service to Madinat al-Zahra, the daily opening of the precincts of the Triumph of San Raphael Monument, the daily opening of the Gatehouse on the Roman Bridge, visits to the Roman mausoleum and, in collaboration with the University of Córdoba and the CajaSur Foundation, the recent opening of the San Bartolomé Mudejar chapel. In addition, self-financing guided walks for visitors have been organised, helping people get to know the history and culture of the city. Walks such as Strolls through Córdoba, the Roman Córdoba Route, the Guided Visit to Monuments and the Fernandine Churches Route get better and more popular with each passing year. The city has a telephone information service for tourists - 902 201774 – which last year received a total of 6,470 calls. The city’s tourism website, www.turismodecordoba.org, has an online booking system which received 3,770 requests in 2009, dealt with by staff working in the information department of the Tourism Consortium. Córdoba now has a central tourist information office located at 22 Rey Heredia, as well as three tourist information points at the AVE-Renfe railway station, Tendillas Square and the Campo Santo de los Mártires (opposite the Alcázar of the Christian Monarchs). In 2008, all these offices obtained the UNE-EN ISO 9001:2008 Standard and the UNE 187003:2008 Tourism Quality Standards, prerequisites for providing tourist information services.

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I v the city’s infrastructure

What projects are to be carried out between now and 2016 in terms of urban and tourism infrastructure, including renovation work? What is the planned timetable for this work? (The answer to this question is optional at the pre-selection phase) 3

The main urban, cultural and tourism infrastructure projects that will have a positive impact on the tourism industry and the city’s future economic development, either because they improve access services or because they generate new business opportunities, are as follows: 1 Transport and urban infrastructure

a) Extension of the airport and associated services, making it possible to operate regular flights. This project includes lengthening the runway by 670 metres, so that certain aircraft currently unable to use the airport will in future be able to do so. b) The Andalusian Regional Council’s Department of Public Works and Transport’s PISTA 2007-2013 Plan (Infrastructure Plan for Transport Sustainability in Andalusia) includes a number of projects in Córdoba: 1 Goods transport and logistics: The development of a Logistics Network is planned, comprising business zones specialising in logistical activities situated at seven frontier nodes and four interior nodes. The node planned for Córdoba is the Logistics Park, the first phase of which is already in operation. 2 Railway Network: an extension of the local railway system will be implemented taking advantage of the existing network and integrating current middistance services.

3 Road Network: new roads both within the province and connecting Córdoba to neighbouring provinces will be built. The new dual carriageways and motorways affecting Córdoba are: · Andalusia Regional Council: Jaén – Córdoba (via El Carpio) · Ministry of Public Works: Granada – Córdoba – Badajoz · Ministry of Public Works: Córdoba–Toledo 4 Metropolitan Transport: public transport will be improved by the introduction of a tram system. The road infrastructure will be improved with the development of the western by-pass and the new northern by-pass, completing the ring road round the city. Public transport services will be integrated into one consortium, facilitating the introduction of a single ticket system. 2 Cultural and tourist infrastructure

Córdoba’s preparation for the ECoC bid has already prompted a number of positive and highly-visible changes in the appearance of the city, and in its distinguishing features. Together, these changes – in terms of the cultural programme available and the cultural consumption habits of local people – have transformed what might be termed Córdoba’s “cultural ecosystem”, i.e. the sum of all the elements, players, spaces and facilities whose interaction shapes the city’s cultural system. These changes involve not only the creators of culture, but also all the other elements essential to their activity: agents, programmes, infrastructure, public space, local people and visitors. In short, both the software and the hardware of local culture.

The pairing of city and culture is the inspirational concept behind the development and planning of Córdoba, as well as the guiding motive for the new map of cultural infrastructures for the European Capital of Culture process. This desire to change is evident in the creation of an ambitious Plan for Cultural Resources and Infrastructure in Córdoba (PEICC), commissioned by the City Council’s Department of Culture from the Contemporary Architecture Foundation, a private institution but with a public interest, created locally in 2002 and devoted to research, promotion and creation of contemporary architecture. This institution is active at national and international level.

a) The Old Town. Actions mainly affecting the Old Town, planned to run from 2002 to 2012. These actions were intended to diversify the use and content of the urban space, to prevent the area becoming simply a tourist theme park, so that historical Córdoba can be a place where local people and visitors come together. The ultimate aim is the creation of a cultural space which also involves the recovery of the edges of the Old Town where it meets the river, whose banks, already restored along the stretch bordering the Mezquita (Mosque-Cathedral), will also be integrated into the southern sector of the city as a natural and cultural riverside area.

The plan covers the building work expected to take place between 2012 and 2016, together with a proposal for a complete review of the relationship between public space and culture. The ECoC bid has also prompted the separate preparation of a geographical map of cultural resources which will serve as the future foundation for work in the city. The map will reflect the cultural infrastructure and its relationship with the city, as part of an overall architectural vision, and will be included in a strategic plan for cultural programming to be drawn up as part of the Córdoba 2016 project.

b) The river and the “Cultural Bank”. Regeneration of the riverside as an area for walking, gradually equipped with a range of public facilities; the effect of this has been to open the city up to the River Guadalquivir. This process includes actions on the South Bank, or “Cultural Bank” as it will now be called, to be implemented mainly between 2012 and 2016.

The plan will have an impact on the indissociable link between culture and city, by treating public space as a venue for open-air cultural activities and as a means of connecting the city’s various cultural facilities. This is a long-term plan that will be adopted by public and private institutions, civic society and the citizens as a whole. Its specific objective is to use the ECoC bid as an opportunity to reflect on the future of Córdoba, interpreting culture as a means of regenerating the city. Together with the infrastructure currently being developed, and the facilities already in place, this plan will put the finishing touches to a network which – in conjunction with public spaces – will extend across the whole city. There have been various major, large-scale developments in the city since the City Council decided - in 2002 – to bid to become ECoC, although these developments only started to become visible from 2008 onwards. These projects can be concisely summarised in four areas of action within the city:

The idea was for the river to regain its historical role in shaping the city’s structure. The first major measure was the Special Action Plan for the River Guadalquivir which enabled the development of projects for improving the riverbanks, such as the Guadalquivir Balcony, designed by Juan Navarro Baldeweg, and the Miraflores Park, created by the architect Juan Cuenca Montilla. Since then, regeneration has continued; the area of the left bank bordering the Miraflores meander has become a remarkable cultural complex, involving a whole range of projects grouped under the name “The Cultural Bank”. Contemporary architecture, with its huge potential for becoming a lasting feature of the urban landscape, will help to reshape the city. The bold, innovative designs provided by leading national and international architects will help to turn the “Cultural Bank” into a kind of “new” Córdoba. This contemporary vision, taken in conjunction with the city’s remarkable historic heritage, will undoubtedly become an architectural expression of the concept of peaceful coexistence, proof of a new architectural sensibility in a heritage city. Córdoba’s firm support for a more modern architecture clearly testifies to its intention to become a twenty-first-century city.


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Projects were selected through international competitions aimed both at finding the best possible proposals and at encouraging creativity. Good examples of this spirit of renovation and commitment to contemporary architecture are the Institutional Headquarters of the Madinat al-Zahra Archaeological Site, designed by Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano, and opened in 2009; the City’s Tourist Reception and Information Centre, by Juan Cuenca; the Córdoba Centre for Contemporary Creation, currently under construction, also by Nieto and Sobejano; the headquarters of the Contemporary Architecture Foundation; and the new Córdoba Congress Centre, designed by the Pritzker Architecture Prize winner, Rem Koolhaas. All these projects will help to shape a new skyline, which will be placed in a direct dialogue with the city’s heritage area. Observation and interpretation of the river’s role from a contemporary perspective not only highlights the city’s history and its geographical position, but also restores the identity of the Guadalquivir as part of the region, giving it added value in a present-day context, firmly anchoring the city in the region and underlining the need for sustainable development. In other words, the Plan recognises the role of the river and its public spaces as cultural heritage, in the form of the Cultural Bank, fully regenerated for public use, aimed at strengthening the river’s role as a place for creating and exchanging ideas and providing it with contemporary uses as part of the Córdoba 2016 project. c) The city’s districts. Actions aimed at providing all the city’s districts with cultural facilities, in order to promote the creation of, and access to culture, and to encourage the urban and social regeneration of areas hitherto insufficiently integrated within the city.

THE CITY’S INFRASTRUCTURE

One major component of that blueprint, which occupies a special place in this context, is the Urban Sur [Urban South] plan, jointly financed by the European Union and the City Council. The plan, to be implemented between 2009 and 2015 at a total cost of over €14 m., provides for the development of three districts in the south of the city: Campo de la Verdad, Sector Sur and Barrio del Guadalquivir. The intention is, by connecting these developments with the cultural plans already in place, to create a new synergy which will allow the area to be regenerated, not only through new town planning solutions, but also in terms of a change in the attitude of local residents. They will see, in just a few years’ time, how radically their environment has been changed by the presence of new cultural facilities, and will also appreciate the tremendous potential of that change. d) The expanded city. The development of Madinat alZahra and of its links with the cultural ecosystem of the Sierra, as well as with other peripheral areas to form a kind of expanded city. The current view of the city and of culture is far removed from the model of a walled city, firmly separated from the outside world and clearly segmented. Today, spaces are more fluid, and the city is seen as an expanding construct, with close, fertile links to its surroundings, as part of a dynamic movement of integration and enrichment. This conviction underlies the new approach to the city. Córdoba has a very large municipal area, which includes fairly densely-populated areas within a radius of 15 kilometres from the city centre; these areas are rich in terms both of historical heritage and natural beauty. The ECoC project therefore seeks not only to embrace a large metropolitan area stretching out to include the whole region, but also to express the concept of an expanding city, i.e. an appreciably virtual “Greater Córdoba”. This is to be achieved in several ways: ·

By involving residents in areas beyond the city limits (e.g. Villarrubia, Trassierra, Alcolea, Cerro Muriano, El Higuerón) in the cultural activities envisaged, in order to encourage their participation and incorporate their ideas.

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By including their heritage, with all its symbolic and cultural value, in regeneration programmes. Good examples are the Madinat al-Zahra complex, the pre-Roman army camp of Ategua, the Hermitages and Baroque retreats in the Sierra, and the remains of Roman roads and Mozarabic tracks on the outskirts of the city. The relationship between Madinat al-Zahra and its surroundings is fundamental to understanding the location of the Caliphate city. It is a superb setting in landscape terms, with the Sierra as backdrop and the plains stretching out before it, offering spectacular views of the surrounding countryside. The protected Madinat al-Zahra complex is a gateway to the Sierra Morena mountains from the city of Córdoba. In addition to the two access roads in the area (Carretera de Trassierra and Carretera de San Jerónimo), there is an extensive network of footpaths in a good state of conservation, linking the Guadalquivir valley to the mountains. By developing the idea of openness and sustainability based on the relationship between culture and nature (which is of particular interest in periurban areas), as one element of a certain type of habitat and a certain set of attitudes which go beyond the strictly development-based, dehumanising model that invaded many cities in the late twentieth century.

