Capital of Culture: Thanks, 08, and here’s to the future...
Jan 12 2009 by Vicky Anderson, Liverpool Daily Post
Fireworks over the Mersey to mark the end of Capital of Culture 08 _320
Cities look to Liverpool for inspiration
* Click here to see our Capital of Culture farewell gallery
REPRESENTATIVES from Linz, Austria and Vilnius, Lithuania, were in Liverpool to watch the Transition event, alongside delegates from Stavanger, in Norway, a city that also celebrated Culture Year status in 2008.
Ulrich Fuchs, deputy artistic director of Linz 09, said: “I know Liverpool and have seen how the city has developed and how it has taken culture and done something very impressive that has been really good for the whole of Europe.
“Linz is an old industrial city that has also had tragic chapters – it is close to where Adolf Hitler was born and there was a concentration camp nearby. We don’t hide those dark chapters. On the other hand, it is a very innovative city.
“I know Liverpool has been working on the question of legacy and sustainability of the project, and we are going to go on working together in a network of former and future European Capitals of Culture.
“We can only learn from Liverpool’s year, but also from the transition phase and what they do after. What Liverpool does in 2009 is as important as what it did in 2008.”
Elona Bajoriniene, director of Vilnius 09, said: “The beginning of our year has been really great.
“For us, Liverpool has become one of the greatest examples of a really successful Culture Capital.
“It is the first city to formally organise the passing of the torch and we have learned more about the organisation of such big social events.”
Rolf Noras, former strategic director of Stavanger ’08, said his city was, like Liverpool, keen to keep the momentum of culture year going.
At Stavanger’s final event of 2008, they symbolically laid the first stone of a new concert hall to be built there.
“We didn’t want the closing ceremony to represent some kind of turning off of the lights,” he said.
