GastGastgeber

Dutch interest in RUHR.2010

During RUHR2010 plans will be presented wich are developed by Dutch institutes: Netherlands Institute of Theater, Music Center the Netherlands, DutchDFA and Virtual Platform. In addition, several individual projects are being prepared in which Dutch organizations or artists and Dutch cities are involved. The plans of the sector institutions are largely developed in cooperation and coordination with the main organisation of RUHR.2010 GmbH, but also some individual Dutch projects and organizations are on its own initiative invited through the main organisation. Besides that, many plans will be developed in collaboration with various organizations that are located in the Ruhr. Also, several cities in the Ruhrarea took the initiative to invite Dutch artists or organizations to participate in various projects.

It is currently at about 50 small and big plans, but this number will possibly increase. The situation in early May 2009 can be found in the project overview in the annexes.

Dataresearch

We started the inventarisation of the number of projects and their context with a purely quantitative analysis project. We tested all proposed projects (Dutch authorities) at the following criteria and wanted to make the details of all proposed projects clear. Because it appeared that many projects had a high degree of uncertainty, we applied different categories of probability. The aim of the operation was to shed more light into: who, what, where, how long, how often, with whom, change of success and continuing, in order to see if there is a red line to ‘discover’ and the rates of success of projects, and any overlap with the light to come. There are overlaps both in content and in programming. The data are processed in a spreadsheet so we can sort the data (see annex). We also made a timeline from the data, to get an overview on what moment which project occurs. Finally we processed all the time and place data in maps. This resulted in 12 maps of the Ruhr region, one per month, and putted these in a consecutive sequence. This is seen as a film on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3×2kiA9UmZg.

Conclusions projects inventory

When viewing these proposed plans, a few things can be noticed.

• The emphasis is on projects in the Dutch creative industry (music) theater, music, new media, visual arts especially in public space and the landscape, literature, (landscape) architecture and design.

• The proposed Dutch projects are roughly sited in two types of places. On the one hand in established, existing institutions; often in the center of those cities, as in theaters, music halls, museums and galleries. On the other hand, there are many projects that can and will be played on non-traditional sites: along the canal, on motorways, on derelict industrial sites. Although, these are also typical Ruhr locations.

• A concentration in and around five cities is apparent: on the west side Oberhausen and Duisburg, Essen and Bochum in the center and on the east side Dortmund. These are the largest cities in the Ruhr. Dortmund applies to be the largest and most dynamic city, with an emphasis on design, creative industries and music. Duisburg and Oberhausen are the ‘gateways’ to view the Ruhr from the Netherlands; there are many former industrial sites. Essen is a typical city with many performing arts and also BK. Bochum is a day out with many bars (the famous “Bermuda Dreieck”), performing arts and the spectacular Jahrhunderthalle.

TIN concentrates its activities mainly in Essen, Bochum and Dortmund; the Virtual Platform focuses on the eCulture Fair in Dortmund; the Netherlands Music focuses yet on Essen and Dortmund. Moreover, these institutions have a number of projects in the pen that still have no locations. The DutchDFA program is also going to develop activities, but there are not designated sites yet. However, there is much interest from RUHR.2010 and institutions to cooperate with the DDFA. The same applies to many individual projects and initiatives of various cities (see list).

• Projects are often further developed in cooperation or in conjunction with German partners (although RUHR.2010 is a temporary project, the projects and organizations they support are often developed with in the area permanently established artists, entrepreneurs and cities). Especially in the theatrical field, there is a highly developed program based on long-term relationships. The intention to work together for a long time is shown by the cooperation of the Veenfabriek Schauspielhaus in Essen / Bochum.

• At the moment the program focuses on the period from May to September 2010, but at the same time we found that many projects are not yet determined for an exact period. The summer months will be significantly busier than the winter months and many of the locations where projects take place are not yet finalized.