Projects scheduled for inauguration between 2010 and 2016 are as follows (classified by zone): Zone 1: The humanisation of the Old Town

The Fosforito Flamenco Centre Opening date: 2010 Investment cost: €856,868 Promoter: Córdoba City Council Recently renovated, it will be converted into a public centre dedicated to research into, and the promotion of, flamenco art using multimedia technologies; special programmes are under way to bring this art closer to the public. The building houses a museum devoted to the flamenco singer Manuel Fernández Díaz, whose stage-name is Fosforito. Iniciarte Hall - Department of Culture, Andalusian Regional Council Expected opening date: 2010 Investment cost: Promoter: Andalusian Regional Council

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The Andalusian Regional Council is promoting contemporary art through a number of measures. One of these is the Iniciarte Hall, located at the headquarters of the Provincial Department of Culture in the San Pablo Block complex. Its aim is to showcase the work of young artists, and to host culture-promotion activities run by the Regional Council. Tourist Reception and Visitor Centre Expected opening date: 2010 Investment cost: €5,554,019 Promoter: Andalusian Regional Council This will be the gateway to the city of Córdoba for visiting tourists. It is intended to become a place where travellers can find information about the city and the services available, using audiovisual technology. The building work – supervised by the Andalusian Regional Council, on land provided by the City Council – seeks to restore the historically close link between the Mezquita and the River Guadalquivir by creating a large pedestrian precinct. Pepe Espaliú Contemporary Art and Architecture Documentation Centre Expected opening date: 2010 Investment cost: €371,545 Promoter: Córdoba City Council This building will house 35 Council-owned works by local artist Pepe Espaliú, as well as his personal archive. There will also be an enquiry point dealing with contemporary architecture and an archive of the city’s art and architecture. Extension of the Córdoba Archaeological and Ethnological Museum Expected opening date: 2010 Investment cost: €9,325,605 Promoter: Ministry of Culture The extension work to the Jerónimo Páez Palace which houses the current museum will allow the institution to achieve greater quality in its exhibits and increase the number of services available, further opening it up to the city. The new building will restore links to the rest of the city as well as regenerating the square outside the museum, together with the remains of what was once the largest Roman theatre in the Iberian Peninsula. The museum is housed in a sixteenth-century palace, declared a Site of Cultural Interest. The Extension and Restoration project will take place in two stages.


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The first stage is the construction of a new 4,000 square metre wing which will house a range of services, as well as permanent exhibition Córdoba: Meeting-Point of Cultures. Once that has been completed and is open to the public, the next stage can begin: the creation of a new permanent exhibition facility linked to the refurbished area containing archaeological remains of the cavea (tiered seating) of a Roman Theatre. The Rafael Botí Art Centre Expected opening date: 2011 Investment cost: €1,878,989 Promoter: Córdoba Provincial Council The future Rafael Botí Art Centre, attached to the Fine Arts Foundation of the same name, will house the Provincial Council’s art collection, including the collections of the Botí Foundation and future acquisitions, as well as temporary exhibitions. The building will be located in the Jewish Quarter, close to the Mezquita, in a brand new building. The Mudéjar House – permanent headquarters of the Arab House and the International Institute of Arab and Muslim World Studies Expected opening date: 2011 Investment cost: €2,854,372 Promoter: Córdoba City Council This fourteenth-century Mudéjar house in the southern part of the Old Town, close to the Mezquita, is currently being restored and will be the headquarters for the Arab House and the International Institute of Arab and Muslim World Studies. This Institute is a consortium created in 2006 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Spanish International Cooperation Agency (AECI), the Regional Governments of Madrid and Andalusia, and the City Councils of Madrid and Córdoba. This Spanish institution, which has buildings in Madrid and Córdoba, aims to strengthen the multi-faceted relations with Arab and Muslim countries, to foster the mutual dissemination of culture, and to become a leading organisation for research into the history and current status of those relations. The building that will be home to the organisation is a collection of houses dating from different centuries, arranged around a network of unique courtyards. The City Council is funding the building work, while the management will be the responsibility of the inter-administrative consortium.

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The Teatro Góngora Expected opening date: 2011 Investment cost: €4,486,135 Promoter: Córdoba City Council A third municipal theatre is being created on the site of the old Luis de Góngora cinema. The original design is by the rationalist architect Luis Gutiérrez Soto. The theatre will have a main auditorium with 700 seats and a second closed space on the roof – formerly home to a very popular summer cinema – for smaller scale activities. The Bullfighting Museum Expected opening date: 2011 Investment cost: €987,986 Investment cost of second phase: €2,023,528 Promoter: Córdoba City Council The Bullfighting Museum is situated in a historic sixteenth-century building in the Plaza de Maimónides, also known as La Casa de las Bulas. In 1954, it was taken over by the City Council and opened as Spain’s only bullfighting museum not inside a bull ring. The first phase of restoration is now complete; the building’s structure has been fully renovated, and it will shortly reopen as the country’s best museum of its sort, in a city with a long bullfighting tradition, which has bestowed the title of Caliph of Bullfighting on the best local bullfighters of all time: Lagartijo, Guerrita, Machaquito, Manolete and Manuel Benítez El Cordobés. Royal Mews – Alcázar of the Christian Monarchs Expected opening date: 2012 Investment cost: €4,015,416 Estimated investment cost under the Special Plan: €53,610,540 Promoter: Córdoba City Council This collection of buildings is situated on the banks of the River Guadalquivir in the heart of the Old Town. The majestic Royal Mews was built by order of King Philip II, and it was here that various horse breeds were crossed to produce the Spanish Thoroughbred. This historical background will be reflected in the use of the newlyrestored complex for equestrian and cultural activities. The City Council has drawn up a special plan to restore the original link to the Alcázar of the Christian Monarchs, enhancing the large garden which covers 100.000 square meters, and recovering some extremely beautiful and historically-valuable buildings protected by town planning and heritage legislation. The green area in the current Alcázar avenue will be extended, and the Mews Gardens will be added during the second half of 2012.

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The Teatro de la Magdalena Expected opening date: 2012 Investment cost: €2,127,230 Promoter: Córdoba City Council The restoration project for the Teatro de la Magdalena is aimed at rehabilitating an old, disused cinema to provide an attractive location in a central district within the Old Town. A public-private partnership is being developed through an independent group of Dramatic Arts teachers, with the aim of promoting an alternative to official channels. The Diocesan Museum Expected opening date: 2012 Investment cost: €5,300,000 Promoter: Episcopate The Museum, which occupies part of the Episcopal Palace premises, houses a display of around 500 pieces making up the small but artistically-valuable Church heritage, dating from the Middle Ages to the present day. The Diocesan Museum is making an effort to improve both its facilities and the information provided using new technologies. Córdoba has a highly valuable but widely scattered collection of religious art, currently maintained by the Mezquita (Mosque-Cathedral) and its treasury, by parish churches and hermitages, and by religious brotherhoods, for whom sculpted images are an essential part of the Easter week celebrations. The City Museum Expected opening date: 2014 Investment cost: €377,000 Investment cost of second phase: €6,000,000 Promoters: Córdoba City Council and Caja Madrid Foundation. This former mosque, which later became a convent dedicated to Saint Clare, contains a number of Late Roman mosaics. The superb building, whose restoration and adaptation is currently at the planning stage, is located in one of the city’s main thoroughfares and will be the home of the future City Museum. The Contemporary Architecture Foundation and the San Pablo Block Expected opening date: 2015 Investment cost: €2,000,000 Promoter: Contemporary Architecture Foundation The Contemporary Architecture Foundation, a private body, was formed in the 1990s by a group of architects keen to promote their profession from a contemporary perspective.

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The San Pablo block, in the heart of the city, was the object of an international ideas competition; the winning project was presented by Sara de Giles and José Morales. The location is no coincidence: the grounds are located in the Old Town opposite the remains of the Imperial Roman Temple and next to the San Pablo church; the whole block can thus contribute to the debate on how to introduce new aesthetics into markedly traditional surroundings. The Synagogue Visitor Centre Estimated opening date: Currently at planning stage Investment cost: No data available Promoter: No data available A house in the Jewish quarter will be used to create a visitor centre intended to help provide visitors with a better appreciation of the value of the Synagogue. The Synagogue itself, erected in 1315 in a former Moorish tenement building, is one of the most important in Spain. The Andalusian Regional Council has purchased the adjacent space, which will be converted into a centre for the dissemination of Jewish culture. The restoration and pedestrianisation of the Roman Bridge, completed in 2008, enabled the bridge to regain its importance and visibility in the city. On the left bank, the old Calahorra Tower houses the privatelymanaged Museum of the Three Cultures. The development also affects the right bank, through the pedestrianisation of the Riverside Avenue. Another key development is covered by the Mezquita (Mosque-Cathedral) Master Plan, a long-standing project aimed at research into, and restoration of, the whole Mosque complex. Over the last few years, with financing from the Ministry of Culture, the Cathedral Chapter has carried out major restoration work on the nave, the minaret and the roof of the Mosque, combining conservation with archaeological research and scientific dissemination.




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What is the city’s intended strategy for the European Capital of Culture event? (This question must be answered in greater detail during the final selection stage, in particular with regard to the media strategy and the mobilisation of the public and the inhabitants. At the final selection stage, consideration must be given in particular to partnerships planned or established with the press specifically focussing on this event and on the plans relating to this strategy) 1

Communications will be integrated transversally into the management of the Córdoba 2016 project, since effective communication is closely linked to a new concept both of the city and of its socioeconomic development, for which culture is seen as the backbone. The public communication of this phenomenon inevitably relies on the concepts of ‘city marketing’ and ‘country branding’, both related to the strategies that cities put into practice to seduce inhabitants and visitors alike, allowing them to compete with other cities. This process can give rise to a magnetic effect, attracting people and resources that end up reinforcing local structures and providing a better quality of life for the city’s residents. Córdoba intends to use the visibility provided by this opportunity to reap long-term benefits. With regard to the concept of global communication, strategic consideration will be given to all available communications tools, which will be merged to form a single, consistent discourse, with a view to ensuring that the message is perceived without interference. A range of communications tools and instruments will be used in a balanced manner, appropriate to the various channels and media as well as the different groups of users we are trying to reach. It is necessary to bear in mind that channels of communication are now enormously diverse, and this has led to a fragmentation of the audience.

