Culture-led Regeneration: Reviving a city through the arts

Culture-led Regeneration: Reviving a city through the arts By: Lidia Varbanova

Why culture is an important vector in urban regeneration strategies?

Urban regeneration strategies in many post-industrial cities in Central and Eastern Europe have inaugurated new cultural and artistic venues with creative and social goals, appearing on the place of abandoned places – old factories, local train stations, ruined industrial sites, former military bases. These urban spaces, staying in isolation from the rest of the city, were causes of a lot of economic and social problems, such as low quality of life, insecure neighbourhoods, pollution and others. Cultureled regeneration strategy is a term that covers the ways of Lamparna, Croatia

transformation of these abandoned places into new cultural, artistic and/or social centers so that they become attractive both for visitors and residents. Creative programming of these venues aims at serving the communities better by offering diverse “menu� of cultural and artistic offerings. Improving the quality of life of communities, decreasing social exclusion and unemployment, preserving a historical site that is part of the collective memory of a city, fostering intercultural dialogue and giving a voice to local artists, especially young and emerging, are also some of the common goals of these local strategies.

Some success factors and examples The newly appeared cultural and artistic venues on the place of abandoned buildings are usually multidisciplinary, offering diverse arts forms (e.g. visual arts, performing arts, cinema, photography, media art, community art, etc.). Their programming tries to balance traditions with innovation by preserving the local heritage and at the same time being spaces for contemporary artistic expressions. Many of these Johan Centrum, Czech Republic

venues offer also workshops, public debates, and open forums with wide participation of diverse audiences. The freshness, young energy and combination between culture, leisure and entertainment is also a common feature of these venues.

Some successful examples of transformed cultural venues are: Stanica, Zilina, Slovakia; Bunker, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Lamparna, Labin, Croatia; Johan Centrum, Pilzen, Czech Republic; Anibar, Kosovo; Fabrika de Pensule, Romania; Jam Factory Art Center, Lviv, Ukraine and many others. Trans Europe Halles is one of the oldest cultural networks in Europe, currently having 127 members in 26 countries, staying at the forefront of repurposing abandoned buildings for arts, culture and activism. The transformation of

abandoned industrial buildings and spaces into new cultural and artistic venues has is closely connected with the uniqueness of each city and its’ social and cultural context. Usually, the level of engagement of the local authority (e.g. municipality, city council etc.) and the level of involvement of civil society actors in the process of transformation, as well as the active dialogue and collaboration between local stakeholders, are factors of utmost importance for the effectiveness of the culture-led regeneration strategy.

Diverse financial models Financial models of the new venues vary, although most of them are based on a strong partnership between stakeholders and funders – local, national and international. Majority of these venues are registered as non-profit entities, or have mixed public-private cooperation models, only a few are entirely privately owned. Possible financial models include:

Stanica, Zilina, Slovakia

 Substantial support from the local, regional and national/federal government (responsible for culture, but also cooperation between different ministries);  Combination between government support, support from the third sector (foundations) and European funders);  Funding cooperation between different NGOs and foundations;  Public-private support (government funding and support from corporate foundations, private donors, commercial companies, banks, investors, sponsors);  Business model, mainly based on self-generated incomes (coming from ticket sales, selling of cultural and educational services, peripheral services, merchandising, etc.);  Balanced combination between self-generated incomes and external support (from diverse funders, incl. sponsors).

From cultural economics perspective, the urban-led regeneration strategy is of great help to artists, as it offers support in diverse ways, such as: offering studios for artists at a low-cost, setting up of incubators for creative business ideas, access to resources that could support both artistic and entrepreneurial endeavours, diverse programs for collaboration between arts and educational organisations, and many more.

Key steps forward: what can we do to accelerate culture-led regeneration?

In a country like Georgia, with emerging culture-led regeneration policy, it is important to find efficient ways to show the economic potential of culture and creative industries and creative clusters at local level. We also need legislative mechanisms in support of transformation of property of these buildings in the most efficiency way for the benefits of the society. Elaboration of efficient laws for corporate and public philanthropy is also an important ingredient for success of the transformation processes so that businesses, organisations

Fabrica de Pensule, Romania

and individuals have the financial incentives for investing in these new venues. A mapping exercise of such abandoned places and possibilities for their transformation into creative and cultural centers is also a step that could be initiated by diverse organisations-associations of artists, non-profit organisations, or research institutions. Building synergies between local stakeholders and setting up a rationale to demonstrate the long-term benefits for all parties involved as a result of this process, would be a convincing way to build long-term strategic alliances in support of culture-led regeneration policies.