Introduction General Considerations

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3 Introduction General Considerations Why does your city wish to take part in the competition for the title of European Capital of Culture? The best moments usually occur when a person s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi Győr has been an important European gateway, station, and sanctuary of the traffic between East and West for a very long time. Where the Danube, storming down from the mountains, enters the plains, the emerging magic of nature has enabled the Hungarians, Germans, Serbs, Jews, Croats, Italians, and Slovaks living here to build a city over the centuries Győr, our shared home. Four out of ten citizens of Győr have arrived fairly recently, but all have embraced the city as their home. Ever newer waves of wanderers enter the city, resting on our plains or even settling here. All of us are parts of the flow, somewhat like the river bringing ashore the twigs coming from all over the place, with no one remembering where they originally had their roots. In the river, they intertwine, now floating, now struggling in the stream, surviving together. That joint effort then creates a small isle of branches, inviting newer and newer members, and while the river flows on, at the proper place, a real island is formed in its body of water, with real trees taking root. That island, in turn, has its impact on the river, changing the course of its flow, for all the little twigs have created something gigantic over time. We, the citizens of Győr, feel that our time has finally come. The bid for the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) title is an opportunity for us to summarize our many centuries of experience concerning the flow and to share the flow with Europe in an age that makes this issue crucial and urgent in more than one area. At the same time, we also gain an opportunity better to explore our memories and survey our history, placing it into a European context, yielding an improved understanding of our own community and to build our future on our personal traditions of the flow. We need a strong community sustaining itself and a city which it is magical not only to inhabit but also to live in. After all, in order to make our life better, we must make our experiences better. Does your city plan to involve its surrounding area? Explain this choice. Yes, absolutely. Győr s bid rests on a network of European roads and waterways in addition to the city s own region. We have invited our regional partners to collaborate in organizing the relevant programme elements. Our geographical location, on the other hand, these regional project partnerships extend to three countries by default, while we can even build on the vicinity of two foreign capitals (Vienna and Bratislava). The World Heritage site of the Archabbey of the Hungarian Benedictine Congregation in Pannonhalma and the city of Győr have been emblematic of the successful European integration of the Hungarians for over a thousand years. At present, they are an outstanding example of culture, education, economy and agriculture, and receptivity. Observing the European values of environmentally friendly husbandry and way of life, Pannonhalma especially conveys a GYŐR

4 most topical message. The co-operation between Győr and the Archabbey of Pannonhalma is not only central for us but almost dictated by the pure necessities of our time. The points of connection in our joint ECOC bid are arranged along our shared sacral heritage, monument conservation, architectural restoration and utilization, as well as the principles of education and environmental awareness. The architectural complex of the Esterházy Palace in Fertőd and its planned natural environment are European treasures with a wide-ranging intellectual heritage. In its heyday, the palace theatre was attended by audiences from Bratislava and Vienna; its puppet theatre was widely admired; at the garden parties, the elite of Central Europe delighted in Haydn s music. This complex heritage is organically linked to our bid, along with the reconstruction plans of the palaces and gardens of Nagycenk (H), Galanta (SK), and Eisenstadt (A). The Szigetköz and Csallóköz (Žitný ostrov) regions belong naturally to the broader environment of Győr. They include several Natura 2000 areas; their rivers symbolize the continuity of the flow. This geographic region, pulsating together in Northern Hungary and Southern Slovakia, is an outstanding natural resource, epitomizing the Earth s wonderful will to life as well as its vulnerability in an instructive way. Its preservation is a duty that transcends nations and historic ages. With the city of Dunajská Streda in the Žitný ostrov area, our co-operation rests on geographic and historic grounds. This city in Southern Slovakia is related to Győr in more than one way. In addition to projects addressing our common environmental inheritance, our tender also harmonizes objectives in urbanization, culminating parallel developments. Sopron, the second largest city in our county is not only geographically but also historically connected to Győr and the flow idea. It was on the outskirts of Sopron, what is today the European Heritage Prize winning Pan-European Picnic Memorial Park, that A1 VIENNA BRATISLAVA ZÜRICH PARIS Sopron Nagycenk A4 Fertőd M85 Dunajská Streda Szigetköz Csallóköz / Žitný ostrov Danube M1 BUDAPEST NAGYVÁRAD / ORADEA Pannonhalma M86 M7 MARIBOR LJUBLJANA BELGRADE ZAGREB 2 GYŐR 2023

5 the East Germans fleeing through Hungary could cross the border to Austria in Our thematic pathways will build on Sopron s rich traditions of guilds as well as Ferenc Liszt s cult in the city. All our partners are integral to our overall conception, contributing their personal flow history to its exploration and presentation. Explain briefly the overall cultural profile of your city. The present cultural profile of the city is synthetically related to Győr s rich historic traditions, community spirit, and objective remains. Győr has the third most architectural monuments in Hungary, with Budapest in first place and our partner Sopron in second. The most beautiful buildings in the Baroque Old Town are municipality or church property, serving touristic and cultural purposes. Their reconstruction and development are harmonized by the owners. In addition to the preservation of treasures, the shared objective of raising Győr to international excellence in attracting visitors of culture and tourism is also observed. The Local Government of the Municipal City of Győr (hereafter referred to as the Local Government) operates no fewer than 12 cultural institutions: four dedicated to performing arts, five community cultural institutes, and three public art collections. In performing arts, the Ballet Company of Győr, the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra, and the National Theatre of Győr are officially authorized as national (1st-category) ensembles by the Act on Performing Arts Organisations, while the Vaskakas (Iron Rooster) Puppet Theatre is classified into the 2nd category (out of 6). The number and attendance of performances by these companies has been steadily increasing over the recent years, matched by an expansion in international tours. More than 50% of the season tickets sold are youth schemes, whose continuous growth is a major asset for the Creative Győr Strategy as well as for our ECOC bid, considering that the younger generations are a prime target group in both contexts. Győr s highly complex network of community cultural institutions comprises five establishments: House of Generations Culture Centre, Molnár Vid Bertalan Culture Centre, Culture Centre of Ménfőcsanak and Gyirmót, Culture House of Újváros District, and the Art, Festival, and Culture Centre of Győr. These have further affiliates. The communities, clubs, and circles operating within these culture houses are continually expanding. Analysing the attendance data for the calendar year 2016, we see that nearly half of all attendance figures for culture houses correspond to citizens visiting events, exhibitions, and other programmes. A dominant member within Győr s network of cultural management is the Art, Festival, and Culture Centre of Győr, in charge of the majority of festivals coordinated and organized by the Local Government. The attendance of the events within the Festival Centre s competence has been steadily on the increase in recent years. The rich historic and art collections of the city are conserved by the city s three public collections: the Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History, the Dr. Kovács Pál Library and Community Space, and the Archive of Győr Municipality. The chief source of income for the institutions of the Local Government is the progressively growing municipal funding, which is complemented by the institutions own income and various grants and tenders. The private sector also contributes to the operation of performing art institutions as well as most city festivals, covering some 8 to 10% of institutional expenses. This figure is a prime indicator of the local enterprises commitment to culture, another substantial resource for our future plans. In addition to its own institutional network of culture and art, Győr also builds on a wide range of contributors from the civil sector as well as church organizations, with which we have a traditionally strong connection. The infrastructure supporting self-taught creative groups GYŐR

6 and civil circles is often provided by such institutions. In the near future, our shared task will be to establish even more space and an even better infrastructural background with a civil institutional focus efficiently to foster the dynamic growth of civil communities. The Local Government has an annual support framework that non-profit and religious communities may apply for in order to implement their cultural programmes. The Creative Győr Strategy lays special emphasis on promoting the synergies between these actors and the institutions run by the Local Government. Explain the concept of the programme which will be launched if the city is designated as European Capital of Culture. The central theme in the application of Győr is the FLOW: Flow as a natural phenomenon, flow as the real or virtual opportunity to transmit information, and flow as a key concept of a positive philosophy. THE FLOW OF NATURE Győr is the city of rivers. Rivers flow across its immediate and wider environment, and even across its city centre European rivers, including the Danube, which connects the highest number of nations. The Danube itself could provide us with cultural content lasting for decades, because it gathers, carries, and floats the history of Europe across countries on its waves. But the flow of nature also suggests related areas as wind, energy, and any living organism in the natural environment that will determine our future. POTENTIALS IN THE FLOW OF NATURE Győr must rediscover and revive its riverbanks. It must harness the exceptional potential inherent in the rivers flowing through its city centre and the vicinity of the Szigetköz and Žitný ostrov regions, with such extraordinary natural features as the Danube and the system of its backwaters. These givens entail countless unexploited ecological and cultural resources as well as lessons to be learnt in regard to our shared future. At the same time, it is equally important to interpret this flow not only in space but also in time. We must consider how the tree planted today will bear fruit tomorrow: whatever we can do for our environment now will make the lives of our grandchildren easier in the future. INFORMATION FLOW Due to its geographical location, Győr has always assumed the role of a conduit between the eastern and western part of Europe in the history of modern culture. Apart from the years between the World War II and the fall of communism, Győr always stood as an open gateway, through which travellers, merchants, artisans, armies, rulers, conquerors, and fugitives had passed, driven by various reasons and individual ambitions. Up until the end of the 20th century, information could spread in real space only, crossing the city on wagons, ships, trains, or horseback. However, by the end of the Gutenberg Galaxy, the opportunity of information flow had shifted from the European driveways crossing Győr to virtual space. This radical change fundamentally questions the exclusive reality of linear processes, the straight pathways leading from A to B, and even basic pillars of cultural consumption as books or museums. POTENTIALS IN INFORMATION FLOW Győr lies at the cross-section of various flows, so its own history may present a model example to Europe as for how the cultural influences concomitant with the flow have positively helped it to construct itself in the past, how the information flow may be utilised at present, and what promises the flow may hold for the future. On the basis of its own history, Győr has 4 GYŐR 2023

