Partners' Gathering No. 3

Public access

Closed

Tickets

Invitation only

Venue

Literaturhaus, Zurich, Switzerland

Date & Time

18 – 20 July, 2023

Language

English

On 19th and 20th July 2023 all the partners met for a consortium city gathering in Zürich, one of the cities where Joyce wrote Ulysses, and where he is buried. Zürich is linked to episode XII, Homer’s book 9, in which Odysseus travels to the land of the Cyclopes, a rough and uncivilised race of one-eyed giants. We therefore took the cyclops, Joyce’s disruptive writing technique, gigantism, the fiery tone of episode XII in its bar setting and the anonymity of The Citizen as a firm inspiration for our approach to our gathering!

Our Zürich Gathering started with a very special reception and talk at the Joyce Foundation. The Foundation was established in 1985 with a view to keeping alive the memory and work of Joyce for the literary world in general, and in particular for Zürich. Fritz Senn, founder and director of the Foundation, and his colleague Ursula Zeller, gave us an inspiring talk about Joyce in Zürich and the Cyclops episode. It was an honour to be there and to meet Fritz and Ursula and we are profoundly grateful for their warm welcome (and the loan of their Biscuit Tin!).

The gathering took place at the Literaturhaus and was an intensive and insightful two days. It was amazing to see how projects had developed since our Paris Gathering and the commitment of our partners to their artistic event and their research into their contemporary European theme. There was no doubt that the activism which sits in each theme had grown in strength in the foci of each public event and symposium, and that the urgency of the themes explored was a real inspiration for the partners.

During the gathering we discussed the episode XII theme, Is being a European citizen more important than being a citizen of an individual nation? Switzerland is not a member of the European Union or European Economic Area, but it is part of the single market and Swiss nationals have the same rights to live and work in EU countries as other EEA nationals. However, with the rise of nationalism, resentment against migrants (explored in projects in Marseille, France, and Cluj-Napoca, Romania) and Brexit in the UK, the idea of European citizenship and being European may seem increasingly contested. The gathering in Zürich was a timely opportunity for our partners from cultural organisations from 16 different countries, including Turkey and Northern Ireland, to debate this important issue in what proved to be a heated discussion from various quite different perspectives – in keeping with Joyce’s gigantism approach. Issues such as national loyalty, a country’s flag and ‘Europe’s top 3 and bottom 3’ (interpreted as the happiness factor) provoked an emotional and analytical debate which was both informative and evidence of the complexity of the theme’s question.

Travel was kept to a minimum in this 16 country project, and whilst members had to travel to at least two different city events, most of the events were not seen by partners and they firmly situated the contemporary theme in the particular city landscape for its local citizens. It was therefore insightful (and inspiring!) to have visual presentations from ACT II cities – Lugo (which took place during lunch, in the spirit of episode VIII Lestrygonians), Istanbul, Cluj-Napoca, Vilnius and Copenhagen – on their public events. The multi-disciplinary breadth of the events was astonishing, and what partners had achieved, both creatively and substantively in relation to their themes, was impressive.

Further sharing of symposia and event development was given by Budapest, ACT II cities Leeuwarden, Eleusis, Oulu and Berlin and ACT III cities Lisbon, Dublin and Derry/Donegal. The partner gatherings were also intended as a learning opportunity, as partners who had had their events and symposia shared their experiences with partners still in the preparation stage. As such the rare coming together of all consortium partners was an essential means to build on learnings and lessons for the future steps in our European odyssey.

One of the key issues discussed was the artists’ residency programme. Feedback on residencies which had already taken place was received from host cities Istanbul (Yannis Papapetrou from Eleusis), Cluj-Napoca (Jared Van Earle, from Oulu), Budapest (Marc Buyny from Berlin), Athens (Vladas Suncovas from Vilnius), Lugo (Birk Thomassen from Copenhagen) and Copenhagen (Hunor-József Varga from Cluj & Sarah Wenzinger from Berlin).

Marketing and PR were also a focus during the gathering as Ben McKnight, Communications Manager and Ciaran Doran, Marketing Manager, laid out their ideas and proposals to the consortium for their feedback and comments. Their attendance also proved how invaluable it is to actually meet in person. The UEO project was entirely developed during Covid and all discussions took place online. Zürich proved once again the enormous value of in person meetings.

The gathering was also a chance to meet Alistair Daniel, who had been engaged as the editor / writer of our Arts & Society Symposia publication. Alistair’s focus was on the form the publication could take, as well as an outline of the timings for submission and publication (Autumn 2024). This aspect of the project had grown in importance as the project developed – clear evidence of the success of the thematic approach for each city / episode and the very real urgencies of the themes and their relevance today to both the arts community and broader society.

It was an exhausting and inspiring gathering. The consortium had become a family in a very real sense, and the networking and exchange was rich and fruitful. In a short online link-up with Gillian McLaughlin from Creative Europe – during which she was able to briefly meet all the partners – we were told that the project is the first large-scale project in this new Creative Europe round and it was praised for its vision and delivery.

As a consortium we felt it was important not to let 11 months go by until we meet again (Dublin 2024). Discussions started for an un-programmed extra gathering – which ultimately took place in Budapest.