In fact, communications management nowadays has developed its own tools. The booms in information and communication technologies, accompanied by the emergence and unstoppable rise of the Internet, social networks and digital environments have created new channels, forms and users, as well as revolutionising communications strategies. These phenomena will of course be integral parts of the Córdoba 2016 communications policy, with a significant commitment to all the new technologies available. The Digital Córdoba project was set up to undertake an exhaustive exploration of the available technological channels that can be recruited to promote the project. This requires an analysis of the type of message, its extent and nature to ensure an appropriate use of all channels and media. Something as vast as the European Capital of Culture, which ranges from relatively mainstream content and messages to a significant degree of specialisation, encompassing interests that at times have only a tangential connection to the cultural programme (such as tourism), entails that no medium can be ignored, whether traditional or pioneering.

It is not a matter of establishing a temporary hierarchy between these strands, but rather achieving a mix of balanced development. We recognise that our communications project has to tackle the necessity of communicating a single large event with unique characteristics and dimensions, which simultaneously consists of multiple events of manifold sizes and natures. Meanwhile, the event is preceded by a situation that also requires communication and is in itself a priority: the European dimension of the ECoC and its manifestation in Córdoba.

The programming of proposals and activities from each continent will be complemented by a range of institutional interventions and arrangements tending to establish the contacts and partnerships needed for appropriate communication and diseemination of Córdoba as ECoC in 2016. National organisations and institutional, cultural and economic representatives of the continents in question will thus be invited to discover the city and, at the same time, presentations will be held in each of the continents with the aim of promoting and publicising the Córdoba 2016 project and its values.

Goals of the communication strategy: ·

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To reposition Córdoba in the landscape of consciousness, so that it is perceived both inside and outside Spain as a dynamic city with a vibrant cultural life. To re-launch the city’s profile from a European standpoint and achieve international recognition. To change the way citizens see their own city, enhancing self-confidence, sense of identity and civic pride. To promote the city as a cultural destination on a national and international scale, especially within the European Union. To encourage the local public to join in with the cultural activities, especially sections of the population that are usually excluded or difficult to access.

In the period immediately following the designation of Córdoba, the media strategy, above all locally, will centre mainly on the management of expectations, with a view to highlighting the continuity of the process and ensuring that the enthusiasm of local people and the thrust of the project itself do not wane after designation. The development phase is a critical and difficult moment for any European Capital of Culture, since it is at this point that promises have to be turned into tangible realities. At a European and broader international level, this bid entails a series of activities to be carried out between 2012 and 2015 (see chapter VI), which will place a special emphasis on reinforcing the city’s visibility and perception, assuming it is chosen. It is a strategy of global reach that consists in devoting each of the years, from the time of designation up to 2016, to a different continent, in such a way that between 2012 and 2015 the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania will be honoured, while 2016, year of the European Capital of Culture, will be dedicated to Europe itself.

We believe that these activities will serve as useful preparation for the communications tools to be used in 2016 and as a way bringing up to speed those who will carry out most of the work during the year itself, when the programme of events will be at its most intense. We also recognise that the preparation itself will generate a significant demand for information. For at least two years prior to 2016 the audience will be kept informed about what to expect. This will require a specific communications set-up dedicated to serving the media from 2015 onwards. To cater to the needs of journalists who arrive once the European Capital of Culture year is over, the marketing and communications apparatus should ideally be kept going until at least the end of the first half of 2017. This would reinforce the results obtained from the events in terms of image and communication. A report will be drawn up with the purpose of recording the work carried out and the impact achieved by the project. 1

The communications policy will operate in three spheres simultaneously: a) The local and regional sphere Clearly, close collaboration with local and regional media is essential in order to underpin the project, achieve widespread popular involvement as well as obtain a high level of awareness among ordinary people regarding what the European Capital of Culture entails.


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Three local newspapers (Diario Córdoba, El Día de Córdoba and ABC Córdoba) are strongly involved in the bid and since 2009 have been members of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation as “collaborating bodies”, ensuring that relations with these media organisations are very fluid, as indeed they are with television, radio and digital broadcasting companies. One level of information dissemination will be the city of Córdoba in general, which will help to ensure the sustainability of the messages beyond ECoC year. In the local arena, we believe that a key part of promotion lies in supporting small cultural operators to help them in promoting their own events within the context of the European Capital of Culture. It is an essential strategy to ensure that cultural promoters, audiences and news media receive a single, clear and consistent message, thus avoiding the multitude of messages that lead to audience confusion. Other tools of dissemination that will be used at a local and regional level include the website (www.cordoba2016.es), press releases, advertisements in local and regional media, printed materials and outdoor advertising. The website is fully translated into three languages (Spanish, English and Polish). The bid has set out to recover the .com and .eu domains with the aim of constructing a definitive version of the ECoC portal. Running alongside this, a municipal television channel, TVM, is seen as a useful tool for broadcasting via digital terrestrial television and coming under the remit of the Institutional Relations Department. With the infrastructure already available, the channel could provide both information to the local audience as well as furnishing images for other media. A partnership agreement with the public sector Radio Televisión de Andalucía will also be necessary. This has two mainstream free-to-air television channels, several international channels as well as three radio stations: Canal Sur Radio, Andalucía Información and Canal Fiesta Radio. b) The national sphere Establishing collaboration agreements with large national media groups is especially important, since many of them have interests in both press and broadcast media. They include Prisa (El País, Canal Plus, Cadena SER), Vocento (ABC, El Semanal) Radio Televisión Española (RTVE) and Unidad Editorial (El Mundo, VEO TV).

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Nor should we forget the important role of news agencies, circulating information to hundreds of media companies and subscribers throughout the world. We are working on a collaboration agreement with Agencia EFE, the foremost international Spanish-language news agency and one of the most important in the world, for the dissemination of news in print and broadcast media at a national and international level, but, above all, at a European level. As a means of raising awareness at a national level, the bid envisages the development of the AVE Córdoba project (see chapter VII, Main themes and programme of cultural activities), which is aimed both at local people and at visitors from other Spanish cities that form part of the high-speed train network. An information desk will be sited in all the relevant stations publicising Córdoba 2016 and its cultural programme, while live events will be broadcast. It amounts to a cutting edge advertising campaign that will roll out from 2015 onwards to help spread the message of Córdoba’s status as European Capital of Culture to a wide audience, assuming the city is chosen. The visual identity that is currently used will be renewed by means of an open competition for designers. It is planned to exhibit the results, at least partially, in the preparatory activities between 2011 and 2015. c) The European and international sphere Here the city should aspire to the driving seat, rather than settling for a secondary role of mere spectator or marginal actor.

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Press trips are also planned for groups of European and international journalists with the aim of deepening their understanding of the area and encouraging them to experience its many charms.

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Presentations and exhibitions in foreign cities (such as at international tourism fairs), receptions of international missions, advertising campaigns on international television stations and websites, articles in international publications and the distribution of printed materials are all being considered. The plan is to focus efforts especially on cities that will host the European Capital of Culture between 2011 and 2015, to reap the benefits of synergy with the communication campaigns of the cities already designated.

a) The general audience (local, regional, national, European and international).

Most of the work will be carried out from the Communications and Participation Office of the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation or from the body that is finally responsible for the planning and implementation of the activities. This by no means rules out the idea of contracting a communications and public relations agency with European scope. Avoiding conflicts between promotional campaigns operating on different levels and initiated by different teams, and to achieve the highest level of coordination, will require fluid and transparent communication. Feedback must travel in a bottom-up direction, in such a way that the national and international campaigns are connected and redesigned in accordance with what is happening on the ground in Córdoba, taking into account the opinions of both residents and visitors.

A segmented strategy will be implemented and various communication channels used to reach different target audiences:

b) Regular spectators and consumers of cultural activities, estimated to be around 5-10% of the population at large (local, regional, national, European and international). c) Groups meriting special attention: children, the elderly, women, groups at risk of social exclusion and the disabled. With respect to this last group, the organization plans to integrate within its communications strategy, in collaboration with associations that work in this field, elements that permit the inclusion of disabled people in the information process and subsequent enjoyment of the programmed activities. d) Cultural organizations and creators who, due to the participatory nature of Córdoba 2016, will be included within the internal communications process We should like to highlight five key aspects for enhancing the promotion of the ECoC project: 1

To this end it will be essential to run marketing campaigns that promote the city and its cultural programme to visitors and tourists, placing special emphasis on those activities that underline the European dimension of the project and events that cross national boundaries. In order to enhance the European visibility of the campaign, we plan to create a European network of ambassadors for Córdoba 2016, comprising journalists from the 27 member states of the European Union, who will be charged with the task of transmitting information about Córdoba and its cultural programme in their respective countries.

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Dissemination of the information will take place on two levels: a) Communication regarding the bid in general, with the aim of raising awareness of the city’s nomination as well as the most important proposals and activities within the programme. b) Communication and promotion of activities included in the European Capital of Culture programme. The tools used will include the website, social networks, press, radio, television and media campaigns, publications and billboards and posters.

Firing the imagination of the general public and audiences Marketing and public relations techniques are fundamental tools for promoting greater participation and full acceptance of the ECoC project. Getting ordinary people involved is a two-way process. They and the community leaders who represent them need to be wellinformed about the questions at issue, and the better informed they are the better they will be able to shape the proposals themselves. In Córdoba’s case, the fruit of the policy of inclusion has been to generate a profound sense of support for the bid and a working method that has participation as its heart.


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Inspiring audiences also involves strategies for influencing people’s opinions and interests and involving them in the world of culture, ensuring an active participation in an array of activities, while seeking to integrate special interest or marginalised groups that are harder to reach (children, the elderly, women, groups at risk of social exclusion, the disabled and so forth). The marketing and publicity campaign must be made especially broad and appealing, and be linked to an arts programme likely to ensure a high level of participation in ECoC year. 2 Acknowledging differences If the objective of communication is to reach people and make them participants in the performances and programmes included in the Córdoba 2016 project, differences between citizens have to be taken on board. Men or women, young or old, residents or visitors – they all need to have their interests considered and met. For this reason, the segmentation of different audiences is essential. Cities that excel at marketing themselves are those that understand the diversity of their citizens and turn that diversity to their advantage. The use of new information and communications technologies will be of immeasurable help in achieving our goal. 3 Institutional reinforcement One of the positive by-products of the bid process has been the reinforcement of lines of communication between the different administrative institutions in both the city and province of Córdoba. Cohesion between local cultural organisations has to be consolidated at internal institutional level (management and staff); this may be a force for greater integration in other spheres (employment, tourism, public services, etc.), helping to achieve objectives through the chanelling of information, the strengthening of values and practices, the construction of standards and symbols that identify this as the project for a shared city, all of which will foster closer relations with local people. Similarly, coordinating the communications services of the institutions pertaining to the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation and affiliated institutions will represent an important step forward, ensuring a single and coherent message regarding the European Capital of Culture. A stable and permanent coordination committee will be created.

