Edinburgh’s Culture Discussed
Desire Lines calls for input for Capital’s cultural future
Opinions on how Edinburgh City Council should shape its new cultural policy when it is delivered early in 2015 are being sought from across Edinburgh by a new organisation, Desire Lines.
Desire Lines is being launched with What makes Edinburgh a culturally successful city?, an open discussion on Monday December 8 at Summerhall, about how existing cultural success can be improved, continued and secured for the future.
The Festival Theatre – part of Edinburgh’s cultural offering. Photo: Thom Dibdin
Presented by critic and commentator Joyce McMillan, the session will include a range of different perspectives on Edinburgh and the ingredients for ensuring its cultural success. These will come from “leading artists, grassroots cultural producers and citizens from across the capital” according to the group.
The group also has an online survey, available through its webpage, as well as a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter.
The new group brings together 14 representatives from the organisations which run some of the city’s major cultural institutions, ranging from arms-length organisations that run Council owned venues to independent festivals and commercial ventures.
Championing the international success of Edinburgh as a cultural city, the organisation asks both how cultural success can be measured and what different forms it takes.
common purpose
It says it is: “Inviting the thoughts and experience of those who create and those who care, to develop a common purpose and work out together, how we can do even better.”
A spokesperson for Desire Lines said: “A single agency or policy document can’t encapsulate or respond to the detailed range of needs that each instance might require.
“But we believe by identifying areas of shared interest we can work collectively to continue to improve, describe and develop the city’s cultural success – Desire Lines is our way of inviting your thoughts, ideas and experience to help articulate this common purpose and ensure its protection and survival for the future”.
The City of Edinburgh Council is aiming to present a draft cultural policy document to the Culture and Sport Committee in March 2015, with a final draft in May 2015.
According to Desire Lines, its members have been invited by the Council: “to work independently to make the Desire Lines major consultation process happen.
“We have been asked to ensure that the collective response we facilitate and provide is the key contribution to their consultation process, and therefore representative of a significant voice for the city.”
Listing
What Makes Edinburgh a culturally successful city?
Dissection Room, Summerhall, 1 Summerhall EH9 1PL
Monday 8 December 2014. 6.30-9.30pm.
Book tickets through eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/
Desirelines website: http://www.desirelines.scot/
Online survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/desire_lines
Desire Lines Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/DesireLinesEdin
Desire Lines on Twitter: @DL_Edin
Hashtag: #DesireLinesEdin
The members of the group running Desire Lines are:
Jan-Bert van den Berg (Artlink)
Deborah Keogh (Culture Enterprise Office)
Adam Knight (Edinburgh Playhouse)
Cerin Richardson (Festival City Theatres Trust)
Janine Matheson (Creative Edinburgh)
Jenny Langlands (Dance Base)
Ken Hay (Centre for the Moving Image)
Karl Chapman (Usher Hall)
Duncan Hendry (Festival City Theatres Trust)
Faith Liddell (Festivals Edinburgh)
Nick Barley (Edinburgh International Book Festival)
Frank Little (Edinburgh Museums and Galleries)
Donald Smith (Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland)
Fiona Bradley (The Fruitmarket Gallery)
ENDS
