During the last decades the believe in social and economic benefits of culture became a power horse
of cultural policy making across Europe and the World. Although such believe is generally successful
in shaping culture policies, it is often challenged by lack of hard evidence and even more so by hard
realities of everyday life. How do you speak about value of culture in the context of economic
downturn brought by global pandemics or atrocities of war? In our quest for socially and
economically powerful cultural policies we seem to have forgotten to observe the very bases on
which this power stands. I will be inviting to come back to observations of everyday life. After all this
is a scene where cultural interactions make their healing touch.

In this keynote I will revisit the notion of legacy and discuss the many forms it can take for European Capital of Culture hosts. From Glasgow 1990 to Liverpool 2008, Lille 2004 to Essen for the Ruhr 2010, Aarhus 2017 to Matera 2019, these are some examples of ECoC editions that have made distinct contributions to our understanding of legacy. I will share some examples of available research on immediate and long-term impacts, discuss the difference between impact, legacy and sustainable change, and highlight the importance – and proven value – of symbolic, intangible and soft legacies.

As Kaunas 2022 reaches its peak, important questions to consider for all of those involved are: What will we leave behind? How will we know the value of what we have made possible? And how do we act now to ensure the benefits of our work sustain in the long term? This talk will build on the lessons learned from previous ECoC experiences to help address these questions.

Monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment is a mandatory part of every European Capital of Culture project. The evaluation procedures last at least several years and often go beyond the boundaries of the culture discipline. The discussion will focus on Capitals of Culture as a field of development and innovation in research on the impact of culture. What can be learnt from the findings of the Capital of Culture evaluators and what are their first impressions about the Kaunas 2022 project?

Participants: Tadas Šarūnas (sociologist, visual artist, LT), Beatriz Garcia (Senior Research Fellow in International Cultural Policy and Mega Events at the University of Liverpool and Associate Director at the Centre for Cultural Value, UK). Moderator Ana Kočegarova-Maj.

Roberto Magro and Džiugas Kunsmanas will reflect on the foreseeable and unpredictable impacts of their artistic work in the communities of Linksmakalnis, Mastaičiai, Neveronys, and Bubiai. Work, which they describe as “creating territories of lived and imaginary poetry”. Their talk will be based on the examples of Radio Angels (2019 – ongoing) and Vizijos (2021 – ongoing) projects, developed in the framework of Kaunas 2022, in which they were aiming to give value to the local communities, its history and the story of its inhabitants using a poetic language, valorizing the inhabitants´ relationships, developing a strong imagery, one which we could define as `ghost architecture´. With participation of Lukas Alsys, Deputy Head for Culture at Culture, Sports and Science Department, Kaunas District Municipality Administration, LT; Šarūnas Pikelis, Mayor of Batniava Eldership, Kaunas District Municipality Administration, LT

Followed by a Q&A session

Since the outbreak of the war, Lviv, Ukraine’s most westerly city, has become a place of refuge for
hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, a major logistic hub for international humanitarian aid, and a
media centre for journalists and reporters from all over the world. Thousands of the city’s
inhabitants did not rush to flee the city, did not panic, but are doing their best volunteering in
different aid initiatives. People from the art and creative sector have not abandoned their mission
and raced to protect monuments, old architecture buildings, stained glass windows, and works of
art. The preservation of the UNESCO World Heritage site in Lviv has been widely covered in the
media across the world. Meanwhile, the Lviv Culture Strategy Institute, led by Julia, has become an
international communication hub sending daily updates with information about the assistance
needed to its international partners. Yulia addresses the city, whose mission has become to spread
support and hope, with the following message on her Facebook account: “We get up in the morning
and do the best we can do. This is the only way to make victory possible”. In the European Capital of
Culture Forum, Yulia will speak on the events in Ukraine and answer questions from the audience.

Followed by a Q&A session

Every city applying for the ECoC title is confronted with a dilemma: how to approach audience development? How to implement it into the ECoC programme? What is it all about? Is it about the organisation managing the ECoC programme? Is it mainly about “developing” the audiences for the ECoC year? Or maybe it should be about something else…?

Kaunas 2022 made audience development a part of capacity building programme. This approach translates into investment in a long-term processes of change. Involving not only individual culture professionals but also whole organisations. And started long before THE YEAR.

In this respect, 2022 is (just) “a stop on the way” not “a final destination”.

We are going to summarise Audience Development Programme for Kaunas 2022 with all its ups and downs and through different perspectives. The storytellers will be organisers, individual participants, organisations and institutions. There will be also a chance to exchange experiences with Rijeka 2020. To conclude, we will also look at the scenarios for the future…

Everyone is invited! No matter if you’re “fluent in audience development” or you consider yourself a beginner in a subject, no matter if you are from an NGO, large public institution, ECoC team, from Lithuania or abroad.

We promise to do our best to keep it practical, light and engaging at the same time!

The moderator of this session will be Agata Etmanowicz (president of the Impact Foundation, the organisation behind Audience Development for Kaunas 2022 multi-annual programme, partner of Kaunas 2022) but the most important in this session are all her guests… Full list of names will be revealed very soon. Stay tuned! 🙂

Followed by a Q&A session

“I will talk about the dream we have been living since 2015. I will recall how we implemented the
project strategy and reached many goals. But then life happened. We had the pandemic for two
years (it is not over yet) and now we have the war that hurts us as if it were our own. What do a plan
and life mean? How should and how can we plan the legacy? The legacy is only possible if there are
people following their dream. Now we have clear evidence that there are thousands of them in
Kaunas and Kaunas region.”

The discussion will revolve around the experiences of the former Capitals of Culture at the end of the project and also on the near future, when the title of European Capital of Culture will be transferred from Lithuania to other European countries. What happens when the buzz is over? Which outcomes and projects of the Capital of Culture have the potential to survive and which do not? What is the perspective of the cultural field in Kaunas city and Kaunas district at the end of this long-lasting project?

Participants: Albinas Vilčinskas, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, Vice-Minister, LT; Mantas Jurgutis, Deputy Mayor of Kaunas City, LT, Immie Jonkmann, CEO of „Leeuwarden-Friesland 2018 – 2028“, NL;  Virginija Vitkienė, CEO of „Kaunas 2022”, LT;  Lukas Alsys, Deputy Head for Culture at Culture, Sports and Science Department, Kaunas District Municipality Administration, LT and invited guests

Moderator: Dileta Nenėnė