Two hundred years ago, where Bodø is today, there was nothing. Fishermen avoided the surrounding waters, terrified of being pulled underwater by the world’s largest sea whirlpool – Saltsraumen. The peninsula on which this year’s European Capital of Culture was located is located fifteen kilometers from the treacherous strait. Today, it is hard to find buildings older than fifty years old in the city. During World War II, the Luftwaffe razed Bodø to the ground and built the most important airport in northern Europe on its ruins. It was around this airport and the later NATO base intended to protect Europe against Soviet bombers and ships. However, the authorities in Oslo decided in 2012 that a military base so close to Putin’s Russia was not needed.
Eight years of political agreement
– We had to reinvent ourselves. Fishing, which is the most developed in Norway, does not allow us to build a future. People don’t just need to work. They also do not want to miss their children for whom performing their parents’ profession is not enough – admits Ingebrigtsen and adds:
We asked our residents what they miss most. And although they loved their city, loved the white nights in summer and the northern lights in winter, they felt on the margins of life, especially social and cultural life. This was the main reason not so much for going south to study, but also for the fact that our young people did not return to their home country after graduation. The more things happen with parents and grandparents, the less they miss their children and grandchildren.
Although the decision to apply for the title of European Capital of Culture was made in 2016, the city and region began investing in the necessary infrastructure several years earlier. A new concert hall, urban spaces and hotels were built. We managed to convince the authorities in Oslo to rebuild the airport to free up another 140 hectares of land for the construction of new districts. – Every meter of land suitable for development is priceless for us. We are squeezed between mountains, rocks, tundra and crazy storms. The investments we started with are those in culture, says the mayor. – Surprisingly for many, they stay the longest and bring the most long-term effects.
Bodo Dan Mariner/Bodo2024
Despite subsequent elections and changes in the ruling coalition, both the city and regional authorities stuck to the chosen course. Since 2016, local coalitions have changed twice. The mayor also changed. However, the right-wing FrP criticized the idea of Bodø applying for the title of European Capital of Culture, claiming that it was money wasted.
– We divided the budget into three equal parts. The city, region and local sponsors were responsible for theirs. In total, we needed 300 million crowns, or about 30 million euros. We collected it fully knowing that the money would be returned, says Sven Eggesvik.
The future and youth
The European Capital of Culture 2024 program in Bodø began to be created eight years ago. Over a hundred people participated in its development. – We didn’t want to just enter new events in the calendar day after day. We assumed that we would create platforms and guidelines that would encompass all the projects that constitute our project – explains Andre Wallan Larsen, director of Bodø2024. – One of them was the idea of ”Don’t leave anything but footprints”, which required every project to be fully environmentally sustainable. When the idea of using events and artistic spaces to ask questions about the state of today’s democracy emerged, we created a balloon that was filled with content by the curators of individual events. We did not indicate what was supposed to happen, but what questions our project should answer.
From the very beginning, Bodø has cooperated with young people and debutants in creating the offer for 2024. They not only perform, but also co-create and are recipients of projects and events.
– The oldest of the five composers of the inaugural concert is 41 years old, and for two of them it is their artistic debut – says Henrik Sand Dagfinrud, program director of Bodø 2024. – Most of the projects that make up what will happen in our city over the next 11 months , is created thanks to young artists and culture recipients. Thanks to this, not only will they find themselves in the program offer, but their parents’ generation will have the opportunity to learn their language, their codes, their values. And in the modern world, it is young people who use the most universal and understandable language on every continent.
Exhibition in Bodo Kasper Holgersen/Bodo2024
Resistance
The stage, placed in the middle of the port basin, was created four times in the last seven days. Time after time it had to be dismantled and reassembled. Until the last moment, it was not known whether hurricane Ingunn would allow the opening concert to be organized. In Bodø itself, on Wednesday, wind gusts reached up to 180 km/h and waves reached seven meters high.
– I realized with horror that this week would not be one iota of what we had planned together – says Dagfinrud. – Today I know that we have everything prepared, but most importantly, our year-round program is flexible and therefore resilient. Just like Bodø and the entire Norwegian North, which had to rise again and again and reinvent itself.
More than the Olympic Games
Bodø is called “the gateway to the Lofoten Islands”. Ferries carrying tourists to the islands considered one of the modern wonders of the world depart from the wharf right next to the main concert hall in the city. The authorities hope that tourists, who are attracted more and more every year by the pristine nature of northern Norway, will combine discovering nature with experiencing culture. They know that exactly 30 years ago, one of the Norwegian cities managed to gain global recognition with one event.
– Until 1994, no one knew where Lillehammer was located, or even that such a city existed at all. And it was the first and only time the IOC president said about the Winter Olympics held there that they were the best games in history. Since then, Lillehammer has been the most important place on the winter sports map in Norway, and maybe in Europe, says the mayor of Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen. – However, the ski jump is used two, maybe three times a year, and the ski slopes and cross-country trails are available for at most six months a year, and even then not everyone is interested in sports. Culture affects everyone, so I believe that Bodø will make the most of this year’s opportunity at least as well as Lillehammer did thirty years ago.
The organizers expect at least 200,000 guests this year who will decide to visit the city precisely because of the title of European Capital of Culture. They are not worried about the location – more and more tourists have already explored the south of Europe and are looking for completely new experiences. Bodø believes that it is a place where nature and culture can be experienced in a way never before seen.
Heritage of the North
The first weeks in Bodø’s cultural calendar were dominated by events referring to the heritage of the Sámi – the most numerous nation of the original inhabitants of Europe. In Poland they are still called Lapps, although this name is offensive to them. Lap is Norwegian for a patch or a rag, hence the common term on the Vistula River is closest to a ragged man or a rag picker. And the Sámi costumes, kofte, are colorful and are worn not only on holidays.
Bodo is the European Capital of Culture – it is important to show the Sámi tradition Kasper Holgersen /Bodo2024
– We invited representatives of the Sámi community to participate in the Bodø 2024 project from the very beginning. The chairperson of the project board is the former speaker of the Sami Parliament, Aili Keskitalo. In 1994, Mari Boine, the world’s most famous female artist, refused to perform at the Lillehammer Olympics. Today, a performance with her participation, talking about how contemporary Norway influences the everyday life of the Sámi, opens the program of the European Capital of Culture in Bodø – replies Marie Peyre from the organizing committee. – I hope that the awareness of how important the culture of the first nations of northern Europe is for the future will stay with us for a very long time.
What is important is what happens every day
Over the next 11 months, over a thousand cultural events will take place in Bodø. When asked about the most important of them, they point to Midsummer, a series of concerts organized in June, when the sun does not set over Bodø. The culmination of the Bodø 2024 celebrations will be a festival of lights organized during the polar night.
– But the most important are the smallest and everyday events organized by our local community. Not only Bodø, but the entire region lives up to the title of European Capital of Culture. You can also celebrate with us in Portugal and Italy, where stockfish, i.e. wind-dried cod, came from our area – explains Maria Peyre. – Thanks to the Portuguese and Venetian shipwrecks saved by the inhabitants of the Lofoten Islands, in the 15th century this dish reached the most remote corners of Europe. But cuisine is also an important, and certainly the tastiest, element of culture. The Bodø 2024 ECoC program can be found at .
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