7 an opportunity to corroborate its cultural identity and future through the ECOC bid, which also allows it to summarise, reposition, and preserve for posterity the message inherent in its experiences and tradition related to the flow. At the same time, our explorations may assist us with making optimal use of the potential in the flow and the geographical location of the city. THE EUROPEAN FLOW OF PEOPLE It is key to address the issue of people driven through Győr by external coercion, even in relation to the present day. The global wars of the 20th century abound in examples, but the theme of fleeing through or to Győr began much earlier. Bishop Walter Lynch, born in the Irish ECOC 2020 city of Galway, found his last refuge in Győr. In the summer and autumn of 1944, labourcamp captives and deportees marched through Győr on their way to hard labour or death. In , the Hungarians of Czechoslovakia were resettled to Hungary via Győr and Komárom. In October 1956, Hungarian youths, whole families, and individuals abandoning their relations fled via Győr to the West from the Soviet tanks and the prisons of Communist Hungary. In 1989, convoys of East German Trabants drove westwards through Győr and Sopron before crossing the border to Austria and driving round half of Europe in order to return to the other side of the Berlin Wall. POTENTIALS IN THE EUROPEAN FLOW OF PEOPLE In our days, the issue of the European flow of people is more topical than ever, and Győr continues to be an important station along that flow. Almost everybody that reached Austria or Germany from the Balkans on foot, by train, or by car must have passed through Győr. In the 21st-century focus of the flow, with the experience of 20th-century flow experiences, we must address the migration of people in our postmodern age. We can share the lessons learnt by those living at the crossroads, presenting hundreds of years of success stories in settlement, drawing constructive conclusions from these for the future. The integration difficulties of newcomers affect us, too, and these problems are largely independent of how far the new citizens of a place have come from. THE FLOW OF POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY The flow not only dominates the thematic framework of our ECOC programme but also defines an attitude by which positive philosophy may fully charge every single activity of ours. The basis of our conception is the idea that instead of experiencing culture passively, our audiences should undergo a shared experience of active flow. We intend people not only to remember the events and achievements of the ECOC year 2023 in retrospect, but also to cherish memories of actively experiencing happiness individually as well as in community. POTENTIALS IN THE POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY In our time, it is easy to shift jobs or move house. Polls indicate that the majority of urban inhabitants are new arrivals, as a rule, and Győr is no exception. Thus, they may not connect adequately to the city they live in. If, however, a city has no real community, it will resemble a railway station, where almost everyone is just waiting for their connection. We need community building through active flow experiences, along with a recognition of our roots and mapping our opportunities, in order that we may feel at home in the city that we live in. Our thematic take builds on the flow, the environment that surrounds us, the roads that pass through our city, the people, the potential of positive philosophy, and the flow that lives within us all the experience and potential that we have gathered from our flow over the centuries and that we are now in a position to share. Flow is synonymous with change, and learning to change is yet another opportunity to make ourselves and the world we live in a little better. GYŐR

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9 1. Contribution to the Long-Term Strategy Describe the cultural strategy that is in place in your city at the time of the application, as well as the city s plans to strengthen the capacity of the cultural and creative sectors, including through the development of long-term links between these sectors and the economic and social sectors in your city. What are the plans for sustaining the cultural activities beyond the year of the title? The General Assembly of the Local Government of Győr Municipality, with its resolution 154/2017 (October 27), demonstrated its interest to participate in the bidding process issued by the Ministry of Human Capacities, to win the ECOC 2023 title. In our first-round bid book, we undertook to develop and approve a cultural strategy for the period between 2019 and 2028, whose basis would be the conception, developments, and investments for the ECOC tender. The strategy seeks to provide for the sustainability of development plans accepted in the final bid book and to summarise the plans most successfully to preserve the results of year 2023 once it is over. Simultaneously with the second-round bid book, we have finalized the Creative Győr Strategy for , which made it possible to complete the bid book and resolve the issues raised by the creative strategy parallel one another, one supporting the other and relying on it at the same time. On November 8, 2018, the Creative Győr Strategy was approved by the General Assembly of the Local Government in resolution 182/2018; the bid book in resolution 183/2018. As the central development focus of the Creative Győr Strategy, the following items have been highlighted: youth in focus; audience development and network building; cultural, artistic innovations; cultural diversity; culture-based city revival; open centres of innovation; institutionalised multi-participant systems of co-operation; hinterland with a broad social base. The tasks related to our bid are specified individually: To be the European Capital of Culture, it takes more than one year s input. In the preliminary years, the city must be prepared for the ECOC year through a series of smaller events, notably through projects and procedures that involve the population to participate and thus activate and commit the local community to the ECOC year. In addition to securing the necessary investments in time, such as inviting performers to cultural programmes, equally important for lasting success is the preparation of the local community to be ready for the everyday challenges of an all-year cultural fizz. The objective to make the local inhabitants own the ECOC, that is, not only accept but actively embrace it, is also key in sustaining the results and achievements of the ECOC year. Our Creative Győr Strategy is our vote in favour of developing the creative economy. We want to live in a city where creativity and innovation are a part of everyday life, supporting not only our prosperous economy and highly developed industry but also our educational, cultural, social, and art institutions, the daily life of our community, and the future of our children. The most substantial task set down in our strategy is to create an environment of opportunity and empowerment that provides fruitful soil for creation and attracts actors of creative economy through its structure, services, and community attitude. This, in turn, will result in cultural fermentation and prosperous tourism, generating a sustained development trajectory spanning several decades in a relatively new field. In order to reach our long-term goals, four pillars of action have been identified. GYŐR

10 MIDDLE-CLASS PARTICIPATION Strengthening the ideal of a responsible, proactive middle class receptive to the world, ready to act for itself and for the entire community, so that the population of Győr may embrace its values. Improving art appreciation Talent development Community participation and social awareness improvement COMMUNITY Expanding the scope and forums of communication among the citizenry, of thinking and acting together in order to harness community and institutional creativity as a resource in the service of social, economic, human, and urban development. Developing and extending the scope and infrastructural support of community events and encounters Extending the platforms and openings improving community participation, internal motivation, and personal competences. CREATIVITY Creating and broadening spaces and frameworks for art and creative economy in order to realize a synergy and interaction between art, economic reorientation, and innovation. Creativity in economic production of values Extending the opportunities inherent in design industry Establishing a favourable ecosystem for start-ups RADIANCE Making visible the treasures and values of Győr and developing institutional, regional, and international connections in order that artists and creative entrepreneurs may consider the city as a node or venue to implement their joint projects. Strengthening the international and online presence of Győr s cultural, social, and architectural assets Intensifying the participation of Győr s cultural and creative economic actors in international co-operations The execution of the above tasks, as well as the harmonization of the art courses offered by the Széchenyi István University with the implementation of the ECOC 2023 programmes will significantly expand our capacity and community demand for keeping the cultural outcomes of the ECOC year, including all investments, services, and events. Moreover, these efforts will help us preserve and further develop our achievements with the help of the emerging generations growing up with these new opportunities. How is the European Capital of Culture action included in this strategy? The first-round bid book submitted to the European Capital of Culture 2023 call for proposal was the fundamental document upon which the Creative Győr Strategy was formulated. Thus, although the original call did not demand this, our ECOC tender had already been envisaged with a strategic attitude, thus serving as the founding document of the Creative Győr Strategy, which elaborates on the Flow conception and the system and content of the Way, City, and Dialogue programme packages, defining the relation between the two documents as follows. The preservation of the outcomes of the ECOC year as well as the preparation for the same are boosted by the Creative Győr Strategy in the following ways. It strengthens the visibility of Győr s cultural values and creative resources, that is, the radiance of the city, further expanding our collaborative network, which already shows substantial complexity at present, also to be deepened and intensified in the years to come. The ECOC year and the preparatory period abounds in preliminary processes linking the citizens in joint brainstorming and community actions in order to prepare the population of Győr for the demands and challenges of community planning and implementation. The youth of Győr will be encouraged to share their creative ideas, with professional support provided for the execution of the initiatives based on those proposals. 8 GYŐR 2023

11 If your city is awarded the title of European Capital of Culture, what do you think would be the long-term cultural, social and economic impact on the city (including in terms of urban development)? The ECOC title would enable us to align our existing assets with a most excellent vision for the future, whose attainment would forge and harden a true community in Győr. We need the exhilarating power of culture to mobilize our economic resources for a shared long-term goal, with culture enhancing the emotional well-being of the community. Rather than mere economic benefits, this title would provide us with social, cultural, and urban development opportunities, indirectly feeding back into the economy as well. The economic actors supporting our bid deem it most important to find sufficient workforce for their expansive developments. They need a city good to live in; though Győr is such a city, the competition is fierce. We not only need to create outstanding residence, education, and social opportunities but also offer something extra. A common purpose whose achievement takes an effort from us all as a community, for which we can work together. A purpose that unites those that have lived here for a long time with those who count as newcomers; guests with hosts; and all of us with Europe. In the early 2000s, Győr was one of Hungary s foremost industrial towns, with fine cultural options to serve its population, outstanding sporting achievements, and large-scale development plans. We said that the future was being forged in Győr that ours was a city of innovation, technology, and culture. To all this, we can now add, We are the flow! The very preparation for our ECOC bid has already catalysed the development processes in culture and tourism. Winning the title would be an unprecedented opportunity for Győr to formulate and declare its courage in the field of culture and to enjoy the success of all propositions it has managed to realize. We can establish new creative scenes in reality and constructive European forums in virtual space. As a result, we can generate community experiences that connect the citizens of Győr. We can draw the attention of the cultural and creative sectors from the most diverse regions of Europe, offering them a platform to realize their initiatives together with us, here in Győr. Our programmes will not only attract the continent s cultural forces but also inspire the up-and-coming generations to think creatively and to participate actively. Their future attitudes will determine the way Győr s cultural life will unfold. A successful ECOC year may boost our progress for several decades; the confidence we gain from it may shape our cultural vision and community spirit when planning the future. The touristic branch is seeking new, interesting, and topical places so-called second cities behind and beyond the capital of a given country. There are smaller European cities and towns whose varied cultural range allows them to line up as potential candidates. In addition to classic destinations, there are emergent cities that may surprise the market with their touristic innovations. A traveller does not focus on received landmarks alone; a traveller is curious, eager to discover new things. Tourism is increasingly present in cyberspace, while its future promises to bring a predominance of emotional influences, innovative and surprising proposals, and exceptional offers. The ECOC year would be an extraordinary chance for Győr, located between three capitals (Budapest, Vienna, and Bratislava), to emerge as a long-term second city on the touristic maps of the future, making a thoroughly prepared and exciting proposition. Although the title is dedicated for one calendar year only, the preparatory period would allow us to learn from those who have gone before us Linz, for instance and get ready to preserve and even develop the outcomes we hope to have realized. GYŐR

