DID we ever decide what the decade after 2010 is going to be called? The Teenies?
In Liverpool, they might be known as the Themies.
This year is Year of the Environment, 2010 is the Year of Health and Wellbeing, while 2011 will mark the centenary of the launch of the Titanic.
Year branding began in the run-up to Liverpool’s annus mirabilis, its show-stopping 12- month reign as European Capital of Culture, and has helped dust successive years with some of that 2008 magic.
A year ago, Phil Redmond set up the independent Cultural Collective, an advisory body formed to push the momentum gained during Liverpool’s Cinderella time into the years beyond.
Almost 12 months on, he’s in a position to reflect on how much of that 2008 energy, creativity and can-do attitude flowed into and flowered in 2009. What is the cultural legacy of 2008? Is there one at all?
"There is," insists Phil with a hint of a ‘but’ in his voice.
"One of the problems with taking over very late was that I wasn’t able to put a proper legacy strategy in place. It should have been put in place in 2006, so that when the transition event happened it was a spring board for the next step.
"I’m driving the Cultural Collective working with the city bodies, media and universities on how we keep talking to each other and how we start theming years and come together to make a bigger offering."
That’s not to say big things haven’t happened in 2009.
To date, the opening of the £22m extension to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, TV and film companies have flocked to use Liverpool as a backdrop, and this week the bid to host the 2018 World Cup in Liverpool will be launched.
But Year of the Environment? How did that work as a successor to Capital of Culture?
"Year of the Environment could have been a little more collaborative," says Phil cautiously. "It tended to highlight what was already happening anyway."
It suffered, he offers, from the council’s traditional "top-down" approach to running events.
"The council often tends to run things itself," he explains. "In 2008, I tried to use another model, instead of doing it top-down, empowering other people to achieve.
"What we’re trying to do with Cultural Collective is offer the facility for people to do things themselves. I really don’t feel public bodies like the councils are the best places for creative and cultural endeavour. They’re risk averse, and when you look after public funds you have to go through things like procurement."
Being urged to do improving things by authority can smack of being hectored.
"It’s like being at school when a teacher tells you to read a book," Redmond explains, " and you won’t read it because you’re being told to by your school. But bring in the author and suddenly you’re more interested in reading it."
The most visible outward sign of Year of the Environment will waddle into view later this month in the fibreglass form of Go Penguins. The penguins – around 200 of them will huddle in colonies round the city – are the natural offspring of Superlambanas, which became the popular emblem for 2008.
Phil thinks Go Penguins will take off. Again, it’s got the fun, get-stuck-in factor.
They’re decorated by local community groups, schools, businesses and artists. Phil is vehement that direct local involvement is crucial to the success of any future themed years. That, and early planning.
