October 2011

According to the news that are coming more and more frequently to the addresses of cultural editorials of Slovenian and other public media, we can certainly conclude that the organization team has now finally stricken the balance and is confidently preparing the program adopted in the beginning of September. Perhaps some people were disappointed with the relatively modest budget of Euro 17 million for the Capital's program which is said to be the second smaller in the history of these projects, but this is far from being incomprehensible since in times of economic and financial crisis the issue of funds is always a knife on the throats of organizers of each such event.

The team is now shaping the details of the adopted programs and works in line with the basic guideline that elements have to be drawn from each of them which are innovative and can maximally contribute to the efforts to enable that something new and permanent remains in Maribor. In this sense, the program strand Urban Furrows is definitely extremely important, dealing precisely with the issue of how the culture should change and improve the city. In this sense, an international congress titled Rethinking Potentials was organized in Maribor in the beginning of October where the participants based their thinking on their own experiences and proposed what to do in Maribor and even wider in order for its residents to feel the culture as an indispensible unifying condition of their lives in the city. Representatives of various organizations dealing with such issues participated at the congress, among them e.g. Futherfield and City Mine(d) from London, Access Space from Sheffield, Binaria Etica from Rome, Minorities Center from Belgrade as well as some associations from Subotica, Vienna, Graz, Berlin, Zagreb and Budapest that are engaged in cultural projects in urban environments.

This was the third congress within the Urban Furrows project string. Its hard-working president Marta Gregorčič, Ph. D., succeeded in organizing the first one on the theme Stimulating Imagination and Innovativeness where virtually everyone with certain experience in this area in Slovenia participated. Among the participants there were some people who today actively participate in the organization of the entire project. The second congress titled Mutuality and Connection tried to – taking into account the regional concept of the Capital of Culture – establish firm connections with partner cities in the area of the intended cultural urbanization since it would be wrong to remain limited only to Maribor in these innovative experimenting in “culturalization of the cities.” In view of all this we can rightfully expect that among all themes we will see in Maribor next year, the program string Urban Furrows may give Slovenia perhaps the most interesting results from the perspective of sustainability.