12 Describe your plans for monitoring and evaluating the impact of the title on your city and for disseminating the results of the evaluation. In particular, the following questions could be considered: Who will carry out the evaluation? Will concrete objectives and milestones between the designation and the year of the title be included in your evaluation plan? What baseline studies or surveys - if any - will you intend to use? What sort of information will you track and monitor? How will you define success? Over what time frame and how regularly will the evaluation be carried out? We take it as acknowledgement of our efforts in tourism and culture that Győr, singularly among the Hungarian ECOC candidate cities, made it to the European Commission list of 168 European cities, the so-called Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor (CCCM), whose survey published in the summer of 2017 was hugely inspirational during the preparation of our firstround bid book. Analysing the shortcomings as formulated in that document, we coordinated our development plans with the ECOC tender as well as the newly introduced Creative Győr Strategy, which will define our cultural and creative economy investment scheme in the years to come, regardless of the outcome of the ECOC competition. In following up on the progress of our ECOC programme, we will pay special attention to the biennial CCCM analyses. The ultimate and chief monitors of our programme will be none other than the analytics and reports published by CCCM. Our objective is for the programmes of the ECOC project and the measures laid down in the Creative Győr Strategy jointly to encourage and stimulate creative economies in the long run, as well as to intensify the city s cultural presence. Continuous evaluation will run parallel with the implementation process. In finalizing our own measurement system operative between the title selection and the ECOC object year, we will strive to harmonize it with the CCCM analytical framework. The scheduling of the ECOC milestones will adapt to the biennial monitoring period, but our own measurements will provide uninterrupted feedback on our achievements and progress, which we will publish both on our own forums and on the online platform provided by CCCM. In order most smoothly to coordinate the two monitoring systems, we have consulted Valentina Montalto, an expert of Cultural and Creative Cities, who contributed to the elaboration of the CCCM system as a member of the European Commission s relevant research centre. At the end of November, she will visit Győr in order to participate in a two-day professional orientation. Major factors in the evaluation: Cultural outreach and participation Cultural stimulation / fizz (transnational co-operation), creator-friendly environment (capacity development for the cultural branch), sustainability Image and perception (international presentation of the city and region through media and culture) Impact on the economy (especially: creative economy, tourism index figures, employment data, analysis of industries related to the creative economy and overall economic figures) Operation / management and its impact on the environment (analysis of the attainment of mid and long-term objectives) 10 GYŐR 2023

13 The multi-level evaluation procedure is independent so as to ensure the availability of exact data for the implementers as well as the Commission at all time. The biennial reports are published by the Evaluation Panel, monitoring the entire implementation process. The Evaluation Panel reports its findings directly to the Strategic Panel. Each year, the Evaluation Panel will also present its findings regarding the direct and indirect results of the project to an independent International Evaluators Circle, which will assess the current reports and make further recommendations on the basis of its own professional experiences. Evaluation Panel: a committee of 3 to 5 members, who constantly monitor the project and publish their reports according to the above. Members: Local Government delegate; delegate of the educational and social sector; delegate of the economic actors participating in sponsorship; independent experts carrying out analytics necessary for the preparation of the report. International Evaluators Circle: a panel of three members related to ECOC cities, who have participated or will participate in organizing ECOC projects. Two members will have gained experiences in past ECOC projects; one member is related to an ECOC project after The biannual report made by the Evaluation Panel will primarily focus on the factors detailed above, collecting data independently (number of arts students, number of new arts courses data required from universities; vacancies available to cultural experts Government Bureau; increase in attendance and programme standards data required from cultural institutions complemented by independent research, analysis, contentment figures, professional awards and feedback). In the process of evaluation, we will collate the 29 indexes of CCCM, which objectively presents the course the city is taking at any one time. Our own monitoring system, which will be independent of CCCM but adopt its assessment criteria, we will have an opportunity to compare our findings with those of the European Commission every two years. Not only will our figures thus obtain an objective external confirmation or fine tuning option, but we will also be able to use the same parameters to measure our achievements and project outcomes on the basis of the CCCM system even after the conclusion of the ECOC year, as long as Győr s achievements warrant the city s presence on the CCCM list. In addition to the ongoing evaluation of the city s cultural and creative life, we will be paying separate attention to the assets of implementation based on co-operation, as well as to the population s level of preparation for the ECOC year. Thus, the implementation of the project will be fully transparent and traceable, yielding objective results regarding how well our definite goals have been attained. We define success as the collective implementation of the programme elements within the programme structure actively involving Győr s population as well as the population of Europe, thus taking the message of the flow to the whole continent. This is also our express objective. Major milestones and targets: The years 2019, 2021, 2023, and even 2025 can be considered milestones. In these years, the findings of the evaluation framework will be compared with the outcomes of the independent CCCM analytics, aiming to trace the cultural and creative industrial development of the city Years of Győr City Jubilee Year. A whole-year event series will celebrate the fact that Győr earned the title of free royal city in Our aims include testing the city s capacity for major programme implementation Local identity, community co-operation, volunteering development, focusing on experimental test results within the population of Győr. Our main goal is to survey the progress of preparing the population for the ECOC year. GYŐR

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15 2. European Dimension Elaborate on the scope and quality of the activities: Promoting the cultural diversity of Europe, intercultural dialogue and greater mutual understanding between European citizens; Highlighting the common aspects of European cultures, heritage and history, as well as European integration and current European themes; Győr bids to host the ECOC 2023 programme in the sizzling geographic and political buffer zone of a wide variety of European visions. It is in our basic interest to unfold the theme of Flow in seeking solutions for deepening and expanding European integration. We consider openness to be the minimum sufficient condition for dialogue. Győr is an example of the fruitful dialogue between European cultures and religions. The Festival of Five Churches epitomizes how our architectural heritage may be utilised respectfully and yet in a future-oriented way. In recognition of this, the European Festivals Association awarded it with the first EFFE Laureateship ever given to a Hungarian festival, entering it among the 26 most prestigious European art festivals. Győr has thus demonstrated that the dialogue in culture is an opportunity for identity formation and urban development. The heritage of the street of five churches is no less than an imprint of Judeo-Christian culture, whose recognition through the festival has made us sufficiently receptive to discuss the ways to learn about the cultures of others. The festival forums for the dialogue between religions are no longer limited to Christianity and Judaism. It is Győr s duty to speak out about its own experiences at the crossroads of European routes and to initiate a discourse on the history of European flows. In the Refugees and Settlers programme batch, we share the lessons we have learnt on the one hand, while on the other, we invite artists with similar experiences to formulate the flows passing through us by presenting their own stories by artistic means. By highlighting the parallels between the two narratives and resolving apparent contradictions, we will generate community platforms where the sum total of our shared knowledge may lead to consensus and reconciliation. Featuring European artists, cooperation with operators and cities in different countries, and transnational partnerships. Name some European and international artists, operators and cities with which cooperation is envisaged and specify the type of exchanges in question. Name the transnational partnerships your city has already established or plans to establish. Our international partners are primarily the partners in our artistic programme. The relevant institutions are thematically invited to individual programmes; the European libraries and archives where King Mathias s Corvina codices are preserved, for instance, are partners for our Way of the Corvinas programme. All partner institutions are experts in the given field and have gained full international partnership experiences in implementing similar programmes, such as our Danube Project. The European art ensembles invited by our art institutions are either individual partner organizations, such as those elaborating the thematic way dedicated to the career of conductor János Richter with the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra, or international umbrella associations comprising several organizations that provide the basis for an entire programme scene, such as YOUROPE The European Festival Association, the strategic partner of the Festival Inn. GYŐR

