Baltic Sea Cultural Cities project kick off

“Water connects us, but culture unites us” is the motto of a recently launched project trying to increase citizens’ ownership of Baltic Sea culture and identity. The Swedish Institute funded project was kicked off in Malmö this week, with representation from all project partners and guest observers from Goethe Institute Helsinki and St. Petersburg. Led by the CBSS, the project partners were defining the project’s goals, discussing target groups, and further steps towards implementation.

Being a seed money project, the consortium wants to work on the common needs, on finding solutions and good practices for a successful development of the implementation framework. Baltic Sea Cultural Cities will focus on the co-creation of cultural activities by citizens themselves, involving especially young people and those from often overlooked parts of society. The key idea of the project is to biannually nominate a “Baltic Sea City of Culture” that would rely not on competition, but rather on cooperation between cities, encouraging them to find similarities and synergies between each other. An important part of the project is also to enable not just the capitals, but also citizens in smaller cities or regions in the periphery to participate in and showcase their unique cultural landscapes.