Early this year, artist collective SETUP and artists Cathalijne Smulders and Edwin Stolk called on municipalities to apply for the innovation project Wanted: Talented congregations. Municipalities could apply for an artist to participate in a (policy) process. In turn, the artists could then select a municipality based on the applications. In the case of a match, the artist went to work on a local social task.
SETUP, Cathalijne Smulders and Edwin Stolk chose from all the applicants a municipality with which to collaborate. Edwin Stolk partnered with Krimpen aan den IJssel, Cathalijne Smulders with Utrecht and SETUP with 's-Hertogenbosch.
In turn, the artists could pick a congregation
During Dutch Design Week, on Thursday, October 24, the first results of the project were shared with the public. This is a short report of this meeting in which particularly the projects of Stolk and SETUP were presented.
Stolk says that since April he has been working in Krimpen aan den IJssel, a former ribbon village along the IJssel River with a population of about 30,0000. The municipality has been working for some time on the realization of a vibrant Heart of Krimpen. Only, somehow it just can't seem to get it done. This is partly because the municipality does not own the Crimpenhof shopping center, which is an important part of this heart. The municipality saw the appeal as a special opportunity to find new perspectives on this issue with Stolk's artistic input.
Stolk has now completed the first investigative phase with a draft proposal. He is currently in discussions about its realization. An employee of the real estate department immediately indicated "nothing to do with artists" when getting acquainted. Culture policy officer Ellen Jacobs is also present this afternoon and explains that she wanted to participate in this project because the question of a heart for the village concerns the entire municipality - and thus all departments and policy areas. It is difficult to get (some) colleagues on board but that is nothing new.
The community saw an opportunity to find new perspectives with artistic input
SETUP works at the municipality of 's-Hertogenbosch. They were asked to get officials to look at events in the municipality in a new way, with the goal that it would lead to a different event vision. How can we do it better, the municipality wanted to know. Policy officer Jur Jacobs is committed to creating broad support for this vision and the way it is created. Like his colleague in Krimpen aan den IJssel, he observes that it takes a lot of time to involve colleagues, but because a municipality works with public money, he finds it necessary to set up a broad coalition. After all, this is not a one-time and temporary project; the method must take root throughout the organization. He believes there can be a good future for this way of working, i.e. involving artists in policy processes, and then a careful process is necessary.
Artists bring space for other perspectives because they approach a problem without fixed frameworks
Other parties involved in this innovation project are Lobbylokaal, Stichting Doen, the HKU and Platform 31. Together, they are exploring the relationship between artists and municipalities. At the end of the meeting, Mara van Waveren of Stichting Lobby Lokaal explained why Wanted: Talented congregations can be valuable. This is because a policy process often works with fixed structures that steer a problem in a certain direction. This can create too one-sided a picture. Artists bring space for other perspectives because they approach a problem without those fixed frameworks. That can produce surprising insights and solutions. Whether this will also happen in 's-Hertogenbosch and Krimpen aan den IJssel we do not yet know, but the artists and the cultural policy officers will have no problem with it.
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