16 The list of the partners currently published in the following chapter on Cultural and Artistic Content is, as yet, not final; especially not in terms of the artists to appear in In selecting them, we will rely on the recommendations and networks of our chief international advisor, our artistic advisors, and our professional mentors (for further detail, see the chapter below). The orientation of our artistic programme for 2023, however, is guaranteed by the following charismatic artists, already in full support of our bid: Sasha Waltz, dancer and choreographer, founding director of the Sasha Waltz & Guests ensemble named Cultural Ambassador of the European Union. In 2019, she will be appointed artistic director of Staatsballett Berlin. Her artistic programme is centred on the dialogue between cultures and divergent artistic genres. Fetsum Sebhat, singer, song-writer from Eritrea, living in Berlin, founder of PXP Embassy and PXP Festival. His charity actions against war, violence, and extreme poverty help millions of children worldwide. Transe Express Company, the French street theatre company founded by dancerchoreographer Brigitte Burdin and sculptor Gilles Rhode in 1982, currently has 110 performers and a 25-member tech crew. They have performed at such large-scale events as the opening ceremonies of the Albertville Winter Olympics or the Val d Isère Ski World Cup. In addition to the partners for each particular programme, we also count on further outreach via our twin cities (Erfurt, Kuopio, Sindelfingen, Colmar, Brasov, Nazareth-Illit, Nizhny Novgorod, Wuhan, Poznań, and Ingolstadt), with particular regard to the citizens and artistic actors of Ingolstadt and Erfurt. At the time of submitting our bid book and in implementing our programmes, we count on Linz, ECOC in 2009, as a professional mentor and prime partner. Linz provides a crucial example for us in view of how an industrial city can reposition itself step by step, so that it can remain an eminently appealing cultural and touristic destination in the long run after the conclusion of the ECOC year. Linz and Győr are connected by the Danube, by the Baroque, by our industrial past, and soon we hope by a prospective formal agreement of twin-city partnership. Can you explain your strategy to attract the interest of a broad European and international public? The Thematic pathways criss-crossing entire Europe, which we intend to inaugurate from as early as the first preparatory years, are prime programme elements both as a part of our Flow theme and as a strategy to raise international awareness for our projects. The divergent routes will lead travellers to Győr, drawing attention to the programmes of 2023 and the connections between various cities and Győr. The outdoor installations set up at different points in Europe (whose form and placement are specified in our programme), our mobile apps, and our mobile exhibitions, are also invitations at the same time. Complementing the Thematic pathways and individual international events, in order to promote the ECOC Győr project, we will create artistic action teams. Our touring mini projects following an annual schedule, building on the lessons learnt from the previous year, and preparing the next, will be selected in a competitive tender from programme elements suggested by young creative artists in Győr. The routes, planned for a span of one to three weeks and four to eight stops, will feature groups of three to five persons, who will give several shorter performances each day at every venue. These productions, staged in public places or at alternative venues, will occasionally overlap with the programmes of the Thematic pathways as well as strengthen Győr s presence and ECOC promotion in our twin cities or at the events of our partners. On the road, the action teams will seek to build lively connections with the locals interested in the 14 GYŐR 2023

17 ECOC project and to gain an overview of the cultural life of the cities and towns they visit. They will share their experiences even before their return to Hungary on various online platforms. Along with the Thematic pathways and the travelling action teams, we will also prepare installation units. These columns, installed with digital screens, will be placed periodically at diverse sites in Europe, to serve as an information node for the ECOC programmes of Győr. Through these personal but objective and up-to-date information spots, we will attempt to reach out to the broadest possible public via state-of-the-art digital technology. We also count on raising the interest of the international public and the active participation of Győr s companies and cultural groups through co-ordinated and planned campaigns. Their guest performances and international tours will provide outstanding opportunities to advertise our programmes for 2023 in the widest available European reach. Our ECOC year 2023 will also build on civil engagement. Through establishing personal links, we seek to host our European guests in as broad a circle as possible. After all, the citizens of Győr are famous for travelling a lot. To what extent do you plan to develop links between your cultural programme and the cultural programme of other cities holding the European Capital of Culture title? We strive to establish realistic partnerships with former and future ECOCs in implementing actual programmes. The Danube Programme involves a collaboration with organizers from Linz as well as Novi Sad. With the city of Galway, we share the heritage of the Weeping or Irish Madonna icon, which is the heart of a separate programme. Rijeka and Győr s university exchange connections enable partnership, while Valletta and Linz have also offered to help with organizing our Baroque-related programmes. Leeuwarden s experiences will be vital for certain units in our Garden programme and in community building at large. From next year on, we are proposing an intensive exchange with Matera, in order to familiarize ourselves with their history of the flow. One cannot overstress the fact that the ECOC programme is an opportunity where consecutive countries and cities pass the title on to one another, build their cultural programmes on mutual familiarity, and share their organization experiences with each other. A major element in our monitoring system is to request that the organizers of previous and prospective ECOCs evaluate the implementation of the Győr programmes together. We hope to build on the past experiences of those who have already managed an ECOC event series, while we can pass forward our own emerging know-how to future ECOCs. In order to express this idea, we intend to host shared opening and closing ceremonies with the ECOCs before and after us, whose details await joint elaboration. For this very reason, our plan for the ECOC year excludes these events for the time being. The ECOCs of 2022, Kaunas, Lithuania, and Esch, Luxembourg, are relatively distant from us, but the virtual space enables us to link to their closing celebrations. With the ECOCs in Estonia and Austria, 2024, we can make similar arrangements once the bid for the 2023/2024 period has been resolved. Through both of our twin city Wuhan, we already have several cultural links to St. Pölten, a prospective candidate for the ECOC title. In case both Győr s and St. Pölten s respective bid wins, we would most gladly stage a shared production involving the River Danube and the two cities ballet companies in passing the title on to our Austrian partners. GYŐR

18 3. Cultural and Artistic Content What is the artistic vision and strategy for the cultural programme of the year? Our artistic programme is rendered into three main programme packages and broken down into further categories in order to enhance the transparency of the structure and each thematic unit. Each programme package includes units for the preparatory years to establish the preconditions of a successful ECOC 2023 year. We have not modified the structure and thematic system developed for the first round of the bidding process. WAY (A K) CITY (L P) DIALOGUE (Q W) WAY (A K): For the thematic unit of the WAY, all processes are listed as flow which have played a significant role in shaping the modern history of Europe and, at the same time, affected, and continue possibly to affect, the city of Győr due to its location along the waterways or mainland routes of commerce. The WAY programme package aims to present the European routes crossing Győr and to summarise our experience gained through following these. These ways, crucial for us, start from various points in Europe and can be walked in physical as well as virtual space. We trust they will lead the guests of our European Capital of Culture year 2023 to us, too. The backbone of this package, the so-called Thematic Ways are the best representation of the theme of flow. This way, one can observe and familiarise oneself with the reality of such historic processes which have influenced the development of Győr and the entire region down to the present day. Ways as channels indicate the flow of divergent information and knowledge evocatively, presenting a rich experience as a tourist attraction. From their texture, we plan to create a network encompassing the entire continent, providing our ECOC project with a spatially and temporally structured composition. CITY (L P): The CITY programme package aims to awaken the slumbering creative energies of Győr. Győr badly needs the younger generation s future vision for urban revival, so that the power harnessed by the economy and the perseverance leading to victories in sport may also help us exploit the forces of the imagination and create a lively cultural scene. The youth of Győr, on the other hand, need support and attention in order to be able to mobilise their creative energies for the benefit of the city. The CITY programme package aims to foster fruitful discussions and thinking together through such creative forums, missions, and opportunities which can mobilise all age groups in the city but address the youth in particular. This programme package will channel the creative potential inherent in urban culture, urban development, and urban youth, creating openings for an ever higher quality and ever more variegated reception of culture, the establishment of new artistic workshops, and the strengthening of the Győr-based identity of creative artists. DIALOGUE (Q W): All discourse in whichever area of European culture provides opportunities for us to learn to know one another s culture and thus come closer to understanding our shared European culture. After all, dialogue (whether addressing the European modes of tile-stove decoration or the current state of contemporary dance) is the pure flow of knowledge and information. The DIALOGUE programme package will generate discussions and debates in the year 2023, in various branches of the arts and in culture in general, establishing frameworks and forums. In the years leading up to 2023, on the other hand, dialogue will be key in preparing the implementation of the European Capital of Culture programme in Győr, involving such socialising processes which primarily encourage the local creative sector, the artists of Győr, and, by extension, everyone from all peer groups, actively to participate in the programme. 16 GYŐR 2023

19 The issue of the flow kept us positively busy not only during the selection of the programmes but also when we elaborated the strategy of their implementation. That strategy rests on two main pillars: (1) the positive psychology of Hungarian professor Mihály Csíkszentmihályi s FLOW as an attitude to the project realization; and (2) the dialogue initiated with each partner, organically linked to the theme of the project, helping continuously to monitor the dynamic evolution of all future co-operations based on this dialogue. Philosophy: According to Csíkszentmihályi s definition, the flow experience is a state of mental operations where one is totally immersed in what one is doing, filled with joy, completely losing oneself in one s activity and desiring to continue at all costs, as soon as possible. A sure sign of the flow experience is our instinctive, overwhelming happiness while solving a task, as though we were a part of a flow, floating together with the task towards its successful solution that gives immense satisfaction. When developing each unit in our programme structure, we have always aimed to help our audience reach the flow experience through making them active participants in every process. Partnership: The experiences we have gained since the first round of the bidding process have convinced us to add a second element to the implementation of the project, emerging directly from the spirit of our thematic framework. If we consider the entire process as a shared flow experience, we must accept and harness the physical laws of how water flows: though obstacles in the way of the stream may partly alter the direction of the flow, this will not substantially affect the actual movement of the water. Describe the structure of the cultural programme, including the range and diversity of the activities/main events that will mark the year. For each one, please supply the following information: date and place / project partners / financing. (Date and place / project partners / financing are optional at pre-selection stage) Our programme structure is synonymous with the flow; hence, it is not statically rigid but flexibly organized. First, it is receptive: it desires to empower those creators and creative communities that are open to our invitation. Second, it is extraverted: we wish to show the future-oriented potentials and values of our city to the entire continent with no restriction. Every programme we have selected serves the above objectives since even the best idea should not conflict with the conceptual framework. This mix of receptiveness and extraversion in the final implementation will also characterize our programmes spanning the Carpathian Basin, since regional influences flowing from the successful programme series may operate like many famous fairs or marketplaces in the Middle Ages, from which adventurers from afar might return with an unexpectedly rich bounty of rare treasures. The dynamic complex of reception and extraversion is none other than the flow itself. The programme diagram on pages serves to present the structural overview of our cultural programme. The budget as well as schedule for each programme batch is printed separately, on page 59. In the programme description, we have highlighted those partners with whom we have already entered into a valid co-operation agreement for the particular programme at the time of finalizing the bid proposal. With all other partners mentioned, we have made contact and are continuously striving to involve further partners to corroborate our programme for In selecting partners and deepening partnerships, we have applied the principles set out above. GYŐR

