Salford artists are being given the chance to collaborate with creators from other European cities to share skills, cultures and experiences.
Creative Embassies have planned residencies for local artists in the “second cities” of European countries, aiming to “stop the brain drain” and promote smaller, creative cities.
Ben Turner, 41, Salford producer for Walk the Plank, a Salford-based arts organisation, said: “The program is about the other city, not being about the main city and how you can sometimes feel like the other in the city you live.”
The two Dutch founders, Wytske Dijkstra and Thillie Bremer, conceived the scheme after Leeuwarden, their home city, was made European Capital of Culture in 2018.
Mr Dijkstra said: “We joined a programme called Tandem, with the goal to make the connection with another cultural or social or creative organisation in Europe, then we met people from Rijeka and then the love for the ‘other city’ started.”
The three host cities with embassies consist of a trio of Salford, Rijeka in Croatia and Leeuwarden in the Netherlands.
Mr Turner explained why Salford makes a great location for producing art. He said: “Salford feels a little off grid and underground.
“On the one hand things being disorganised and chaotic is negative, but there’s also a real positive to it. We’ve noticed that in all the cities that I visited think in different ways. The organisations and people involved have different ways of getting on and doing things. Which I think is harder in bigger cities.”
This idea resonated with Mr Dijkstra who said: “I heard someone say once, ‘When Manchester is the restaurant, Salford is the kitchen.’ And I think that’s exactly the dynamic which is going on and I would say Creative Embassies is honouring the kitchens.”
The residencies encourage an exchange of skills and experiences as Mr Dijkstra said: “The goal of the residencies is to provoke collaboration.
“So, it’s about choice of they have to get to know each other and then they have to decide on what topic to work on, what materials to use, what disciplines they are at, like having in their abilities and to cooperate with.
“And so, every time something different is the result.”
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One of the projects that artists created during the Salford residency was an alternative map to the city of Salford as described by co-founder Thillie Bremer. They said: “It was an alternative map of Salford and they were thinking in like to take a new perspective on not only what’s the hotspot or where to grab a coffee, but more like where to have your first kiss and hide a body.”
She added: “So it was definitely an alternative map that’s really fun. You could see that Julia, one of the artists from Salford, was really happy to look with other eyes at those cities.”
Mr Turner expressed the bright future Salford artists have in store. He said: “I think it’s a really interesting and exciting time. I was thinking then that quite often when Walk the Plank does projects, we work with existing communities.
“But what’s exciting about this project is it’s a chance for us to kind of make our own community as well and contribute to that.”
Creative Embassies have further expansions in their sights, with a potential embassy opening up in Portugal soon. Mr Dijkstra said: “We went to Portugal a couple of months ago to add a fourth city in southern Europe because all the cities we have so far are so unbelievably rainy.”
Before the war, we were also in contact with a really cool organisation in Ukraine. It would be really special and important and lovely to connect with them again for obvious reasons.”
He added: “It’s impossible to grow this network too quick because it’s about a human connection and that takes time. So, we really want to take our time to evolve this network, which is fine, it’s the way it is.”
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