All for one and one for all in Derry
DERRY is an archetypal ‘big’ small city. On the edge of Europe, and with a population of 115,000, it has been the location of historical events. The Siege of Derry, Bloody Sunday and the Troubles, and links to Colmcille grant locals an assured sense of Derry’s importance.
Yet, despite this vocal second-city pride, the city’s disputed name reveals it as a place of conflict, home to two communities whose bloody rivalry has defined the city.
The fault lines of the city have enabled it to punch above its weight culturally. From Field Day to the Undertones, Séamus Heaney to Phil Coulter, the place has made its mark. Last year, Derry beat Birmingham and Sheffield to be named Britain’s first City of Culture, and, this year, it launched a programme of more than 300 events.
“For a city of its size, it has achieved a lot,” says Graeme Farrow, who has programmed the year’s events. “It’s got two contemporary art galleries, four theatres, a very strong musical tradition. Just look at the artists and musicians it has produced.”
The City of Culture demarcation is a chance for Derry-Londonderry (as it is judiciously referred to in City of Culture material) to show that it has moved forward. It has the symbols of progress — the famous Peace Bridge across the Foyle; the new, multi-purpose arts facility on the site of a former army barracks. Now, it has a year to match actions to those symbols.
For Farrow, a Sunderland native who worked on the Belfast Festival at Queen’s, and for the rest of the City of Culture team, it was essential to get locals onside. The experience of Cork’s year as European Capital of Culture, in 2005, arguably shows how quickly disenchantment and indifference can set in when there is a perceived failure to communicate and engage with the local community.
Derry, it seems, has avoided this fate. “People in Derry are fiercely proud and, indeed, defensive sometimes, but for a project like this it’s a hugely positive thing,” says Farrow.
Derry’s divisive past has not been glossed over. Events such as ‘Picturing Derry’, a collection of photojournalism from the Troubles, are plentiful in the calendar, while both ‘Saint Patrick’s Day’ and the ‘Twelfth’ come under the City of Culture banner. But the public was not defined as two separate communities, says Farrow. “Deliberately, from the off, we sat down and decided we would, as far as possible, take the green and orange out of it. There are other ways of bringing people together to do great things, other than exchanging fiddles and Lambeg drums. We went out and asked what people wanted to do, from the GAA to scouts, to the amateur music, everyone wanted to be involved. We knew, if you get it right, everyone participates.
“I think there is something running in the veins of people in Derry, and they just want to get involved. There’s something about the place that is warm and special.”
One of the key considerations in programming the year’s 338 events was to have the biggest possible impact. Seven out of 10 events are free of charge, and many of them will have a direct impact on local communities. These include big, not necessarily artistic, events, such as the World GAA Congress, or last weekend’s attempt to break the world record for the biggest choreographed song-and-dance routine, from the musical Annie.
“We want to take projects out onto the streets,” says Farrow. “When you visit from spring onwards, there will always be something on the street, which you will see whether you like it or not.”
Farrow cites the ‘Artist Gardens’ event, when several artists will work with 10 community groups to transform 10 public spaces across the city. For events like this, says Farrow, the challenge was not just bringing talented people to Derry, but “having them have a transformative effect on the place, and to encourage locals to think about transforming their place and their perceptions of it”.
“The conversation in this city tends to be about what the city has been through and how we deal with that,” he says, “but part of how you deal with that is by giving young people the opportunity to do something they might not otherwise do.”
As well as these community-focused events, the city will welcome major artistic events, such as the Turner Prize, later this year, a performance of ‘Political Mother’, by the Hofesh Shechter company, this weekend, a cinema-themed concert by the London Symphony Orchestra, and ‘The Return of Colmcille’, a large-scale public event by Frank Cottrell Boyce, who wrote the acclaimed and irreverent opening ceremony to the London Olympics.
A major theatre event will be the world premiere of The Conquest of Happiness, directed by the Bosnian Haris Pasovic. Farrow recalls Pasovic speaking to young people on the Bogside, asking them what they wanted out of the year.
“Two young girls said they would just like to see different people come here,” says Farrow. “People who could share different experiences. I thought that was quite telling. Another telling thing was when we launched our programme, and afterwards there were a lot of phone-ins to local radio.
“One caller was a women from the Waterside and she was asked if there was enough for the Protestant community in the programme. She just said, ‘I don’t know and I don’t care. I just want tickets to Primal Scream.’ It sounds trite, but culture isn’t owned by sections of any community. It’s for everyone.”
The City of Culture has “ignited something,” Farrow says. Now, the challenge is to spread that enthusiasm to people from outside the city. “Getting people to travel has always been the challenge, but the hotels are booming and the airport has doubled its trade, so people are coming and we’re only limbering up, really. My message, as someone programming events, is that Derry is open for business.”
Looking ahead, Farrow singles out a big event like the Turner Prize for specific mention. “Having the Turner Prize happen in a city this size is a special thing. It did go to Gateshead before, but Gateshead is in a heavily industrialised part of Britain, an area that has a 4.5m population catchment area. We are bringing it to Derry.
“When an event like that comes, it will stop the city in its tracks. You can create a special magic when big things happen in small places. Not everyone talks about the Turner Prize in London every year, it’s just something that’s on. The critics and the cognoscenti discuss it and it has a big media profile, but it’s not a hot topic among 16-year-olds locally, but it already is here.”
*For more on Derry’s year as City of Culture, see cityofculture2013.com
