What is SEAS?

Black/North SEAS is an arts adventure that reveals in story, song and image a
vision of Europe drawn from the experiences of the communities that live on
its shoreline.

16 contemporary, interdisciplinary, trans-national art works in performance, music, visual arts and digital media have been commissioned by Intercult from leading European companies and artists. In 2007 each creator took a “blind date” with a fellow artist or company in a town or city on the coast of the Black and the North Seas. After their “dates” the artists proposed a new piece of art inspired by their time together and the place they visited.

Black/North SEAS is an ongoing investigation of how artistic initiatives can lift urban re-invention and environmental issues to the forefront, through the very act of concretely confronting the contemporary city scape.

 

Introduction By Chris Torch Artistic Director

Black/North SEAS
Urban Europe faces huge challenges. A changing population, de-industrialization and ecological issues all make the city more complicated than ever. The gap between privileged and marginalized people grows wider. And it seems as if cities never stop growing.

The challenges are most visible in port cities. A combination of heritage and collective memory, centuries of migration and undeveloped post-industrial space provides unique opportunities.

This is especially true about port cities along the Black Sea and the eastern coasts of the Baltic and Adriatic Seas. The rugged transition from planned to market economy, including a wild and sometimes corrupt privatization of public property, has led to huge areas of “no man’s land” in prime parts of many port cities. No one really knows what will happen with these properties. It is not a public discussion.

***

My friend and theatre director Marco Martinelli from Ravenna, Italy often points out that the words “theatre” and “democracy” were used for the first time during the same decade, more than 2500 years ago, in ancient Greece. It sounds right. When people gathered around the Greek amphitheatres for the yearly festivals, it was not a question of entertainment but a serious public forum. Ethical and political questions were animated from the stage. People remained for days to discuss - as citizens and as spectators - the questions they were confronted with. The Theatre was a public forum. The shared values were refined.

A community without accessible public space has difficulty to develop common values. The physical place for exchange, conflict and resolution must exist (“theatre”) so that a public dialogue can take place (“democracy”).

Instead, today our urban environments are rapidly privatized, with a focus on consumption rather than intellectual or community exchange. The “piazza” has become becomes the “market” - and if you are not consuming than you have no right or reason to be there.

***

I imagine that Art can change a City. I imagine that artists can be essential partners in urban re-invention. I imagine that city planners and cultural activists have much in common. I imagine that Public Space is an essential condition for democratic participation. And that artists, architects and environmentalists must open the way.

Of course, my imagination is naive. Other factors dominate access to space for arts and ideas. But the Arts might inspire courage - in citizens, politicians and civil servants - to resist the temptation to sacrifice our cities for shortsighted economic gains.

***

SEAS is a pan-European platform uniting artists and cultural operators, initiated by Intercult, the institution I lead. The process has been long and complicated. We began meeting in december 2002. Artists, partners, hosts, advisors. Over the years, we have traveled, exchanged and imagined.

* SEAS is about ports. Mobility, migration, transportation and history. All port cities are in a momentum of change; what to do with public space when the core business – shipping and commerce – has been reduced to a minimum? Who decides? SEAS manifests the importance of a cultural dimension in urban renewal initiatives.
* SEAS is about an emerging and troubled European axis: North-South. The conventional model of East-West is less useful as the EU encompasses 25 members and at the same time excludes other neighbouring countries. Evolving economic factors and other maps define our cooperation.
* SEAS is above all about process, with a chosen number of stops along the way, reality checks, meetings with diverse audiences.

As an essential factor in the process, pairs/small groups of artists are sent on “Dates” to explore port cities, unfamiliar to them. The pairs come from opposite seas, or across the same sea. They observe and distill what they see. Original site-specific projects emerge from these travels. We provide conditions for the chosen artists to expand on space/place, to invent artworks for challenging environments. This is one way to stimulate intercultural practice. It isn’t always easy.

The similarities between intercultural dialogue on a local, national and transnational level are clear. We need competence to negotiate differences inclusively and with parallel strategies. It is finally a question of cultural democracy.

SEAS has been a wild and demanding adventure since the end of 2002. It has grown into a platform for exchange, including seminars, research travels, co-productions and events in 15 European countries, beginning with the Baltic and Adriatic seas. It is a traveling, inter-disciplinary, trans-national encounter, based on a series of encounters leading to co-productions. Finally - in 2008 and 2009 - these artworks will tour to different seacost cities, in the Black and North seas. SEAS is a possibility, still to be realized.

Since 2006, SEAS has focused on other horizons: linking cultural experience from the North Sea to the Black Sea. The necessity of a constructive spirit for dialogue and security encourages us. Artists can be pioneers, creating shared future.

* What might happen if artists were offered a clear task - to open new windows between neighboring countries along the Black Sea?
* What might happen if architects, city planners and artists joined forces in meeting modern urban challenges, re-inventing the city?
* What might happen if cultural operators created experiences where the North and the South of Europe cross, in public space or re-cycled buildings?
* What might happen if people actually engaged in discourse about their city and their needs?
* What might happen if development in other sectors - transport, tourism, environment, energy, urban re-generation - was preceded by a serious and strategic cultural investment, to open the way and create participation.

Shared identities and common law begin with cultural exchange. The European project must become a cultural project. And not only for heritage and preservation but also for an emerging contemporary culture, closely linked with the diversity of peoples that together make up Europe.

Black/North SEAS draws a line between “seeing a city” and re-inventing it, between vision and construction, between form and use.
We’ll see in a few years what the spin-offs might be.