20 PROGRAMME PACKAGES PROGRAMME BATCH EXHIBITION HISTORICAL SCIENTIFIC ARTISTIC Street Travelling Indoor Street Travelling Indoor Street Travelling Indoor Street Travelling CULTURAL Indoor Street Travelling ARTISTIC Indoor FESTIVAL MUSICAL THEATRICAL Street Travelling Indoor Street Travelling Indoor Street Travelling MIXED Indoor Street Travelling SPORTS Indoor Axis of Commerce A Axis of Guilds B WAY THEMATIC WAYS Axis of Waterways Way of Christianity C D 1 1 Railway Line E Way of Musicians Way of the Corvinas Ways of Refugees and Settlers F G H CITY Danube Projects I Garden Programme On the Way Street Festival J 1 5 Who lives in the city? L 1 Signs in the City M 2 3 City Workshop K N Let It Be Your Place O Day of the City P Dialogue on the Baroque Q Dialogue on Dance R DIALOGUE Dialogue on Music S Dialogue of Generations Dialogue of Religions Dialogue in Creative Art T U V Festival Inn W PRECEDING YEARS PRECEDING YEAR + ECC YEAR ECOC YEAR 18 GYŐR 2023

21 TRAVELLING PROJECT CONFERENCE APPLICATION TO GYŐR FROM GYŐR DOMESTIC INTERNATIONAL Road Railway Waterway Pedestrian Other Road Railway Waterway Pedestrian Other International Artistic Sc i e n t i fi c Architectural Urban Educational Other Cultural Artistic Sc i e n t i fi c Other Sport Cultural Artistic Sc i e n t i fi c Other Sport SPORTS Competitive For all Performance Other MISCELLANEOUS PRECEDING YEARS PRECEDING YEAR + ECC YEAR ECC YEAR GYŐR

22 A K WAY PROGRAMME PACKAGE (A K) TYPES OF THEMATIC PATHWAYS: Impact (for each Thematic Pathway): European Venue (for each Thematic Pathway): entire Europe, routes specified in the individual programme units, and Győr Our pathways encompassing entire Europe not only provide the best opportunity to demonstrate the theme of flow but also give us a chance to focus worldwide attention on Győr during the years leading up to 2023, with special regard to the concluding summary events of each thematic pathway. Every one of the selected thematic ways enables us to address the European aspects of the flow and thus highlight its continent-shaping role and future-oriented significance. In every case, Győr s geographical location and its ensuing historical specificities will be used to initiate discourses. In developing the individual programme units of the Thematic Pathways, we apply the following forms of implementation so as to transcend the framework of passive observation and to encourage the active experience of the flow. The emotional bridges that will thus emerge between Győr and the artistic and scientific actors as well as ordinary inhabitants of the cities involved in the programme will function as active marketing tools in Far importantly, however, they will make those processes shaping the destiny of our continent more comprehensible through which we have always unavoidably affected one another s lives. Flow Exhibitions: The structural fundament of our travelling historical exhibitions is the flow itself: the way in which a brook gradually grows, collects water from an expansive drainage area, bringing along whatever the local landscape may offer. The collectible treasures add up and create a higher value, just like the confluence of streamlets meandering round the trees of the forest, eventually growing into rivers carrying ships and moving power plants. Not every exhibition starts from, or arrives in, Győr, but all of them move through the city and the exhibition material expands incrementally through units representing the given theme in each city it visits. (The projected stops on each route are detailed under the programme batch heading.) The venues for these wandering exhibitions are exhibition halls provided by our European partners, respective Balassi Institutes, and Hungarian Institutes of Culture. Every opening ceremony during the years leading up to 2023 is also an excellent opportunity for us to talk about the project of ECOC Győr 2023 in the prominent public spaces of the cities we visit. The European route of the grey cattle bred on the vast pastures of the Hortobágy to German slaughterhouses did not begin in, but passed through Győr, so the thematically related exhibition would be launched from Debrecen, building on professional help from experts in Debrecen and Hortobágy. What starts as a presentation of the breed and its evolution will grow through the addition of documents from the archives of Vác attesting the customs regimes regulating the movement of cattle, through records of the transgressions of the Hungarian Haiduks in Vienna, through relics of Czardas culture, the German and Austrian depictions of the infamous Hungarian czardas, culminating in a summary exhibition in Nuremberg, the banks of the Pegnitz. The thematic exhibition dedicated to the life and achievement of János (Hans) Richter will start from his native Győr and present the major European stops along this internationally renowned conductor s career, growing through the data and relics provided by each host town s 20 GYŐR 2023

23 museum experts, archivists, musicians, and musicologists. In 2023, the entire collection will return to Győr. On the one hand, it will be the core of a permanent exhibition to be installed here; on the other, it will serve as a prime event during the ECOC year, presenting the complete documentation to the citizens of Győr and all visitors and professional musicians alike. Group Projects in Visual Art: The point of the simultaneous art projects at various stops along each pathway is to focus creative reflections upon the given theme while harnessing the potential in travelling and the flow in communicating the artists messages to as broad a geographically defined audience as possible, bearing in mind that these European communities, just like the people in Győr, live at a node along the flow in question. The European artists we commission will be invited to use each model of grey cattle cast from synthetic resin and placed along the Debrecen Nuremberg axis of commerce as 3D canvases and paint their ideas onto them. Together, these artworks will only be available in virtual space and as a side event of the scientific conference on this trade axis to be hosted in Győr, In each case, the target is precisely to enable the artists to take their own individual route from a shared point of departure, building on free associations when preparing their object and on their very own notions and experiences in providing answers to the same question. The sum of the emerging viewpoints will result in a shared European conclusion without limiting the creative freedom of the artists involved. In the summer and autumn of 1944, the carriages destined for the labour and extermination camps of Europe passed through the very same railway station in Győr where we now intend to welcome the guests of the European Capital of Culture There are plenty of similar stations throughout Europe. After countless historical exhibitions presenting these heinous crimes, we now propose to commemorate the events through art, paying attention to those, too, who witnessed these marches to death because they lived along these roads to destruction. The accumulation and completion of these exhibitions always happens in virtual space. On the one hand, this enables those who do not have a chance to see every or even any artwork on site also to join the artistic experience; on the other, the virtual, all-european show places all creations in a new context. Europe itself will serve as a classical museum exhibition hall for the curators. The artworks placed in the public spaces of European cities will gain new layers of signification, extending beyond the artist s gesture and into the curatorial vision. The emergent interactions will not be available in full even to those who visit the summary exhibitions in Győr, These European messages can only converge in virtual space; first, through their on-site documentation by local photographers; second, through simultaneous webcasts via the internet. Travelling Artistic Projects: The unusual exhibitions created by individual artists (or groups of artists) aim to move along each thematic pathway and to communicate the creative associations reflecting on the given theme to the inhabitants of the cities involved in a certain issue, thus strengthening their shared European identity. An example is expert project manager Zoltan Kunckel s and Kálmán Pál s joint project in the Refugees and Settlers programme batch, commenting on the 1989 opening of the Hegyeshalom border crossing and, indirectly, to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. The exhibition will travel in a Wartburg touring car and follow the day-to-day events in It will depart from the courtyard of the Holy Family parish church in Zugliget, Budapest, where Csilla Boeselager and P. Imre Kozma opened the refugee camp that supported up to 30,000 Germans that summer and later led to the emergence of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta. The automobile will arrive in Sopron on August 19 and move on to reach the GYŐR

24 destination, Berlin, on November 9, 2023, the anniversary of the final collapse of the Berlin Wall, whose first brick, according to former German Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl, was knocked out by the Hungarians. Apps for Wanderers: Applications accompany walkers and, perhaps, cyclers along the predefined routes as expert companions. Yet, it is not a wide-ranging tourist information service that is at the heart of this programme component; rather, it offers relevant audible feedback along the pathway: personal recollections and historically informed literary adaptations pertaining to each theme. Tourists walking along the Journeymen s pathway can listen to diary adaptations and original letters; those following in the footsteps of Kind Ladislaus to the legends of the Knight- King; those interested in the destiny of Refugees and Settlers to the memoires of Hungarians driven out of present-day Southern Slovakia, fleeing from persecution via Csallóköz / Žitný ostrov and Szigetköz. The apps can be opened from one s couch, of course, but a full experience presupposes active participation. The involvement in meeting the physical challenge posed by walking the pathway in question gives one the feeling of a pilgrimage of sorts, a personal tribute to refugees or wanderers of yore. The texts will be selected on the basis of historical authenticity and literary quality. During the preparatory phase, we will not only research available literary remains but also encourage contemporary authors and translators actively to participates, possibly adding 21st-century stories to our stocks, such as for the international call for submissions regarding the Refugees and Settlers programme batch. Exhibitions for Travellers: For those arriving by train, boat, coach, plane, or car, we will install mini-exhibitions on the vehicles, at the airports, and at petrol stations, with primary focus on short historical overviews reaching out to the broadest possible audience during the idle hours of travelling. No artworks or expensive exhibits will be on display here; surprising reproductive technologies (sticker posters in railway carriages, cardboard installations on tourist boats and at petrol stations) will be used to create a number of parallel exhibitions. The purpose is to raise interest and to point towards more advanced shows and events with the help of related online surfaces and programme proposals. As elsewhere, the main idea here is once again to establish an emotional link between yesterday s and today s travellers, focusing on the pathways they share. Scientific Conferences and Summary Exhibitions in Győr: A precondition for the thematic pathways to be launched during the preparatory years leading up to 2023 is to establish new European professional exchange frameworks and to develop the existing ones. The ECOC brand is a suitable attractor for us to request that our European partners contribute to the local research into the thematic areas we suggest. Each field of interest exemplifies various European flows through Győr, but while this helps us deal with our own histories, it also has a global importance since each story of Győr is, due to the European flow, a shared story as well. As a summary event of joint professional enterprise, we invite our partners to a discussion of the information and experience gathered. They may also see our common exhibitions in their entirety for the first time since the Flow exhibitions will arrive in Győr in 2023 after years of constant growth and enrichment. Some conferences and scholarly exhibitions will coincide with supplementary art exhibitions; the grey cattle of the visual arts group project will, for instance, return to Győr in 2023 and invade the inner city simultaneously with the same-theme conferences. The open-air show will draw attention to the scientific programmes as well. 22 GYŐR 2023