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4 Shared objectives The aim is for the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation and people of Córdoba to build a shared vision of the future. This can only be done if both parties are willing and able to place their issues on the agenda of public opinion, so that local people and the ECoC organisers are involved in a feed-back loop which will undoubtedly enrich the project. 5 Strengthening the image and the positioning of the Córdoba 2016 project Any image is a projection of institutional identity, and its main aim should be to reach out more effectively to citizens at all levels, and especially in Europe. The bid has worked from the outset to improve the dissemination and awareness of the project among the people of Andalusia and Spain. From the moment the designation is announced, this determination will be transferred to Europe and the rest of the world. Communication and marketing tools: 1 Communication and the Press One of the main tasks that a Press Office assumes nowadays is the creation of publicity, which is understood as the activity of obtaining unpaid editorial copy by creating or disseminating news in print and audiovisual media with the specific purpose of improving corporate image and recognition. Events on a very large scale such as the European Capital of Culture attract the attention of news media due the rich and varied news stories being generated by such events, which in turn excite public interest. Over the period prior to pre-selection, the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation is maintaining permanent contact with the local, regional and national media (press, radio, television and Internet) in order to circulate information of interest, thus ensuring that both local people and more distant audiences are kept abreast of developments. The following tools are used to this end: databases of cultural, entertainment and tourist media; placement of events in agendas and schedules; the preparation of press kits with multimedia support; press trips; press releases and press conferences.

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In time, the Press Office should aspire to become a channel of communication in itself. In order to ensure that Córdoba 2016 has a direct channel of communication with the citizens and with the visitors expected, the plan is to put out a weekly publication to be distributed free of charge during 2016, with a special issue to be released at the end of December 2015 and a summary of activities in January 2017. The same publication will be offered in electronic format, to be sent to local subscribers as a weekly e-mail. This publication will also be accessible through www.cordoba2016.es. Other important possibilities are dedicated radio stations (see the Radio Collage project in chapter VII) and a web-based television channel where the main events of the European Capital of Culture year could be broadcast and stored as a permanent database to be accessed subsequently through the website. 2 The Internet and digital communication Web applications and digital communication will be treated under the heading of a project named Digital Córdoba. At the pace that new information and communication technologies are developing, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which will be the tools available to the European Capital of Culture in 2016. Channels will almost certainly exist whose capacity and scope we are currently unaware of. We believe that the important thing is to adopt a working method that allows the incorporation of any future tool into the communications strategy.

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In the context of wanting to produce a closer relationship between the Córdoba 2016 project and its audience, in such a way that reciprocal and transparent communication allows collaboration with both residents and visitors, a presence in the 2.0 environment is essential. One of the strengths of the 2.0 environment is its capacity to tailor messages to suit market segments – in this case, local residents, visitors and European citizens – and ensure a constant interaction of the campaign with the target audience; in this context, one of the challenges will be to find a way of making communication as personalised as possible. This project will be based on the application of the following strategies: ·

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At a time when users are taking possession of networks and the Internet - by socializing them - the traditional marketing and communications strategies and practices are breaking down and new ways of communicating with audiences need to be found. · Now a new type of marketing has appeared; more creative, more social, viral, one that integrates these new spaces and media: marketing 2.0. New technologies mean that communication is no longer a one-way process between a transmitter and a receiver: the receivers themselves have become transmitters. Message feedback is a reality that cannot be ignored; Digital Córdoba has therefore been established as a fundamental part of our communications strategy.

Design of an e-marketing plan: Study of the communication channels and the message, in order to ensure a digital project integrated into the project’s philosophy. Sending communications. E-mail marketing: Generation of content and graphics (bulletins, newsletters and e-mails) adapted to the Internet, as well as personalised and mass mailing. Marketing in search engines. SEO and SEM positioning: positioning strategies in search engines, whether naturally (SEO) or paying by means of contracting sponsored links through pay-per-click campaigns (SEM). Viral Marketing campaigns: A powerful word-of mouth publicity tool based on the creation of relationships and contacts through people who contact or recommend us. Viral marketing works in several formats (e-mail, video and photography competitions, conventional advertising and so on), which always, however, share the aim of making an impact on the target audience. Monthly management of on-line reputation: Online reputation involves the perceptions of Internet users of an organisation, product or service based upon experiences they have had, heard or shared. Through social networks and platforms, these opinions are capable of circulating at great speed, and continuously managing and monitoring reputation is a self-evidently important task.


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Channels that already exist and can be optimised are: The website In late 2009, Córdoba 2016 launched its new website, maintaining the domain www.cordoba2016.es, and replacing the former website, which had been in operation since 2004. The new site has received over 100,000 visits in the last year. The current website is divided into three large sections: Capital, European and Culture, in which the commitment of Córdoba 2016 is explored in its various aspects. It is accessible in three languages: Spanish, English and Polish (Polish because a Polish and a Spanish city will share the title of European Capital of Culture in 2016). Córdoba 2016’s website is currently well positioned in the main search engines, which bodes well for Córdoba’s ECoC bid. Part of the website is a Press Section, where material is constantly uploaded (announcements, press releases, press kits, press accreditations etc.) and access is simple and straightforward. As an aid to time-pressed journalists, attached to each press release will be a sound file, which can be used by broadcasters, and images (static at first, and when resources become available, television images) so the material received is complete and ready to be released by news media and websites (which are increasingly influential). The multimedia system also allows the retransmission of the most important institutional events as well as important performances within the Córdoba 2016 programme. The Press Office should aim to be a source of information for ordinary people as well as professional journalists. This will entail releasing news on the Internet immediately, using short texts accompanied by highresolution images and graphic and audiovisual resources, as well as additional documentation that may be downloaded or linked to via hypertext and links. Portals and Social Networks Tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networks, aggregators and so on allow users to become the means of communication whereby they themselves decide on the content to be published, its classification and distribution.

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Social Media Marketing (SMM) outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Tuenti, Flickr and YouTube provide a clear opportunity to engage in a two-way dialogue with our target audience in a personalised way. The www.cordoba2016.es website lies at the heart of this on-line campaign, but social networks are the vox populi. We believe that citizen involvement will confer quality and credibility to the project. It is on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, forums and blogs that the allimportant popular endorsement is to be found, a contagious chain reaction that propagates at the speed of a broadband connection. Córdoba 2016 already has official profiles in the most popular social networks. The official Córdoba 2016 page on Facebook has more than 7,100 fans; there are 7,400 on Tuenti and 117 on Twitter as at 31 May 2010, and the number continues to grow. Comments are updated and the bid’s cultural activities and programme are publicised on a daily basis, the Icons 16 and the Cosmopoetica 2010 poetry festival being cases in point. What is most striking is the great response from users of these networks; there has been an endless stream of positive comments, messages, photos and videos in support of the city. The followers of Córdoba 2016 are the real stars of the bid. The bid has initiated activities created for and by social environments such as The Dictionary of Córdoba Speech, which comprises words and expressions that are uploaded daily. Facebook and Tuenti were also used to encourage local people to dress in blue to celebrate Europe Day on 8 May. Twitter is the other star platform for becoming an opinion-shaper in cultural terms. Córdoba is already actively tweeting and has created accounts such as @Córdoba_2016 to spread the word among users. Other networks such as YouTube, Vimeo and Flickr, which focus on photos and videos, are digital libraries in which supporters can upload positive messages and images on a daily basis. In YouTube, viral videos are displayed such as the one featuring a scuba diver supporting Córdoba 2016 by travelling around the world – “Yo apuesto por Córdoba 2016” (“I support Córdoba 2016”)- and Flickr already has over 700 photos reflecting the city’s artistic, cultural and creative sides. To supplement this work, still in its early stages, a specific Internet strategy will be developed, which will be based on the following:

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· · · · ·

A positioning study for 2.0 networks. A marketing plan for social networks. The design of SMM channels and platforms. The creation of content for SMM. Inclusion and maintenance in relevant portals

Videomarketing Videomarketing consists in the design, recording and editing of video for YouTube. It offers the possibility of transmitting an innovative and interactive message in a low cost way to a huge number of people. Actions envisaged include: · · ·

Original soundtracks. The creation and optimisation of a dedicated YouTube channel. Maintenance of the YouTube channel.

Mobile Marketing The mobile phone has also become a very efficient transmission medium. Mobile marketing is based on any marketing technique that is carried out via the mobile phones of the audience we want to address. Tools include: ·

·

·

·

SMS and MMS system: Some institutions routinely use the mobile phone short message service (SMS) as a system of alerts to invite journalists to events, as well as sending small items of news to reporters. Smartphone terminals: offer similar potential to social networks in terms of opening up access to large groups of distributed users, thus multiplying the effects of marketing. Podcasting: This communications tool consists in creating a channel featuring audio or video files that are downloaded by the user and viewed or listened to whenever and wherever required. A versatile communications tool, the key to its success resides in the power and freedom that it provides the user. Bluetooth campaigns. Bluetooth wireless technology is a short-range communications system that allows connectivity between remote devices. This type of marketing campaign uses mobile phones as reception nodes.

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Mobile Internet The fusion of the Internet and television, and the sum of its applications and techniques, have opened up the possibility of having our own television channel with the advantage that the user may view our content whenever and wherever required. It would also provide us with real time statistics and optimise interactivity opportunities as well as segmenting the audience, which until now has been unattainable. It is worth highlighting that the city plans to create a wifi cloud that will connect all cultural centres and allow universal access to the Internet during 2016. 3 Design and corporate image Just like any other project of this scale, the Córdoba 2016 bid needs its own visual identity that would enable it to be recognised immediately in Córdoba and beyond, and to distinguish it from other European-scale initiatives. The need to generate a strong corporate image was quickly recognised as a means of identifying the city and conveying some of its key values in a powerful, reliable and innovative way. The design that eventually emerged from a competition process was based on an intercultural building familiar to all who know Córdoba, the Mezquita (Mosque-Cathedral), which combines Islamic, Graeco-Roman and Renaissance architectural styles. The logo reproduces the mihrab, an octagonal structure in marble and stucco with brightly coloured Byzantine mosaics on a gold, bronze, copper and silver background. The logo features the blue and yellow of the European Union, as well as a star – an implicit indication of the EU. Later the Córdoba, Europe: The future has roots strap line was added in reference to the need to build the city’s future on the foundations of its past, firmly centred in the context of Europe. During the preliminary phase of this bid, the logo has been given enormous exposure, which has served to build awareness of and identification with the project both inside and outside the city.


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The logo’s introduction phase has now concluded satisfactorily; since 2002 it has had widespread exposure and has now taken root in the public consciousness. Use of the logo by entities, companies and institutions with a link to the project will in future be permitted on a case-by-case basis.

