European Capitals of Culture: The Art of Reimagining

Acknowledgements

As with every creative and educational endeavour, the production of European Capitals of Culture: The Art of the Reimaging has been a hugely collaborative process. We are very pleased that University of Galway found a way to host a version of the University Network of Capitals of Culture conference in this Spring online edition. We were helped at every stage of the way by the inspiring assistance and support of Flora Carrijn, whose generosity of engagement has been a real pleasure to encounter. We are grateful to all the board members of the University Network for European Capitals of Culture in particular François Carbon, Carmel Cassar, Bill Chambers, Komlósi László Imre, Kama Kaminska and Angela O'Neill for engaging in our planning for this special issue.

We would like to thank all contributors to the journal for responding to the call and for managing to produce creative and thoughtful articles under such challenging circumstances as the global pandemic. We thank Antonella Bundu, Flora Carrijn, Abbey Horsefield, Sarah Thornton and Emina Višnić for giving so generously of their time to record conversations reflecting on the themes of this special issue from the perspective of their own specialist areas. While editing the journal, we also launched the first year of a new postgraduate degree in curating and producing at University of Galway: the students arrived into a city from all over the world hoping to engage in the Capital of Culture only to ‘live’ under a series of intensive lockdowns: the work that Alison Adrat, Laura Brincat, Hugh Murphy, Emily Noe, Ananya Rajoo and Merve Yilmaz submitted to the special issue is an inspiring tribute to their imaginative engagement with culture and the city; education and community.

We thank our colleagues across the university and the city who have engaged in the planning and dissemination of many aspects of the Capital of Culture and its educational outreach: in particular we thank Caroline Loughnane and the members of the University’s Galway 2020 steering group and to those who engaged with us: Dan Carey, John Caulfield, Pat Collins, Lorna Farren, Steven Hadley, David Kelly, Marc Mellotte, Gwen O’Sullivan, Martha Shaughnessy and Lorraine Tansey. We thank the members of the university conference planning group: Emily Cullen Davison, Sean Crosson, Maria Pilar Alderete Diez, Barry Houlihan, Tadhg Ó hIfearnáin, Tina-Karen Pusse and Cassandra Smith-Christmas. We thank Galway City and County Councils, Patricia Philbin, Arthur Lappin, Marilyn Gaughan-Reddan, Kate Howard, Jo Lavelle and Matti Allam as well as all their colleagues and volunteers at Galway 2020 who participated in conversations with us about the conference. We are grateful to Brendan McGrath, Brian Barrett and Ciara Murphy for their participation in forging connections with partners during the Cities of Culture project in Hull.

While Brexit has transformed the landscapes in which we now operate, there are major spaces of research in the UK that have defined best practice for European Capitals of Culture: Liverpool’s Capital of Culture and its powerful legacy has been disseminated by inspiring figures including Beatriz Garcia, (Centre for Cultural Value at the University of Liverpool), and Kerry Wilson and Phil Redmond (Liverpool’s Institute of Cultural Capital at John Moore’s University). We are thankful to Michael Parkinson of the Institute for Public Policy, Practice, and Place at the University of Liverpool for his generous engagement and conversation reflecting on how universities can forge lasting community legacy projects. Such exciting collaborative networks of researcher has inspired the conversations in Galway. We have learned much the European artistic cultural work and communications of Ulrich Fuchs; and from Franco Bianchini and his colleagues at the Culture, Place and Policy Institute at the University of Hull where they are defining new ways in which cities can hone localised community cultural arts practice within international and European frameworks.

Thanks also to all our colleagues for their support: Aoife Burke, Emma Brinton, Miriam Haughton, Charlotte McIvor, Mike McCormack, Marianne Ní Chinnéide, Muireann O'Cinneide, Mike O’Halloran, Felix O Murchadha, Sean Ryder, Tony Tracy and Ian Walsh. We thank John Brannigan, Declan Hughes, Paul Perry and Pauline Slattery at University College Dublin for their support of the journal. Gary Lupton and Claire Bennett helped us enormously with our Creative Europe bid and we are extremely grateful for being so generous with their time and expertise.  Thanks as always to John Cox and to all of our library colleagues in the Special Reading Room and the University Libraries where all the best writing and research is made possible.

Originally, we planned to simultaneously host the European Cultural Parliament in Galway as part of the University Network conference. We are grateful to Karl-Erik Norman, Timothy Emlyn Jones, James Harrold and Joanna Suo and her colleagues at the IFA Gallery Brussells for their hard work in helping us to imagine this event and for their support in our Creative Europe bid towards hosting the workshops for artists, cultural workers and educationalists. We thank Sybil Curley, John Crumlish, Paul Fahy, Sorcha Keane, Fergal McGrath, Maeve Mulrennan and Eithne Verling for their active engagement and support for the practice-based arts and cultural work that we have been developing and reflecting on through this University Network of European Capitals of Culture. We thank Róisín Stack Chair of Theatre 57 and Theatre Director and University of Galway’s Druid Theatre Artist-in-Residence Máiréad Ní Chróinín for hosting our European Parliament guests at Druid Theatre.

Catherine Morris gives her special thanks to Gabriel Byrne, Hasret Çetinkaya, Joe Cleary, Maeve Connolly, Liam Farrell, Paul Garrett, Evelyn Glynn, Jesse Jones, Sinead Kennedy, Declan Kiberd, Jean Khalfa, David Lloyd, Alice Maher, Tim Maul, Dennis McNulty, Jessica Morris, Emer Nolan, Jane Ohlmeyer, Ben Okri, Fiona Ross, Maggie Roynane, Frances Wilde, Emma Wilson and Ivy Wilson.

Thanks again to Dan Carey of the Moore Institute for hosting the Centre for Creative Arts Research in which the special issue and the accompanying webinar reside. We are grateful to Sean Ryder, Eithne Verling, Ananya Rajoo, Karsten Xuerub and Flora Carijnn for participating as speakers on the launch webinar. Special thanks again to David Kelly who has worked so hard to get the journal online under endlessly changing circumstances! The editors would like to pay special tribute to the inspiring work undertaken by our late colleague Mary Mcpartlan in developing the University of Galway’s community and educational cultural programme ‘Arts in Action’.