25 PROGRAMME DESCRIPTION OF THE THEMATIC PATHWAYS: DEBRECEN NUREMBERG AXIS OF COMMERCE (A/1) To the Memory of Balázs Gergő Gecse (Debrecen, Pest-Buda, Vác, Győr, Vienna, Bratislava, Salzburg, Regensburg, Erfurt, Augsburg, Nuremberg) Partners: Museum of the Hajdúság Region Hortobágy National Park Hungarian Grey Cattle Breeders Association Hungarian National Museum Fränkisches Freilandmuseum des Bezirk Mittelfranken in Bad Windsheim The Austrian Open-Air Museum Stuebing near Graz Gastronomy Museum Prague Professional mentor: Dr. Zsolt Sári Our large-scale flow exhibition symbolically represents the erstwhile adventures of Hungarian cuisine all over Europe, focusing on but one product, the Hungarian grey cattle. Our research inevitably lashes out towards the European routes of other products and technologies, which will all serve as supplements to the main theme, while grain trade will feature in the block dedicated to the Navigation axis. Preparing this exhibition, we will take the broadest possible view of related threads in cultural history. We will present the history of the czardas near Vienna, hosting the moneyed drovers expelled from the capital because of their rowdiness; the dance of the Hungarian Haiduks so oddly sublime to European eyes; and the drovers kuvasz dogs envied for their courage, whose dauntlessness survives in the genetic stock of Abruzzan and Pyrenean mountain dogs. We will survey the Hungarian trades based on the meat, skin, bones, and horn of the grey cattle and the history of the breed, the adventurous survival of the stocks hidden in the middle of the Hortobágy plains, allowing the renewed European and international success today of steadily growing supplies of grey cattle. Along with this travelling exhibition entailing countless curiosities of cultural history, summer 2023 will see the launch of an international artistic project in Europe s public spaces, promoting not only this programme batch but the entire ECOC project. The two exhibitions will reach Győr in early autumn, 2023, to unite with a chamber exhibition selected from various representations of grey cattle from a range of Hungarian museums. Simultaneously, an international conference will be organized with presentations by leading European researchers and museum experts, focusing in part on contemporary meat consumption and the breeding of grey cattle, which is currently gaining new impetus once again. Every evening, the conference participants may enjoy the Haiduk dances and learn to know the products of grey cattle-related artisanship through the programmes of the Győr Festival of Folk and World Music. While finalizing our bid, we received the tragic news that Balázs Gergő Gecse, the last Hungarian wanderer, on his way to Normandy, having passed Slovenia and Italy, was hit by a car in France while walking by the side of his coach drawn by two Hungarian greys. Our programme presenting the European ways of the Hungarian grey cattle will be dedicated to his memory. PEST-BUDA DRESDEN AXIS OF APPRENTICESHIP (B/1) (Budapest, Győr, Bratislava, Prague, Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Linz, Erfurt) Partners: Fränkisches Freilandmuseum des Bezirk Mittelfranken, Bad Windsheim The Austrian Open-Air Museum, Stuebing Museum of Commerce and Hospitality, Budapest Museum of Sopron National Museum of Anthropology, Budapest Professional mentor: Dr. Zsolt Sári A/1 B/1 GYŐR

26 Journeymen in 17th to 19th-century Europe roamed the continent in all directions in order to gain the maximum possible knowledge. The youth thus gathered technological skills, motifs, new tools, as well as the latest in the current cultural trends of Europe, bringing all these home via Győr. Many objective remains of guild culture in Hungarian museums commemorate European study tours, while written documents preserved in the European museums of industrial history also record Hungarian apprentice visits everywhere on the continent. Uncountable personal stories, journals, family correspondences pay witness to these travels and their impact on the individual, the families involved, and the entire society. In our programme batch, we will focus on these personal stories from the past, presenting them as subjective examples and models for young people today. Every route that a young apprentice in their teens or twenties demonstrably followed can be individual case studies highlighting the importance of, and opportunities provided by, travelling. The travelling exhibitions belonging to this programme batch, whether followed in virtual or in real space, present each story very briefly, almost like personal greeting cards, while the source references enable a deeper study for those interested in further details. The stock of these shows will be presented at historical exhibitions Győr in the city s jubilee year 2021, complete with a domestic conference and municipal and school projects focusing on local heritage. The evocation of guild-related customs is not only an adventurous alternative for those who visit Győr in 2023 but also a fine example for the youth of today as to how to make the most of their knowledge gathered on various study trips once they return to their fatherland. Our objective is to connect the youth of Győr to the real opportunities of European study tours, to help them feel the personal flow experience. As a part of the programme, we will link ongoing educational grants and scholarships with potential participants. The wide-spectrum information database, an integral part of the ECOC project, will search, create, and generate internships with local firms, exchange programmes for high-school pupils, and European scholarships for university students. The operators of the online page and information system will seek to explore already available opportunities as well as to connect partners in Győr and in Europe with the younger generation, developing new models of apprenticeship. The programme will be promoted through such events as the international administrative competition of the Deák Ferenc Secondary School of Economy or the national creative competition of the Szabóky Adolf Trade School, the Hungarian Cultural Festival of Trade Schools, the Night of Trades, or the Festival for Technical Vocations. Dr. Zsolt Sári, mentor of these two programme batches is Deputy Director-General of the Hungarian Open Air Museum, international project leader of CANEPAL: THE EUROPEAN HERITAGE OF SHEEP FARMING AND PASTORAL LIFE, CULT-RURAL Promotion of a Cultural Area Common to European Rural Communities, and ReActive! Grundtvig, member of the Association of European Open-Air Museums (AEOM). His main research areas are lifestyle changes in the 20th century (economic and social anthropology); festive customs and objects; history of gastronomy; dietary culture; comprehensive study of European shepherds culture its traditions and present-day state; exhibitions, publications, and presentations through an international network of researchers. C/1 3 DANUBE MAIN RHINE AXIS OF INLAND NAVIGATION (C/1 3) (Constanța, Belgrade, Budapest, Vienna, Linz, Passau, Regensburg, Ulm) Partners: see partners under the heading of the Danube projects; further partners under selection 24 GYŐR 2023

27 Danube Routes (C/1): The Danube is the central theme of two programme batches. These are separated due to their thematic divergence. Here, under the heading of the inland navigation axis, we consider the ricer as a touristic option and its cultural history in the form of thematic voyages, historical and art exhibitions, and conferences, the Danube projects will encompass our contemporary art actions related to the river and use European partnerships in order to create an opening for the shared flow of free creativity. The goal of our travel recommendations related to the Danube is not merely the promotion of the fact that in 2023, Győr can actually be reached from many European countries by boat. We also want our visitors to have access to such culture historical background materials on their way to our city which will help them understand what role the Danube has played in the history of Győr. To promote this message, we will contact the companies navigating the River Danube and negotiate with them how best to provide such access to the broadest possible public. Danube and Tourism Conference (C/2): The history and significance of navigating the Danube, the possible links to its tributaries, the myriad appearances of waterway tourism, the Danube as the greatest natural channel connecting European cultures, the potential and objectives for the future, environmental protection, water quality, and nature conservation are but a few of the many themes for a Danube-oriented European conference. In 2023, we will create an opening in Győr for experts in these fields to convene. Watermill Project (C/3): In the 19th century, Győr s prosperity rested on the storage and transportation of grain, as well as its processing at mills. Transportation and grinding both harnessed the power of flowing water. The row of ship mills, once a natural part of Győr s cityscape, has now completely disappeared. This project aims to construct a floating watermill a faithful replica of historic ship mills on the outside, but a community space on the inside. The ship, to be completed by 2022, will serve as a mobile advertisement board during the last year leading up to 2023, visiting cities and towns along the Danube. Its interior will function as an information centre for culture and tourism, creating an opportunity for city representation, presentations, exhibitions, and the sale of package tours and entrance tickets. In 2023, anchored in the inner city of Győr, where long ago a row of ship mills had stationed, it will serve similar purposes. Over the years after 2023, the hull will be filled with a reconstruction of the history of mills, turning the vessel into an alternative exhibition space for the city s museum of industrial history, presenting Győr s involvement in grain trade. In the planning phase, the programme managed by the Architectural Atelier of the Széchenyi István University will be launched through a thematic week and scientific presentations. An international tender for university students will help us find the best form for the ship; the participants will later be invited to take part in the construction process as well at a summer workshop. The complex procedure of architectural and water-conservancy planning will also involve a plan to create a self-sustaining ship powered by solar, wind, and water power, extending the project to students of engineering in other faculties of the university as well. THE WAY OF CHRISTIANITY (D/1 2) Saint Ladislaus Way (D/1) (Győr, Székesfehérvár, Veszprém, Tihany, Somogyvár, Vác, Zagreb, Kerlés/Chiraleș, Nagyvárad/Oradea) Partners: Diocese of Győr Diocesan Treasury and Library, Győr Saint Ladislaus Visitors Centre, Győr Saint Ladislaus Visitors Centre, Somogyvár Diocesan Museum, Székesfehérvár Diocese of Oradea, Romania Cathedral of Nitra Cathedral of Zagreb Professional mentor: Tamás Kiss, Director of the Diocesan Library and Treasury of Győr C/1 C/3 C/2 D/1 2 D/1 GYŐR