Apart from its originality, the identity is notable for its flexibility, in terms of both supports and of audiences. It can be adapted to fit various audiences (children, teenagers and the general public) and can be used on a variety of platforms – the Internet, online software, conventional graphic media and so on.

Allowing merchandising companies to reproduce the logo free of royalties is seen as a good way of extending awareness of the project, always on the proviso that the companies are subject to strict quality control. Merchandising is seen as just another area of the dissemination policy.

Henceforth all individual campaigns, whether subjectspecific (aimed at, for example, specific audiences) or time-specific (relating to one-off meetings and programmed activities), will come under the umbrella of this new identity. It will last until it is replaced by the definitive image to be used in 2016.

The second stage in the development of the visual identity was completed in 2009. Designers were again encouraged to submit their ideas for a new, modern visual image for the bid based on two of the key themes highlighted in the pre-selection dossier: Córdoba as a place of participation and a meeting point for cultures.

In keeping with the new image, Córdoba 2016 has revamped its website, making it more dynamic and modern, and embracing participation as the essence of its identity.

The bid’s new visual identity, designed by Estudio é (sic) makes reference to the city’s great symbolic value as a meeting point for cultures, at the same time as involving ordinary citizens by asking them to submit words in their handwriting. The design, which will represent the Córdoba 2016 project from now on and distinguish it from the other bids, offers a striking image of the city and of the citizens’ commitment to the European Capital of Culture, and will serve to present the bid both in the city and beyond (at regional, national, European and international level). The aim of the design, inspired by visual poetry, is to encourage people to participate, and to feel a sense of ownership and pride in the efforts of their city at this decisive moment of the process, a few months before the pre-selection dossier is submitted. The new graphic identity, based on the handwriting of hundreds of ordinary people, is nothing less than a homage to the written word as well as being a collective contribution. A key advantage is that it is designed to be renewed and will therefore retain a certain freshness of impact over the course of the whole European Capital of Culture project. This is a fundamental principle of the bid: the ECoC has to be a stable event throughout the course of the year, undergoing continual renewal with every new activity.

4 Publications A wide range of printed material – posters, leaflets, catalogues, flyers – will be produced to publicise the various activities for a variety of audiences. The majority will be published in at least three languages: Spanish, English and Polish. 5 Marketing and Advertising The Communication and Participation Departments will also take charge of such important areas as advertising, direct marketing, sponsorship and merchandising. An undertaking of the size and scope of the European Capital of Culture requires a significant advertising outlay and demands both national and international campaigns. The explosive emergence of the Internet in recent years has completely changed the advertising landscape, creating new channels and formats no advertiser can afford to ignore. The greater the size of an undertaking - the European Capital of Culture being a case of a largescale project – the better it is suited to the Internet, with its global reach. The Internet also brings significant potential cost savings and the ability to segment and target specific audiences.

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It will be necessary to increase the presence of the Córdoba 2016 brand gradually, and in all markets, at local, regional, national and international level, until reaching a crescendo in the year of European Capital of Culture itself. Considerable effort will be required to ensure that the impetus does not wane during ECoC year; this can only be done by maintaining the volume of advertising. 6 Institutional relations Institutional Relations will be exploited as a means of maintaining links with opinion-formers and leaders of social groups, economic groups, businesses and local and regional government departments. Responsibilities will include: ·

·

·

Reception and Information This includes the tasks of receiving visitors, providing information to the general public and overseeing the volunteer programme. Public Relations and Protocol This involves organising events, giving presentations about the bid, in Spain and other European countries, receiving official visitors, attending international fairs and so on. Evaluation and Impact This involves continuously monitoring the development of the project, providing valuable feedback to the rest of the communications structure, and analysing the impact of the event on the city over the short, medium and long term.

Córdoba thus plans a comprehensive and integrated communications strategy that takes all audiences into account, paying special attention to people who, for whatever reason, find themselves removed from the rewards that the enjoyment of culture brings. By harnessing new technology we believe we can reach a wide audience locally, regionally, nationally and at the wider European level.

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What proportion of the budget is earmarked for communication? 2

Aware that communications and promotion together form one of the chief pillars of the Córdoba 2016 project, and having examined the size of the budgetary assignments of earlier ECoC cities, the decision was taken to assign 13% of the total ECoC budget to communications and promotion, i.e. the sum of €10.4 m. It is felt that the budget assigned to communications has to adequately reflect the magnitude of this European-scale event. In that sense, it was deemed essential to appoint a communications and public relations agency with European scope. Such an agency will help us to publicise the European Capital of Culture in a more efficient way both at a national and international level, by providing the necessary expertise and, above all, facilitating access to national and international media that otherwise would be much more difficult to reach. It should also be borne in mind that, in an event on the scale and with the scope of the European Capital of Culture, the various elements comprising the concept of communication and marketing (advertising, direct marketing, sponsorship, merchandising) will be of great economic importance, especially in the case of national and international advertising campaigns. The strategy envisaged for European and international advertising between 2012 y 2015 will require a considerable budget, in order to ensure effective promotion in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

The communications/promotion budgets for 2009 and 2010 were, respectively, €324,697.12 (4.77% of the total budget) and €336,000.00 (3.99% of the total budget). The budgetary allocation for 2011 is estimated at €266,000 (4.11% of the total budget). This allocation will gradually be increased from the moment Córdoba is designated ECoC (2012), until 2016; the rise will be more marked in 2015, and of course considerably sharper in 2016 itself, in order to leave no doubt as to the continuity of the process, and ensure that citizen enthusiasm and the impetus of the project itself do not wane after designation. This period prior to 2016 is seen as crucial for the success of the promotion/communication strategy. As a result, the budgetary allocation will rise to €400,000 in 2012, to €450,000 in 2013, to €500,000 in 2014 and to €1.5 m. in 2015. The budgetary allocation for 2016 will soar to the previously-mentioned figure of €10.4 m.

communication strategy

How does the city plan to promote the award of the Melina Mercouri prize if it receives it? (Information on this prize is given in paragraph VI of the Guide for cities applying for the title of European Capital of Culture) (The answer to this question is optional at the pre-selection stage) 3

Córdoba would be immensely proud to be awarded the prize in honour of Melina Mercouri, not only because of its monetary value but because it would signify recognition of the city and of the ECoC project. Equally important, the prize is a lasting tribute to the extraordinary personality and dazzling achievements of Melina Mercouri herself, one of the most remarkable figures in twentieth-century Greece, whose unparalleled contribution to regaining the freedom of her country is matched by her peerless work as cultural ambassador and by her decisive role in the building of the European Union, by strengthening the values and shared cultural aspirations of Europe, and by establishing the European Capital of Culture programme as well as European Music Day on 21 June every year.

c) Two cultural activities will be timed to enhance the award ceremony; both will undoubtedly help to highlight the social and cultural importance of the Cultural Capitals programme and the achievements of its first and most enthusiastic supporter, Melina Mercouri herself. 1 The project entitled History of the European Cultural Capitals and their importance for European culture will be organised in conjunction with the Athens-based Documentation Centre on European Capitals of Culture, and will comprise: ·

To promote and reinforce the award, a number of simultaneous complementary events will be staged, as outlined below: a) The leading cultural authorities in Spain and the EU will be expressly invited to attend the award ceremony. The President of the Andalusian Regional Council and, of course, representatives of the main institutional, social and cultural agents in Córdoba and Andalusia will also be invited. b) A special invitation to attend the ceremony and the accompanying events will be issued to the authorities of the city of Athens, as an explicit recognition of the first European city to be designated European Capital of Culture in 1985, and of the home city of Melina Mercouri. The invitation will be extended to her close family and to leading figures on the Athens cultural scene.

·

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Lectures, talks and round tables aimed at disseminating and promoting both the Melina Mercouri prize and the European Cultural Capitals programme. Managers of the Cultural Capitals designated as such from the year of Córdoba’s designation (should this bid be successful), as well as those of already-designated Capitals, will be invited to take part. An Exhibition entitled Cultural Capitals of Europe will be held, providing an educational approach to the main features of the programme and the qualities of the cities that have already been European Capital of Culture, with special emphasis on the significance of the event both for the cities themselves and for Europe as a whole. Publications explaining the ECoC programme, its history and the prize itself, with special reference to the cities who have received it.



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vi EVALUATION AND MONITORING OF THE EVENT

Indicate whether the city intends to establish a specific system for evaluating and monitoring: 1

· the impact and outcomes of the programme

·

· For three different reasons, Córdoba’s ECoC bid has chosen to use a continuous assessment instrument – known as the Impact ECoC 2016 project – enabling a comprehensive analysis of the project’s impact on the city. Firstly, the organisers are aware that any public policy requires a critical appraisal to ensure that public resources are properly deployed. Secondly, this is a core element of the design and implementation of the programme itself, since it enables the various activities to be monitored and, where necessary, fine-tuned. Finally, because the Córdoba 2106 project promotes culture as a key driving force for the city’s social and cultural future; it is therefore essential that the various impacts produced by an appropriate cultural policy are clearly perceived. An event of this significance will prompt numerous impacts and advantages, and therefore the scientific and institutional response must be a complex one. As indicated in the introduction, the evaluation programme will take into account the methods and conclusions of Liverpool’s Impacts 08 programme, whose approach will be used as an international benchmark; similar earlier research, including studies by Robert Palmer and Greg Richards focussing on the impacts of European Cultural Capitals, will also be borne in mind. We trust that the PIC16 research programme will provide a range of results: ·

·

A high level of scientific and technical knowledge of immense value to the promoters, the programme assessors and the European Union in general. Results in scientific and academic fields that will prompt further advances in a discipline – impact studies – which has already made considerable progress in methodological terms and is currently expanding at national and international level.

The transfer of knowledge and experience to local society and its social representatives, in order to foster cultural and socioeconomic development, which is the core objective of the 2016 project. Ongoing interaction within the cultural sector, which will enhance the training and education of the companies and citizens involved, which will thus become a valuable asset after 2016.

As a social research centre, the main objective of the IESA-CSIC is to carry out and encourage a thorough examination of the social structure as well as to analyse major issues and changing trends in Spanish society. In this respect, its activity is scientific in nature, and incorporates cutting-edge theory and comparative analysis. Since its creation, it has been working in the field of Social Sciences, providing a range of services consistent with its research interests. These include the following: ·

·

In order to develop a rigorous research programme between 2012 and 2018, with a view to guaranteeing the necessary diversity of outcomes, the Foundation has signed a strategic alliance with the Córdoba-based Andalusian Institute of Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC) which will in turn be supported by the University of Córdoba and the Córdoba Business Confederation (CECO).

