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Welcome to the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010
The Ruhr has been selected as the European Capital of Culture in 2010. That means it’s high time to explore this region with its 53 cities and its massive range of achievements in the arts and culture. There’s more to discover here than you might think. Exciting cultural diversity is the new trademark for this “metropolis in the making”. Unconventional, innovative, inspiring. You want to be sure to encounter Europe’s new cultural metropolis! Make 2010 a year that’s truly out of the ordinary. Come to the European Capital of Culture and enjoy a broad program in the arts and culture. You can take part in a fair at a mine, have a picnic right in the middle of the motorway, climb a blast furnace, or take a cultural holiday on the River Ruhr. You’ll be taking a closer look at what this former smokestack region has become. You’re sure to be amazed.
The Ruhr mythology
- [+] Tetrahedron Bottrop, photo: Bilderberg
The Ruhr mythology is the starting point for the third largest conurbation in the European Union with its 5.3 million residents. But – aside from coal and steel – there was a lively arts community long before the Industrial Revolution. In the Medieval Exhibit entitled
AufRuhr 1225! (“Upheaval on the Ruhr in 1225!”) – featuring knights, fortresses and political intrigue – you will find out why a local nobleman lured the Archbishop of Cologne into a deadly ambush in 1225. You will learn why a true castle building boom broke out along the Rhine and Ruhr Rivers shortly after that. This exhibit can be seen from February 27 to November 28, 2010. In more modern times, the mining and steel industries for years placed their stamp on the region’s identity, laying the foundation for personal pride and for the Ruhr mythology. What was the basis for the work and life of hundreds of thousands will again become visible.
SchachtZeichen (Shaft Signs) point out more than 300 of the countless mining pits that permeated the Ruhr. Hundreds of gigantic yellow balloons will be visible in the sky, marking the sites of former mines, from May 22 to 30, 2010. In other places the sun might rise, but here balloons climb into the skies!
Re-designing the metropolis
- [+] Bridge in Herne, over the Rhine-Herne Canal, photo: Thomas Robbin
The Ruhr Metropolis is reinventing itself. Nowhere else on the planet have so many factories, mine buildings and industrial properties been transformed into museums, recreational parks and fascinating event venues. In the northern section of the Ruhr Metropolis the world’s largest land recultivation project has been going on for several years now. The River Emscher, for decades little more than an industrial cloaca, has been restored as a verdant natural riverscape with great recreational value and new sites for art and cultural events. A “must” for every art-lover. Emscher Island between the River Emscher and the Rhine-Herne Canal will be hosting EMSCHERKUNST.2010, an unprecedented art exhibit, from May to September 2010.
Discovering images
- [+] Zollverein Cokery, Essen, photo: Manfred Vollmer
In addition to fi ve other museums either newly built or remodeled for the event, the renowned Folkwang Museum in Essen will be refurbished following designs by David Chipperfi eld. Way back in the 1930s it was considered to be “The World’s Most Beautiful Museum” and that is the title of the fi rst temporary exhibit to be shown in the new edifi ce, from March 20 to July 25, 2010. The exhibit reassembles the museum’s spectacular collection before 1933, featuring works by Henri Matisse, Giorgio de Chirico, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Beckmann and Oskar Kokoschka. Take advantage of the opportunity to experience the many art exhibits in Europe’s new metropolis.
Changing stages
It’s a little-known fact: The Ruhr Metropolis has one of the closest-knit networks of dramatic theatres in the world, boasting renowned producers and directors and many international partners. In 2010, for the first time, six theatres will be working in close cooperation. In preparation for Odyssey Europe six renowned European authors are drafting a new version of Homer’s “Odyssey”. It will then be played serially in the six houses over the course of a weekend. You can experience all the performances in a “staged” tour, a spectacular Odyssey through the Ruhr Metropolis. The premiere is on February 27 and 28, 2010.
Living music
In an homage to Hans Werner Henze, Germany’s most important contemporary composer, the entire music scene in the Ruhr Metropolis has joined forces in a “New Music” network. From January to December 2010 thirty-five partners will be presenting Henze’s musical ‘oeuvre’: musical theater, ballet, orchestra works, chamber concerts, readings, film music and radio plays. The !SING – DAY OF SONG, by contrast, will bring people together not indoors in a theatre or concert hall but instead will celebrate singing on the street, in a bus, a boat, a park or in countless unusual locations. On June 5, 2010, song will be heard throughout the Ruhr Metropolis. With 65,000 singers in choirs and choruses from all over Europe. !SING along with us!
Exploring language
The written and spoken word will be marking the rhythm in 2010. At the International Fairytales Festival (Sept./Oct., 2010) storytelling will once again be on center stage. At Murder on the “Hellweg”, a whodunit festival in the autumn of 2010, readers will themselves become detectives. All that remains to be mentioned is the presentation of the winners, from November 10 to 13, in the German-language SLAM2010 poetry competition.
Boosting the creative industries
- [+] Dortmund “U”, photo: Volker Lenk
RUHR.2010 will be the first Capital of Culture to include this topic in its program. The Dortmund U, a former brewery, will become a new incubator for Europe’s creative economy. The first IP TV platform for the creative economy, 2010lab.tv, will be launched in the spring of 2010. Running in both German and English, it is to bring together in a virtual space the “new creative thinkers” throughout Europe.
A time to celebrate
Celebrations will abound during 2010 in the Ruhr Metropolis. Not only at ExtraSchicht (Extra Shift) – the Night of Industrial Culture on June 19 – but even at locations where otherwise traffic drones. The A40 motorway, normally carrying 300,000 vehicles each day, will become the world’s longest table on July 18, 2010. At the Still-Leben Ruhrschnellweg (Still-Life A40/B1), the Ruhr Metropolis will be celebrating with a “groaning board” 60 kilometers long, made up of 20,000 individual tables. It will be Europe’s largest and most colorful street fair. And once again there will be partying and dancing in the streets of the Ruhr Metropolis during the Love Parade – one of the world’s largest open-air parties.
Moving Europe
RUHR.2010 is involved in conceptualising and shaping Europe’s cultural setting for the future. Immigration has been an integral part of the region’s everyday life for 150 years now. People from 170 nations live in the Ruhr Metropolis and exert an impact on local arts and cultures. MELEZ is a festival of cultures celebrating the variety in this cultural mélange.
TWINS stands for a vision of Europe united through cultural diversity. TWINS makes use of Europe’s traditional twinned towns and creates new, multilateral networks embracing the active and creative players in Europe’s towns and regions. Schools, churches, cultural centers, citizens’ initiatives and individual artists from 29 towns with in the Ruhr Metropolis will be cooperating with 1,500 partners in all the nations of the European Union
and in Turkey, Russia and Ukraine. But that’s not all there is to tell. This is just a small foretaste of wha t RUHR.2010, the European Capital of Culture, will have on offer. Do drop in for a visit at: www.ruhr2010.de. You will enjoy a hearty welcome in Europe’s new metropolis!