28 Saint Ladislaus Way (D/1): King Ladislaus of the House of Árpád followed the two most recent trends in culture: he stabilized Western Christianity and established secular chivalric culture in the Carpathian Basin. These most successful mediaeval undertakings are projected onto the geographic routes of Saint Ladislaus Way. An emblematic event in the king s life was the Battle of Kerlés, where he slayed a warrior of the Cumans (Pechenegs). This is a defining episode in the Hungarian cultural memory of the Cumans; our project takes this legend as the beginning of perhaps the most important migratory process in the Middle Ages. The settlement of the Cumans in Hungary and the centuries of their subsequent assimilation may yield a number of major findings for our shared European future if analysed with state-of-the-art methodologies. The regional cult of the Knight-King is also a fine introduction to the international scientific investigation of perhaps the largest and yet scarcely studied migratory phenomenon in the Middle Ages. This theme will be addressed through the conferences on Refugees and Settlers. The cult of Saint Ladislaus will also be discussed at a separate conference during the city s jubilee year 2021, and there will be an exhibition collecting the relics of the Knight-King from Central Europe. These events will focus by and large on the Carpathian Basin, so they will prepare the all-european conferences of 2023 from a technical rather than a conceptual perspective. Similarly, the international theatre programmes staging Europe s mystery plays in church spaces in 2023 will complement the usual cultural festival connected to Saint Ladislaus Days. D/2 The Way of the Weeping Virgin (D/2) (Loughrea, Galway, Inishbofin, Brussels, Vienna, Győr, Dublin, Fahy, Ringelai, Budapest, Debrecen, Pannonhalma, Celldömölk, Hédervár) Partners: Diocese of Győr Diocese of Galway St. Nicholas Church, Galway City Council of Galway Diocese of Clonfert Parish of the St. Brendan Cathedral, Clonfert Diocesan Museum, Clonfert Parish of the Our Lady of Consolation Church, Donnycarney, Dublin Gemeindeverwaltung Ringelai Pfarramt St. Michaelkirche, Ringelai Parish of St. Stephen Church, Toledo, Ohio Professional mentor: Tamás Kiss, Director of the Diocesan Library and Treasury of Győr The Way of the Weeping Virgin (D/2): Catholic Bishop Walter Lynch born in Galway, Ireland, ECOC 2020 spent his last years in the city of Győr. Lynch was forced to flee from his native country in 1652, due to the fact that the English Protestants persecuted the Irish Catholics. He brought with himself an icon with the Virgin Mary praying next to the Infant Jesus. After three turbulent years in Vienna, Lynch met Bishop János Püsky, who invited him to Győr and appointed him canon. After Lynch died, the icon was taken to the cathedral of Győr, where it shed tears of blood during the morning prayer on March 17, 1697, the feast of Ireland s Patron St. Patrick. Ever since, a busy pilgrimage route between Galway and Győr has existed. This story and the living connection between the two dioceses is the basis for the way of the Weeping Virgin, reconstructing the history of the painting and the bishop s escape from Ireland. The open-air exhibition launched in Galway in 2020 will arrive in Győr in 2023, taking exactly the same amount of time as Bishop Lynch once did. Along the way, each stop on its reconstructed route will correspond to the itinerary of the bishop s journey. The installation, reminiscent of a tiny chapel, will include a copy of the icon as well as the story of the three-year exodus and both participant cities. On the outer wall of the installation, the adventurous chronicle of the icon before Galway and after Győr will be presented, along with a number of copies and the circumstances of their imitation. After 2023, the installation will move on to the places where these spin-offs are treasured. Although this intricate story that keeps alive countless human 26 GYŐR 2023

29 connections, communities, and moral lessons is related to but one icon, it ably epitomizes the kind of process which, as an incessant flow of European culture, stands in the heart of our bid and which many other paintings might equally well represent. In 2023, when the exhibition arrives in Győr, an international conference will await the representatives of the present custodians of the icons and their imitations, as well as the spiritual heirs to the heroes of this 17th-century adventure. A large-scale exhibition with original artworks will accompany the event series, including the votary icon itself, whose street advertisement will be the exhibition that has toured Europe itself. NAGYVÁRAD/ORADEA PARIS RAILWAY LINE (E/1) (Nagybánya/Baia Mare, Nagyvárad/Oradea, Debrecen, Budapest, Győr, Vienna, Salzburg, St. Pölten, Zurich, Munich, Paris) Professional partners: under selection Paris was life itself in the early 1900s, attracting and mesmerising the bohemian youth of Europe. Writers, poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, and many other creative minds gathered in Paris, hoping to find in the City of Light whatever may make their art exceptional. Meanwhile, they turned Paris into the wonder that we know today. Returning home from Paris, imbued with the cultural tendencies of Europe, the poets associated with the Nyugat (West) periodical in Budapest aimed to raise the standards of Hungarian literature to the level of English and French writing. At the same time, Hungary s epochal poet Endre Ady and his colleagues founded the Holnap (Tomorrow) literary society in Oradea, the Little Paris on the Banks of the Pece River, and launched their own literary periodical. The young artists returning to the artists colony in Baia Mare, known for its naturalism (Béla Czóbel, Sándor Ziffer, Lajos Tihanyi, Valéria Dénes), began to follow the flamboyant, vibrant painting style of the circle of Henri Matisse in Paris, forming the club of Neo-Impressionists, also known as the Neos. The free Parisian atmosphere spiced entire Europe at the time, turning the fertile artists workshops and cities of a continent on the brink of the Great War into a colourful, lighthearted fairyland. What is this vibrancy? Where does this flow come from and what makes it grow, lifting now one, now another European metropolis to prominence? The stars of Vienna and Munich have long set. The Paris Express runs through them swiftly, throwing these young people full of desire right here. They come to embrace Paris, whose breasts of art are ever young. We will be freer and more developed if we join French culture directly and immediately, Paris correspondent for Magyarország, György Bölöni wrote in It is precisely this energy we are looking for, the secret of a cultural milieu that inspires, receives, and elevates. The summary conclusions of our investigations will not only be presented on the installations placed on the express trains that continue to run towards Paris and the online platforms available on the road, sharing historical curiosities and literary titbits from the period, but also at domestic and international conferences, where scholars and fin de siècle specialists will be invited to discuss literature, art, and culture at large. The primary aim will be to understand this magnetism and to analyse the nature and impacts of the flow through an examination of the historical documents that we recover and present. WAY OF MUSICIANS (F/1 3) János Richter Ferenc Liszt Joseph Haydn (routes under development) E/1 F/1 3 GYŐR

30 Professional partners: Széchenyi István University, Győr University of Sopron Hild József Secondary Technical School of Construction, Győr Pattantyús Ábrahám Géza Industrial Vocational School, Győr Boydell & Brewer Ltd., Suffolk (UK) Hungarian State Opera, Budapest Bayreuther Festspiele, Bayreuth (Germany) Hallé Orchestra, Manchester (UK) London Symphony Orchestra (UK) The way of musicians pay tribute to those great composers and musicians primarily János (Hans) Richter, Ferenc (Franz) Liszt, and Joseph Haydn who lived or worked in the neighbourhood of Győr and set an example for the ideal European artist through their oeuvre. F/1 F/2 János Richter (F/1): A German-speaking native of Győr, Richter received excellent musical training from his parents. Though he completed his studies in Vienna, his début as a conductor took place in Győr, where his international career conquering the major concert halls and operas of Europe was launched. The Győr Philharmonic Orchestra (founded by Antal Richter, János s father) commemorates the namesake of its main concert hall through the above-mentioned Flow exhibition, which will depart from Győr and return, in 2023, with a full documentation of János Richter s triumphs encompassing entire Europe, providing professionals and lay visitors alike with ample experience in the permanent exhibition housed in the new concert hall to be inaugurated in the ECOC year. An international conference in 2023 will complement the programme package, whose participants and performers will include some of the European experts involved in the Flow exhibition. The Győr Philharmonic Orchestra has already contacted the Boydell & Brewer publishers in Suffolk, in order to pursue the Hungarian edition of Christopher Fifield s recent biography Hans Richter. We plan to publish the Hungarian version of this volume in Győr s jubilee year 2021; when the exhibition, fully prepared, would also depart on its tour across the continent. Ferenc Liszt (F/2): Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and music educator, native of Doborján / Raiding, some 100 kms from Győr. One of the all-time greats of piano playing, a celebrated composer of his time, Hungary s first performer idol. His life, attitude, and activity, at once European, modern, and deeply humanistic, are exemplary down to the present day. He was a multiple genius, who was among the first to see entire Europe as one grandiose concert hall. Liszt s contemporaries repeatedly mention two uniquely manufactured touring coaches, which the artist had planned and commissioned in order to travel and practice in the greatest comfort anywhere from Paris to Saint Petersburg. The original sketches for these coaches and their subsequent fate are unknown today. Thus, there are two possible outcomes with this project. If we find the original plans for the vehicles, we will use them to build a horse-drawn carriage; if not, 19th-century vehicles will serve as our models for a practicable design. Liszt s coach will be a multiple symbol on the roads of Europe, visiting the major concert venues once frequented by him. First, it will stand for the travelling virtuoso, who achieved true mobility in Romantic Europe. Second, it will epitomize the dialogue, so crucial in Győr s overall bid, that may strengthen the connections between patronage, industry, and the arts and create new opportunities. The coach will be constructed in collaboration between the students of the Győr and Sopronbased universities, with the active participation of the Hild József Secondary Technical School of Construction and the Pattantyús Ábrahám Géza Industrial Vocational School, supported by the car manufacturing and component production firms located in Győr. 28 GYŐR 2023