·

As a result, this project led by IESA-CSIC will have four associated bodies: the Córdoba Cultural City Foundation, which engages to provide support and information-channelling services; IESA-CSIC itself, which will provide the technical research skills of a specialised centre attached to the Spanish Science Research Council; the University of Córdoba, which will supplement these institutional skills with the development of econometric impact-assessment models; and CECO, which will provide information regarding the various sectors of the local economy, together with their expert knowledge of the situation in Córdoba. This structure will enable the use of resources belonging to the participating institutions, as well as facilitating the participation of the Córdoba 2016 project in a range of calls for scientific or other funding (business, R & D & i, training) in order to obtain suitable and sufficient financing.

·

The IESA-CSIC is a public scientific research centre, with headquarters in Córdoba, which works in the field of sociology; it is one of few such specialist centres in Spain. In institutional terms, it is a mixed centre created by the Scientific Research Council (CSIC) and the Andalusian Regional Council through a cooperation agreement signed in 1995. However, the Institute started its work in Andalusia in 1992 as a centre belonging to the CSIC.

·

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Advice on technical and methodological issues for the definition, design and assessment of social studies and research. Research projects using quantitative (face-to-face or telephone surveys using questionnaires) and qualitative techniques (individual or collective semi-directed interviews, discussion groups). Public policy assessment studies (analysis of the process whereby public policy is defined and implemented; institutional analysis; diagnosis and assessment of outcomes). Specialised training activities (courses and seminars) in Social Sciences methodology, social statistics, computer programs used in Sociology, design and execution of applied research. Publication of reports, papers and books covering the most significant results obtained from its research projects. Bibliographical documentation on general Sociology topics and on the institute’s various areas of specialisation.

· · ·

In these last few years, under the management of research professors Manuel Pérez Yruela and Eduardo Moyano, a line of research into cultural studies has been embarked upon for the Andalusian Regional Council. This partnership has given rise to the Cultural Barometer of Andalusia (a two-yearly publication now in its second edition), a Study of Cultural Practices and Consumption (currently being carried out), and an Evaluation of the Andalusian Cultural Sector Faced by the Economic Crisis. These are pioneer studies on Andalusian society, and provide statistics for official use by the Andalusian Regional Council. This partnership project has provided the Institute with valuable experience which can now be applied to PIC16, an eminently sociological project, which will make use of the latest specialised public-opinion research techniques and of the whole range of methods required. The development of impact assessments relating to cultural events has underlined the need for interdisciplinary approaches and thus for considerable methodological diversity. The effects are so numerous and varied that analyses of secondary data, opinion surveys, qualitative analyses, documentary analyses and panels, among others, are essential tools. The varying nature of impacts may be classified as follows: ·

IESA-CSIC is unique in having developed a technical, self-managing structure that allows it to cover all the stages of applied research. For that purpose, it has invested in a Technical Unit of Applied Studies (UTEA) comprising around twenty experts (with higher or intermediate degrees) specialising in the production of social data through face-to-face and telephone surveys as well as qualitative studies, and their subsequent analysis. It is structured in four areas covering different aspects of the social data production process:

· · · · ·

Face-to face surveys (field network, data coding and processing). Telephone surveys (CATI). Data analysis and statistics. Qualitative studies. Priority IESA-CSIC research areas include: Representation of interests in contemporary democracies;

Social structure, social issues and public policies; Natural resources, land and environment; Cooperation for development.

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Economic impacts. The contribution to the local economy in terms of development, generation of wealth, and innovation. The aim is to increase local competitiveness and growth. Physical impacts. The contribution to the regeneration of the local landscape. The aim is to improve the citizens’ quality of life. Social impacts. The development of a social network (interrelation, participation). The aim is to foster inclusion. Cultural impacts. New elements for understanding our place in the land and its history. The aim is to update the city’s identity.


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At the same time, it is felt that Córdoba’s ECoC bid provides the ideal framework for exploring and developing new analytical tools able to view as a whole the experiences which together shape what is now termed “the culture sector”. For that reason, in parallel to the PIC16 project, there are plans to establish an open field for culture evaluation and prospecting, to be known as the Laboratory on Cultural Trends and Impacts 2016 (LATIC16), which will favour the sustainability of the PIC16 project beyond 2016.

Source: personal compilation. IESA

If the bid is successful, the Economic and Financial Directorate will be established immediately, and will be working both before and after the ECoC. It will be expected to work smoothly with the company responsible for Sponsorship Management, and with the Participation Directorate. Representatives of these departments will form the Objectives, Results and Finances Committee. The control system will be relatively simple, as well as being efficient, functional and strict, taking into account the large sums of money to be handled, and the high degree of computerised handling envisaged; the overall aim is that the ECoC project should be transparent and in the public domain. Details of how it will work are provided below: 2012-2014. First stage: the Objectives, Results and Finances Committee will set out the objectives to be pursued before, during and after the ECoC. These objectives will be published by the Promotion and Participation Directorate.

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Global / Integral

OR

In order to guarantee the responsible management of public resources, the foundation – or any other body responsible for managing the ECoC – will create the necessary support instruments to go even beyond the strict application of current legislation. A Code of Good Practice will be approved to cover the appointment of Foundation staff and the contracting of services, taking into account the principles of competition, merit, capacity and publicity. The key documents and the annual budgets will be made widely available. External auditors will be appointed to prepare annual statements of the Foundation’s accounts before, during and after 2016. Specifically, if this ECoC bid is successful, a report will be published – and will be available to the public – detailing the management of external and internal resources during 2016. A specific document will also be published for sponsoring partners, to provide them with direct information on the application of the resources placed in the hands of the Foundation for the organisation of the European Capital of Culture in 2016.

ECONOM

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Level 1 covers changes in the cultural habits and practices of the people of Córdoba; their participation (and that of third parties) in ECoC events; and their perception of their own city, and of its relations with Europe and with culture. Level 2 examines impacts on supply, covering the assessment of changes in the city’s ongoing cultural programme, new cultural facilities, indicators of cultural activity; and the assessment of impacts on the cultural sector, both private and public. Level 3 covers non-cultural impacts on the city (i.e. on the economy, on town planning and on other sectors). Level 4 examines the contribution of the ECoC to Europe’s cultural heritage and the impact of the cultural activities involved on the international media.

Evaluation model of the impact produced by the Cultural Capital Status of Cordoba for 2016

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· the financial management

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PR OJECTI Ó

Using this model comprising four types of impacts, PIC16 aims to implement different levels of analysis intended to enrich the information, giving it enlarged scope and rendering it accessible to local people. Assessment would thus be arranged in four concentric rings, running from the local and strictly cultural, to the global and general, or from direct effects to indirect, induced effects. This would enable appraisal of all types of impact on the city, and of the impact of ECoC-related activities on Europe and its cultural regeneration. In each of the four levels outlined below, transversal evaluations of environmental and gender impact would also be carried out.

EVALUATION AND MONITORING OF THE EVENT

Permanent environmental and gender-based assessment

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Elements of Financial Control

2015-2016. Second stage: the Economic and Financial Directorate will be the “engine-room� of the ECoC. It will draw up the budget, coordinate estimates, and manage income, expenditure, investment, accountancy and human resources. It will endeavour to correct any departures from the budget, and to achieve positive financial results.

Source: personal compilation.

Objectives, Results and Finances Committee Sponsorship Management Directorate

Economic and Financial Directorate

Communications Directorate

2017. Third stage: An external audit will be held, and the results of the whole process will be made public.

2012-2014 Pre-ECoC Design OBJECTIVES During ECoC Estimated income Post-ECoC Public

EVALUATION AND MONITORING OF THE EVENT

Private

Other

Projects Investments Accountancy Expenditure

Budgets Analysis and Deviation 2017

Computerised

2015-2016

Pre-ECoC Results

During ECoC Post-ECoC External Audit

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additional information

What, in your opinion, are the strong points of the city’s application and the parameters of its success as European Capital of Culture, and what, on the other hand, are its weak points? 1

The strongest point of Córdoba’s application, in our opinion, is that the programme it envisages is site-specific; it could not be transferred to somewhere else. It seeks to link a material and intangible heritage – only to be found in the city – with culture and contemporary creation, in order that the city’s values and its identity may contribute to the integration of cultural diversity. The cultural programme aims to revitalise the city’s undeniable historical qualities as a means of meeting contemporary needs; to recognise the history of Córdoba, of Spain and of Europe, with a view to highlighting common threads and shared values. They city already enjoys, in its own right, an international reputation as a place of tolerance and peaceful coexistence of different religions, which is undoubtedly a strong point with regard to its success as European Capital of Culture. Over the last few years, Europe has constantly witnessed events prompted by a dangerous drift away from those values; and in particular by a failure to accept different cultures, or to recognise their ability to live together in peace within a single community. At times, the consequences have been extremely painful. Córdoba’s bid offers an opportunity for debate, based on a cultural approach, with a view to overcoming certain conflicts through civic dialogue and mutual understanding. The city offers a Mediterranean alternative with broad geostrategic scope, in one of the areas exerting most influence on emerging cultures of peace and tolerance at European and world level. The bid highlights, as the basis for its programme, four basic concepts which must inform its strategy when tackling the challenges facing Europe: interculturalism, participation, innovation and sustainability.

At the same time, it is an opportunity to remind our European neighbours that Córdoba and al-Ándalus bequeathed a legacy without which the history of the West cannot be fully understood, although many twenty-first century Europeans may be unaware of the many and varied customs in their daily lives – now completely inbred and forming part of their cultural DNA – that were introduced into Europe through this city. Another strong point of Córdoba’s application – something of which we are inordinately proud – is the degree of citizen participation, and the enthusiasm with which people have become involved in the project. This bid is the product of a joint effort involving local social and cultural agents, and local creators, who have suggested ideas, submitted proposals and projects, and in general (as is made clear elsewhere in this document) taken a very active part in the design and preparation of the bid as a whole. Citizens will be the major players in the ECoC events, just as they have been throughout the preparation of the bid. This challenging application for 2016 has been driven, throughout, by the enthusiasm of local people, by their ability to see culture as an element that will enrich their own future, and by their willingness to accept Córdoba 2016 as a shared challenge. In itself, that broad-based support for the fulfilling of a common dream is among the most positive elements in Córdoba’s project. A further positive point is the institutional conviction that there needs to be a change both in city planning and in land planning. Córdoba has been working on this virtually since democracy returned to Spain; over the last ten years, work has intensified considerably. The city has healed many of its most severe town-planning wounds. In this respect, the 2016 project is seen as a chance to attain a shared goal, in speeding up that desired change through new economic activities and a resolve to play a major role in the society of knowledge and culture.

