The FSTVLisation of everyday life
Amsterdam Weekly, 31 May 2007
By Steve Korver, Illustration by Robin van der Kaa

There’s one incontrovertible explanation for the explosion in the number of festivals over recent years: festivals can be fun and people like to have fun.

Amsterdam-based cultural analyst and theatre scholar Dragan Klaic, however, has a deeper view. Among his many activities as a Central European intellectual type — lecturing here, leading discussion groups there — he is chairman of the European Festival Research Project (EFRP), and plans to lead a workgroup at the University of Leiden’s Faculty of Creative and Performing Arts to research what he calls the ‘festivalisation of everyday life’.

In short: he’s a festival professor.

‘While it may seem that a festival is running every weekend, it’s a bit of an illusion,’ observes Klaic. ‘Many are one-off affairs with no aim to achieve continuity. They are called “festivals” out of fundraising or marketing opportunism. They take, for example, four separate events in one week, and prop them up under the festival banner with an English-language name and go: “Look! We’re not business as usual!”

‘Of the true festivals—ones that seek a certain, usually annual, continuity—there are three basic types: very commercial ones, crowd-gathering events inspired by someone who wants to make a buck; then there are festivals as identity celebration, where a specific community wants to show that they are here, and will always be here, selling cookies, or showing off costumes or traditions; then there are festivals driven by an artistic agenda: they often have an international component, and inevitably need some sort of public support and funding. This is the type I concern myself with.’

Klaic’s findings may disappoint both organisers and politicians, who use festivals as a way of boosting image — and tourist numbers. ‘Cities increasingly see festivals as having a positive economic impact. But this is simply not true. Only very few artistic-based festivals can generate any real economic impact for a city. Edinburgh… yes. Avignon… yes. Holland Festival… perhaps. But most don’t. Politicians want to see money made and so the city festival organisers tell them that that is exactly what festivals are doing. A lot of these economic impact studies of specific festivals are pre-cooked and pre-determined in their conclusions—not exactly reliable in their methodology.’

The idea that festivals can promote a sense of community may also be partly a myth: ‘This is exactly what we must research more,’ says Klaic. ‘Just because different peoples are brought together in the same space for a few hours doesn’t mean that this adds anything to social cohesion. Of course, since politicians are always talking about social cohesion, the organisers say that festivals help in order to get funding. Like economic impact, this belongs in the wishful thinking department.

‘But we do know that festivals can achieve cohesion on another level and that’s very interesting. They can work as a platform of cooperation to create or strengthen ties between existing cultural operators who are usually too busy with their standard bickering and competition for public subsidy and exposure. A festival can allow them to see the advantages of cooperating as well.

‘In addition, these artistically driven festivals are enriching the European cultural space. While they are not a symbol of “European culture”—because that doesn’t exist—they are connecting different cultural expressions. They are enhancing this emerging European cultural space which is divergent, dynamic, polyphonic and, hopefully, inclusive. And in that sense, festivals are contributing to a sense of European citizenship — by enriching what we know and what we think about our fellow Europeans and thereby, hopefully, going beyond the usual prejudices, stereotypes and embarrassing ignorance.’

But Klaic remains disappointed about how few European cities and countries have actual festival policies. ‘Why do we want festivals? Which ones should be funded? And with what objective? Based on what criteria? A city might have ten festivals in a year and they will all ask for money, and then ask: “Why don’t I get more?” And what does the city base its generosity on? Habit? Tradition? Personal hobbies?’

Klaic pauses for effect before continuing: ‘So this must be articulated, and that is why the EFRP is coming up with recommendations on how public authorities can set up their own policy to deal with these competing demands for funding.’

And how does Amsterdam rate in the festival department? ‘Since Amsterdam has such a regular flow of cultural output throughout the year, it’s harder to say anything about the impact of festivals. But Amsterdam’s cultural operators can always more fully realise that festivals are an opportunity for collaboration. You can see now when cultural operators come together, like in Groningen, some interesting formulas can be developed that actually do change the position of the city. The number of visitors, type of visitor, economic impact have all changed in Groningen thanks to the Diaghilev Festival, a one-shot event taking this Russian impresario as the emblem for the avant-garde arts of the 1920s. And since the cultural organisations all worked together, they could get extra money, extra sponsors, money from both the city and the province and come up with a quite ambitious package. In a way, they actually improved Groningen’s image as a juicier, more appealing, city.’

www.efa-aef.org

Unfold Amsterdam

Also keep your eyes out for the Unfold special edition covering the mighty Klik Amsterdam animation festival coming up on 15-19 September.

For those who want a, um, concise view on the national Dutch elections, my pal Floris Dogterom is writing a series of reports on the still very-BETA website of Unfold Amsterdam. This web/paper  publication is a very welcome endeavour to fill the void left by Amsterdam Weekly’s demise and includes a lot of Weekly alumni. They won’t be truely kicking off until 1 September but meanwhile the website already features a savvy choice of what’s going down in town. Check it out! It will rule! Support!

Anyway, it’s pretty mindblowing. Basically they wanted to present the relevance a paper newspaper can still have in our internet world: so it’s all in-depth journalism by amazing writers complete with high quality art, photography and design. They even give a run-down of the budget to inspire others to come up with their own daily newspaper. It actually comes across as a cross between a (really really nice) Sunday paper and a  (really really nice) alternative weekly. And certainly, if I was still the editor of an alternative weekly, I’d definitely steal — I mean, get inspired by — some of their ideas. It’s really, really that great. Gotta bless those paper products!

Track down a copy (he’ll even send you one…) and check it out.

I interviewed the artist  Pieter Paul Pothoven who has just returned from the caves of Afghanistan where he visited the mines  supplying the  Lapis Lazuli  that formed the basis for Vermeer’s blue. What a story!   And a story I will probably post here once the hard copies run out…

Bio:

After years of travel subsidised by carpentry and B-movie acting, writer Steve Korver came to Amsterdam in 1991 to reverse the journey his parents made as immigrants to Canada. Soon he was a columnist, copywriter, editor/writer of guide books, and contributor to the likes of New York Times, Guardian, Time Out, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Condé Nast Traveller and The Globe & Mail on such subjects as food/drink, design/architecture, Yuri Gagarin, Serbian gangster kitsch and all-things-Amsterdam. He finally got his first real job in 2005 as editor-in-chief of the cultural paper Amsterdam Weekly. But after 175 issues and 14 European Newspaper Awards, it was time to return to his freewheeling and freelancing writing roots. OK, but  first maybe a vacation is a good idea…

Recent samples:

The New York Times magazine feature ‘Holland Days’.
The Guardian article ‘Streets Ahead’.