Strong points of the application also include its economic sustainability. Córdoba is not planning to make heavy investments solely for 2016. The financial and economic crisis has obliged us to make very austere use of public resources. The investments in cultural infrastructure will be made whether or not Córdoba is designated ECoC. With this in mind, the city – together with the regional and national governments – has made an enormous financial effort. Facilities will be built in accordance with their own financial plan, regardless of the ECoC accounts. Those investments will be made because they have to be made, if culture is to be made a driving force for Córdoba’s development. Much of the work has already been done. Many of the facilities and installations required for the ECoC are already in place, others are currently being built, and the financial plans for others have been approved. More important, the costliest component – communications infrastructure – are either completed or under way; this will guarantee the access of all citizens, including those with limited mobility. The final strong point to be highlighted is Córdoba’s experience. This was the first city to apply for ECoC status in 2016; moreover, it has made a thorough analysis of the major recent ECoC projects (through seminars, visits, meetings with European managers and experts); it has devoted more resources to this purpose; it has had stable, professionally-equipped structure longer; and it has made a considerable effort to build up a first rate cultural calendar. Córdoba also has a sufficiently wide range of hotels – it is the sixth most popular cultural destination in Spain – to provide accommodation for all the visitors attracted by the ECoC event, and enjoys close links with the rest of Spain and with Europe, via the high-speed train network and nearby airports. Since 2002, among other things this has enabled Córdoba to build closer links with Poland, since a Polish city will also be designated European Capital of Culture in 2016. A further strong point is the system of process analysis, control and auditing that has been implemented for this project, in that it ensures transparency and a rigorous use of public funds.

There are, however, weak points which will need to be addressed. We are aware – more so than anyone – that Córdoba has serious economic and employment problems; a quarter of the working population is unemployed, and the industrial sector contributes relatively little to the local economy. Traditionally, the provincial economy– of which the city has always formed part – has been largely agricultural; there has been little industrial development and, as a result, people have become rather narrow-minded with regard to change, and to new trends in contemporary European thought. This has been changing over the last few years, and the ECoC bid has played a key role in that change, offering an opportunity to break through a rather sluggish, inward-looking attitude and open up the city to Europe, the world, and modernism. A second weak point is that many local people have received inadequate education and training; the ECoC will also help to provide these. The traditional lack of entrepreneurial spirit is a weakness currently being addressed; again, great strides will be made thanks to the ECoC event. The bid has already fostered a certain widening of horizons, and Córdoba is gradually acquiring some excellent entrepreneurial structures. Business structure is a specific weak point. In our opinion, this can only be remedied by the activation of resources which, by their very nature, are purely local in nature. Córdoba will have the opportunity to enhance the links between heritage, culture and the service sector; other sectors – e.g. new technologies, logistics .will benefit from that enhancement. Córdoba boasts new generations of graduates who have received excellent training and are expert in various knowledge platforms. We see the ECoC as one of those platforms. Lack of leadership and lack of entrepreneurial spirit are weak points that will be tackled thanks to the ECoC, a process which will be far more than a cultural event; its effects will permeate the whole of society, from top to bottom. Another challenge is that of opening up new horizons and new perspectives. Córdoba excellent cultural and educational infrastructure has helped to break down many psychological barriers in a rural, inward—looking society. Today, a local man – Javier Rodríguez Zapatero – is the Director General of Google for Spain, Portugal and Turkey; another - Antonio Vázquez is the CEO of Iberia, the Spanish national airline; Rafael de La-Hoz Castanys, one of Spain’s most internationally-known ar-


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chitects, is also from Córdoba. This strategy of supporting creative ability has also led to the discovery of new talents in a number of fields: poetry, painting, music, and dance. Whilst personal success is largely the result of individual effort, there is no doubt that the city can do more to help aspiring talents by enhancing its collective approach, ensuring that international links through cooperation networks and shared projects become the rule, rather than the exception.

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additional information

Does the city intend to develop particular cultural projects in the coming years, irrespective of the outcome of its application for the title of European Capital of Culture? Please comment 2

Culture is already part of the city’s social and economic development; this trend will be maintained and enhanced in future through links to specific areas of action:

·

1

The first area of action must clearly involve maintaining and progressively strengthening the city’s regular cultural programmes, as outlined above. Through this programme, Córdoba hopes to be perceived as a city enjoying constant cultural growth, and actively preparing for the great cultural extravaganza of 2016. With this aim in mind, considerable investments are currently being made in new infrastructure and in the complete overhaul of existing facilities. This will not only serve to enhance the city’s cultural life, but also to foster new initiatives and new cultural programmes. This major cultural renewal comprises a number of specific strategies: · ·

·

Work will continue on the improvement and consolidation of cultural programmes which already have a long tradition in the city, paying particular attention to programmes devised under the aegis of the Córdoba 2016 project. New contemporary creative projects will be implemented, with a view to highlighting the dialogue between the city’s historical heritage and new creative trends, like The City as Stage and The Sky Within My House.

In the same line, considerable efforts will be made to promote – on a scale hitherto unknown in the city – contemporary art by young artists. This will be achieved through the planned opening of new facilities. The Sala Iniciarte, which opened in May 2010, focuses on reviews and promotion of contemporary art; this year will also see the opening of the new Pepe Espaliú Centre, while from 2011 onwards the Rafael Botí Art Centre will specialise in artists from around the province. These early forces for change on the local cultural scene will be augmented later by the newly-built headquarters of the Contemporary Architecture Foundation, and especially by the pioneering Córdoba Centre for Contemporary Creation (C4), which is seen not as yet another contemporary art gallery, but as a centre for training and creation, as well as a venue for temporary exhibitions, with workshops open to invited artists. Another major culture-related strategy to be implemented between 2011 and 2015 will be the radical overhaul of the city’s museums, which will involve introducing cutting-edge technology and, particularly, new approaches to museum layout, prompted by the modern view of museums as living beings in constant dialogue with the city and with its visitors. A new wing is to be opened at Córdoba’s Archaeological and Ethnographical Museum – one of the finest of its kind in Spain – and a new Fine Arts Museum is to be built on the left bank of the River Guadalquivir. This will replace the Museum currently housed in the same building as the Julio Romero de Torres Museum, thus allowing the latter to be enlarged and restructured.


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The Convent of Santa Clara is in many ways the embodiment of the city’s history, in that it contains the remains of a mosque as well as some Late Roman mosaics. The Convent is set to become the new City Museum. Refurbishing work is also currently under way at the Diocesan Museum. Two new Visitor Centres – a municipal tourist office and the Synagogue visitor centre – will do much to improve visitor services, while the newly-opened information centre at Madinat al-Zahra will offer improved access to the city’s heritage. The opening of a new branch of the Casa Árabe [Arabic House] will allow Córdoba to host the wide range of activities run by this organisation, which are currently restricted to Madrid. At the same time, the restoration of the Royal Mews as a multipurpose cultural and equestrian centre will provide the city with new elements of heritage and with new exhibition venues. The restoration of the ancient water mills in the river will also provide new spaces for exhibitions, as well as environment-related facilities. · The next few years will see major developments in the performing arts in Córdoba; facilities will soon be doubled, with the opening of two new theatres in addition to the public (Gran Teatro, Teatro de la Axerquía and Teatro Duque de Rivas) and private theatres (Teatro Avanti) already in existence. The two new theatres are the Teatro Góngora, a public theatre with two areas that can be used separately or together (the main hall and the terrace), and the Teatro Magdalena, developed by a public-private partnership. · There will also be far-reaching developments in music in all its forms. The Fosforito Flamenco Centre, which has just opened at the Posada del Potro, will foster flamenco research and documentation through a permanent annual programme. Musical training will be considerably strengthened by the opening of the new Professional School of Music in the Vial Norte. In terms of the performance and promotion of music, mention must be made of the new Córdoba Congress Centre, which will be home to the Córdoba City Orchestra and will also boast a spectacular auditorium seating 2,000 people.

2

The second area of action will consist in highlighting Córdoba’s symbolic values, the historical foundation on which the ECoC project is based, by marking a series of anniversaries that go beyond the merely local to form part of the common European heritage. The objective is to revisit that part of Europe’s history in which leading local figures made key contributions in all fields: philosophy, literature, the arts, science, medicine, architecture, engineering, and agriculture, to name but a few. Clearly, the idea is to focus on these figures from a modern perspective, providing a contemporary reading of their contribution to the cultural heritage – indeed to man’s heritage in general – using the resources and language of today. Some of the key anniversaries are shown below: 2012: 600th anniversary of the death of Leonor López de Córdoba (1362-1412) Leonor López de Córdoba was one of very few female writers in the Middle Ages, and hers is among the key names in feminist historiography, above all because of her ability to publish an autobiographical text whose main value lies in its use of words, and in the first-hand portrayal of a woman’s life. This anniversary is thus clearly linked to other scheduled events – outlined elsewhere – such as the reappraisal of significant gaps in the history of philosophy, creation and research from a gender perspective. 2013: 1000th anniversary of the death of Albucasis (936-1013) Abul-Qasim Khakaf ibn al Abbas al Zahravi, better known as Albucasis or Abulcasis, is considered the founder of modern surgery. He wrote a complete encyclopaedia on medicine and was a great innovator in the medical arts, being the first to use advances such as silk thread for stitches. He developed countless surgical instruments, many of which are still in use today. This celebration, too, chimes with the specific programme on the relationship between science and conscience envisaged for Córdoba 2016.

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2014: 950th anniversary of the death of Ibn Hazm (994-1054) Abu Muhammad ‘ali Ibn Hazm, Muslim theologian, philosopher and poet, was best known in Europe for his great historical-critical work on religion, and particularly for his treatise on young love “The Ring of the Dove”, which has provided us with many details on the social and spiritual life of the time. This had a major influence on literature in the Spanish Christian Kingdoms, and particularly on the development of lyrical verses about courtly love. There is a clear link between this anniversary and the attention paid in the ECoC project to the conveying of the senses and emotions through culture, and particularly through art. 2014: 500th anniversary of the birth of Hernán Ruiz II (1514-1569) This architect was among the leading lights of the architectural Renaissance in Spain. He carried out many civil and religious projects, both public and private, and was also involved in town planning, transport, hydraulic works, temporary architecture, and other fields. A member of a family of professional builders and masons (including his father and son), Ruiz’s work is to be found all over Andalusia. He was involved in the erection of the cathedral within the Córdoba Aljama Mosque precincts. The rereading of Córdoba’s historical heritage, and the analysis of the relationship between architecture and the city, are issues that will be addressed in the Córdoba 2016 project. This anniversary provides an opportunity to examine at first hand these essential elements of the project. 2015: 500th anniversary of the death of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, El Gran Capitán (14531515) This politician and military leader, a nobleman at the court of the Catholic Monarchs, is considered by historians the best tactician of the Modern Era. He was a great reformer of military strategy, and revolutionised the art of war in his campaigns against France in Italy at the start of the sixteenth century. He was responsible for putting an end to medieval systems of warfare by introducing musketeer formations as independent tactical units. El Gran Capitán ensured Spain’s military supremacy in Europe for almost over one hundred and fifty years. The modification of the European political framework, and the gradual transformation of European states towards their current shape through the use of international policy instruments, were complex and not always problem-free. This anniversary provides an

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ideal opportunity to examine those processes, and the present-day role of diplomacy and foreign policy, as an example of the pro-dialogue stance represented by Córdoba’s bid. 2015: 850th anniversary of the death of Al-Gafequi (-1165) Muhammad Ibn Qassoum Ibn Aslam Al-Gafequi, ophthalmologist, invented the cataract operation and was an expert in diseases of the eye and iris. He wrote a treatise on ophthalmology called “A Guide for Oculists” which is preserved at the El Escorial library. Some of the remedies and instruments he used were developed by a doctor from Alexandria. He was an early example of knowledge transfer, and of the fundamental importance of cumulative historical contributions for the current status of science and culture; this anniversary also serves as the basis of a new reading of the value – or potential value – of scientific progress in terms of solidarity. The celebration of these anniversaries, aimed at underlining the symbolic status which Córdoba once enjoyed – and hopes to enjoy again – will be followed by others specifically linked to the year 2016, which are evidently part of the scheduled programme. 3

Córdoba’s bid also includes an extraordinary programme, to run from ECoC approval until 2016, in which one full year will be devoted to a different continent. America, Africa, Asia and Oceania will thus be the guests of honour between 2012 and 2105, respectively, in a planet-wide journey terminating in Europe in 2016. This idea is seen as a bold strategy for publicising the Córdoba 2016 project on a truly international scale.


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It should be stressed that the journey to each of the continents will be a return journey: throughout any given year, cultural events focussing on the continent in question will be organised in Córdoba, and the various cultures will have a standing invitation to take part in the ECoC process. Art and culture from all these different lands will be accompanied by institutional and management programmes aimed at establishing the contacts and alliances required for effective promotion and reception of the European Capital of Culture in the various continents. Territorial organisations and representatives of institutions, cultural organisations and economic bodies will be invited to promote Córdoba’s proposal. Similarly, a delegation from Córdoba will travel to each of the continents with a view to promoting and publicising the Córdoba 2016 project, and the values it represents. This initiative is consistent with the programme envisaged under the Córdoba 2016 project, to the extent that the project is based on the twin pillars of dialogue and a plural approach to culture. Our aim is to make Córdoba a model of respect towards all the lands that make up this planet, thus shaping a symbolic geography shorn of hierarchies and supported by dialogue and the peaceful coexistence of differences. We see this as an effective way of promoting the values represented by Córdoba as ECoC, which are also the values of a future Europe of dialogue and harmonious coexistence. In making ourselves known, we seek to make ourselves understood. In short, this ambitious idea of overseas promotion is nothing less than a reciprocal invitation to mutual understanding.

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additional information

Please add below any further comments which you deem necessary on the subject of this application. 3

We wish to highlight the fact that, consistent with our participatory approach and our desire to benefit the city’s cultural industry and local people, the four books that you now hold in your hands were designed, translated, edited, produced, set and printed entirely in Córdoba, by local professionals. We should like to dedicate these closing words to them, 119 people, as a token of our gratitude for having travelled with us on Córdoba’s exciting journey towards being designated European Capital of Culture in 2016.


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CULTURAL PROGRAMME CREDITS EX-OFFICIO BOARD MEMBERS Chairman

Andrés Ocaña Rabadán, Mayor of Córdoba Vice-Chairman

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Advisors to the Drafting Committee Francisco Aguilera Fuentes, Staff member, Córdoba Cultural City Foundation Juan Carlos Limia Mateo, Staff member, Department of Culture, Córdoba City Council Javier Lucena Domínguez, Staff member, Cultural Capital Office

Francisco Pulido Muñoz, President, Córdoba Provincial Council Ex officio Board Members Isabel Ambrosio Palos, Andalusian Regional Council Representative in Córdoba José Manuel Roldán Nogueras, Chancellor, University of Córdoba Board members representing Founding Institutions Representing the City Council

Rafael Blanco Perea Rosa Candelario Ruiz Manuel Pérez Pérez Juan José Primo Jurado Representing Córdoba Provincial Council

Elena Cortés Jiménez José Mariscal Campos Mª José Montes Pedrosa Representing the Andalusian Regional Council

Joaquín Dobladez Soriano Juan Torres Aguilar Rafaela Valenzuela Jiménez Representing the University of Córdoba

Angelina Costa Palacios Ramón Montes Ruiz Manuel Torres Aguilar Management Carlota Álvarez Basso, Manager, Córdoba Cultural City Foundation Manuel Pérez Pérez, Director, Cultural Capital Office Drafting Committee Mª Dolores Baena Alcántara, Director, Córdoba Archeological and Ethnological Museum Javier Flores Castillero, Cultural manager, artist and exhibiton curator Pablo García Casado, Director, Andalusian Film Institute; writer Eugenio González Madorrán, Architect Carlos Hernández Pezzi, Architect Alberto Martín Expósito, Art critic and exhibition curator. General Coordinator of the Salamanca European Capital of Culture, 2002; at present Cultural Coordinator at the University of Salamanca Juan Miguel Moreno Calderón, Professor of Piano and Director of the “Rafael Orozco” School of Music Pedro Ruiz Pérez, Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Córdoba Octavio Salazar Benítez, Professor of Constitutional Law and Director General for Culture at the University of Córdoba

External advisors Monika Bonet Poliwka, Adviser, Polish affairs Guy Dockendorf, Director General of the Ministry of Culture of Luxembourg, Vice-President of Luxembourg, European Capital of Culture 1995; chairman of the organising board of “Luxembourg and Greater Region, European Capital of Culture, 2007”. Mercedes Giovinazzo, Chair, Access to Culture Platform; Director, Interarts Colin Mercer, Independant consultant Eduard Miralles, Head of International Cultural Relations, Barcelona Provincial Council; Chairman, Interarts Antonio Taormina, Director, ATER Formazione Pekka Timonen, Director of Culture, Helsinki City Council Collaborators Eloisa Acosta Fernández, Department of Youth, Córdoba City Council Juan Aljama Morilla, Accessibility Office, Projects Service, Town Planning Department, Córdoba Carmen Fátima Blanco Valdés, Lecturer in Italian Philology, University of Córdoba Pedro Caro González, Municipal Office, Old Town Luis Carreto Clavo, Chairman, Córdoba Business Confederation (CECO) Anabel Carrillo Lafuente, Chair, Social Council, University of Córdoba Antonio J. Castillejo Carmona, SurGESTIÓN, Córdoba Joaquín Criado Costa, Director of the Royal Academy of Science, Art and Literature of Córdoba Mohammed Dahiri, General Coordinator, Department of Social Welfare, Consumer Protection and Public Health, Córdoba City Council Paula Estebaranz Berzal, Director General for Equality, Youth and Cooperation, Córdoba City Council José Manuel Fernández Martín, Director Pro-Immigrant Association (APIC)-Andalucía Acoge Fuensanta García de la Torre, Director, Fine Arts Museum, Córdoba Quim Larrea Cruces, Chairman Surgenia, Andalusian Technological Design Centre Foundation Francisco López Gutiérrez, Adviser, Villamarta Theatre, Jerez Rocío López Lozano, Director, Department of Citizen Participation, Córdoba City Council Juan Luis López Vázquez, Director, Spanish Tourist Office in Rome Javier Martín Fernández, Lawyer, Chairman of Bodegas Campos Foundation Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala, Lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Córdoba Antonio Molina Flores, University of Seville

Pedro Montero Tordera, Manager, University Foundation for the Development of Córdoba Province (FUNDECOR), University of Córdoba Eduardo Moyano Estrada, Manager, Andalusian Institute of Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC) Juan Muñoz Bellido, Manager, Córdoba Green Areas /Association for the Social Defense of Adolescentents and Children (ZOVECO/ ASDAM) Rogelio Palacios Chups, Director, Andalusian Youth Institute, Córdoba (IAJ) Francisco Paniagua Merchán, Manager, Department of Town Planning, Córdoba Carlos Pardo García, Cultural manager Manuel Pérez Cortés, General Coordinator, Mayor’s Office, Córdoba City Council Rafael Pérez de la Concha Camacho, Department of Tourism and World Heritage, Córdoba City Council Mª José Peña Vélez, Director, Rural Training and Innovation (FIR) Manuel Pimentel Siles, Director, Editorial Almuzara Valentín Priego Ruiz, Chairman, Córdoba Municipal Institute for Economic Development and Employment (IMDEEC) Antonio Ramos Pemán, Manager, Tourist Board, Córdoba Provincial Council Ángel Ramírez Troyano, Andalusian Institute of Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC) Gaia Redaelli, Director, Contemporary Architecture Foundation Federico Rodríguez Ardila, Manager, Córdoba Tourist Board Diego Ruiz Alcubilla, Manager, Rafael Botí Fine Arts Foundation Rafael Ruiz Pérez, Director Municipal Public Libraries of Córdoba Francisco Ruiz Montero, Culture expert, Comarca Valle del Guadiato Maria Serrano García, Director Madinat Al-Zahara Interpretation and Management Centre Miguel Ángel Troitiño, Complutense University of Madrid Mercedes Tirado Pastor, Culture expert, Córdoba Provincial Council Antonio Vallejo Triano, Director, Madinat Al-Zahara archeological site Collaborating bodies Andalusian Institute of Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC), Córdoba Córdoba Business Confederation (CECO) Contemporary Architecture Foundation, Córdoba Interarts Foundation, Barcelona

Other bodies involved Andalusian Youth Institute, Córdoba (IAJ) Bodegas Campos Foundation Citizen Participation Department, Córdoba City Council Córdoba Green Areas /Association for the Social Defense of Adolescents and Children (ZOVECO/ASDAM) Córdoba Municipal Institute for Economic Development and Employment (IMDEEC) Córdoba Tourist Board Department of Arabic Studies, University of Córdoba Department of Social Welfare, Consumer Protection and Public Health, Córdoba City Council Department of Tourism and World Heritage, Córdoba City Council Department of Town Planning, Córdoba Editorial Almuzara Fine Arts Museum, Córdoba General Coordination, Mayor’s Office, Córdoba City Council General Directorate for Equality, Youth and Cooperation,Córdoba City Council Madinat- Al Zahara Archeological ComplexSite Madinat Al-Zahara Interpretation and Management Centre Municipal Public Libraries of Córdoba Museum and Institutional Headquarters of the Madinat alZahara Archaeological Complex Pro-Immigrant Association (APIC)-Andalucía Acoge Rafael Botí Fine Arts Foundation Royal Academy of Science, Art and Literature of Córdoba Rural Training and Innovation (FIR) Tourist Board, Córdoba Provincial Council University Foundation for the Development of Córdoba Province (FUNDECOR), University of Córdoba Youth Department, Córdoba City Council




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