31 The installation will be a unique exhibition and advertisement space in the cities of Europe including former and prospective ECOCs and Győr s twin cities. In addition, its built-in digital piano will record and collect the piano playing of the musicians in each city that it visits, bringing it back to Győr for the ECOC 2023 year. Joseph Haydn (F/3): Austrian composer, conductor, opera impresario. After studying music in Hainburg and Vienna, he was employed at the Esterházy Court as a Kapellmeister, serving as the court composer and opera manager to Prince Miklós Esterházy, at whose Eisenstadt and Fertőd-Eszterháza residences he spent most of his life until age 58. His musical Classicism earned him world fame: while he hardly ever left the Esterházy estates, his music conquered entire Europe. The short-range thematic pathway encompassing the Hungarian and Austrian sites of Haydn s life as well as the related concert programmes highlight that it may not be necessary to travel the entire world in its physical reality in order to create something lasting and universal. Haydn gave very few concerts outside of the Esterházy territories, and yet his oeuvre is a monument to freedom and the apotheosis of art. The string-quartet setup that he established is one of the first musical formations that serves no other purpose than the entertainment of the audience and the glorification of musical art for its own sake. Haydn s life is also a classic example for the fruitful relationship between a magnificent patron and an eminent artist. THE WAY OF THE CORVINAS (G/1) Partners: National Széchényi Library, Budapest Library of the Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest ELTE University Library, Budapest Archdiocesan Library, Esztergom Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Florence Biblioteca Estense, Modena Biblioteca Trivulziana, Milan Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples Biblioteca Palatina, Parma Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome Biblioteca Nazionale, Venice Biblioteca Capitolare, Verona Biblioteca Guarnacci, Volterra Stiftsbibliothek Melk Universitätsbibliothek, Salzburg Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna Wien Staatsbibliothek, Berlin Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Dresden Universitätsbibliothek, Erlangen- Nuremberg Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen Universitätsbibliothek, Jena Universitätsbibliothek, Leipzig Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich Stadtbibliothek, Nuremberg Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel Universitätsbibliothek, Würzburg Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Brussels Nacionalna i Sveucilisna Biblioteka, Zagreb Statni Knihovna, Prague Bibliotheque Municipale, Besancon Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris Biblioteka Czartoryskich, Cracow Biblioteka Jagiellonska, Cracow Biblioteka Kopernika, Torun Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, Wroclaw Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial, Madrid Biblioteca National, Madrid Universitetsbibliothek, Uppsala Topkapi Sarayi, Istanbul Trinity College Library, Cambridge British Library, London Chetham s Library, Manchester Bodleian Library, Oxford Holkham Hall, Norfolk Yale University Library, New Haven Public Library, New York Pierpont Morgan Library, New York Professional mentor: Tamás Kiss, Director of the Diocesan Library and Treasury of Győr F/3 G/1 King Mathias Corvinus of Hungary founded his world famous Renaissance library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana in He acquired his first books through his marriage as well as spoils of war, subsequently multiplied by copyists, translators, bookbinders, and buyers directed by Taddeo Ugoletti in Buda Castle. The Corvinian library eventually grew to be one of Europe s GYŐR

32 Stutt New Haven New York Inishbofin Galway Loughrea Dublin Manchester Holkham Hall UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Oxford LONDON Cambridge BRUSSELS PARIS Besançon Fahy San Lorenzo de El Escorial MADRID 30 GYŐR 2023

33 Uppsala LEGEND Debrecen Nuremberg axis of commerce Pest Buda Dresden axis of apprenticeship Duna Main Rhine axis of inland navigation The Way of Christianity Oradea / Baia Mare Paris Railway Line Wolfenbüttel BERLIN Toruń The Way of the Corvinas Göttingen Erfurt Leipzig Dresden Jena Chemnitz Wroclaw Würzburg PRAGUE Cracow gart ZÜRICH Nuremberg Danube Ringelai Regensburg Ulm Augsburg Passau Linz Munich Salzburg VIENNA BRATISLAVA Nagybánya/Baia Mare Esztergom Debrecen Vác Melk Hédervár Sankt Kerlés/Chiraleș Pölten Pannonhalma BUDAPEST Celldömölk Székesfehérvár Nagyvárad/Oradea Veszprém Somogyvár Nitra Tihany Milan Verona Venice ZAGREB Danube Danube Constanța Parma Modena BELGRADE Florence Volterra Istanbul ROME VATICAN Naples GYŐR Valletta / Malta

34 greatest holdings, second in size only to the Apostolic Library in the Vatican. The number of Corvinas in Buda Castle exceeded 2,500; further volumes remained undelivered from Florence upon Mathias death in Brassicanus, the German scholar was one of the last who could behold the entire collection in its entirety a few decades after the king s death. He wrote, I have looked at all the books. But shall I say books? Every book I saw is a treasure. There were more Latin, Greek, and Hebrew volumes which King Mathias had bought for immense amounts of money in the interior of Greece. I saw an invaluable copy of the apostolic canons, the complete exegesis of the Psalm by Theodoretus of Cyrene, the works of Saint John Chrysostom, Athanasius, Cyril, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basilius the Great. I do not even mention the poets, orators, humanists, and historians whose works were heaped up before me. The greatest library of European humanism, the most complete storehouse of contemporary erudition, the most wondrous creation of Renaissance culture in Hungary, some of whose items are still major documents in their respective fields, have been scattered hundredfold all over the world. Those volumes which have survived the turmoil of war, plundering, and robbery as ambassadors gifts or bounties, are precious gems in Europe s most outstanding libraries. The 216 extant Corvinas of the erstwhile 2,500-volume Bibliotheca Corviniana have, since 2005, been registered on the UNESCO s Memory of the World list as a single book collection although its available volumes ornament many a different prime library all over the world. The National Library of Austria holds 39 volumes, another 49 are kept at various Italian libraries. Other owners include French (7), German (8), English, Turkish, and American institutions. Only 53 Corvinas are located in Hungary 50 in the capital, two in Esztergom, and one Flavius Blondus Roma instaurata in Győr. Digitalization provides us with the technology to reunite King Mathias library in virtual space at least. The background of the enormous task of collecting, digitalizing, and unifying the holdings would be established by the ECOC project. We have contacted all libraries and collections that have at least one Corvina, and we already have the declaration of support from those entities that are highlighted on the list: they are ready to contribute to our ambitious project through making available the codices that they own. The Way of the Corvinas exhibition, projected as one of the largest among the Flow exhibitions, will depart from Győr and return here in The digitalized version of the Győr Corvina will be sent on its journey in We hope to take this travelling exhibition to every European city where Corvinas are held, incrementally increasing at every stop, so as to take home King Mathias exceptional library by the ECOC year The virtual material of the exhibition will be complemented by an exhibition of book history evoking Mathias era and library, featuring at least one original Corvina with a number of other possible codices. In addition, we are projecting an interactive virtual space utilizing the latest projection technology, where the visitors may walk among the pages, as it were, and have a first-hand experience of the volumes collected. Simultaneous with the opening of these exhibitions, an international scholarly conference will be hosted, with the participation of the expert representatives of the libraries and collections involved in the process. The virtual Bibliotheca Corviniana, which we hope will be complete by 2023, will be made available worldwide on the web platform of the Diocesan Treasury and Library of Győr, launched in the ECOC year 2023 and operated from the library hall of the permanent exhibition of that host institution. H/1-9 WAYS OF REFUGEES AND SETTLERS (H/1 9) Impact: European Venue: Győr, Sopron, European cities in keeping with the Thematic pathways 32 GYŐR 2023

35 Partners: ERIAC, The European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture, Berlin Stiftung Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, Gedenkstattenportal zu Orten der Erinnerung in Europa, Berlin Lockkunnst e.v, Berlin Trickmisch: das Mobile Sprachlabor, Berlin Toi Toi Toi Program, Berlin Dafa Puppet theatre, Prague Divadlo Continuo, Malovice Hazaart, Prague Divadlo Poton, Slovakia Moment, Maribor Teatro Matita, Slovenia Indefinite Articles, UK Babu Association, Miercurea Ciuc Maazen Muna, Vienna Nicola Bremer, Dresden Marek Turosik, Slovakia Zeina Qanavati, Damascus Professional mentors: Zoltan Kunckel, Husam Abed Our European cultural investigation of travellers cannot be complete without addressing those fleeing out of a historic necessity: the persecuted, the uprooted, the deported. The thematic realms of people fleeing through Győr due to external forces of oppression are crucial for our present-day situation as well. A modern interpretation of the past and a constructive complex of future questions and possible answers may yield many historic lessons in terms of persecutors and refugees, with an outlook on potential solutions. This programme, examining past and future at the present moment, turns on the central theme of the traveller (past) and the current inhabitant (present) meeting each other (future). The programme batch Refugees and Settlers commemorates human destinies through conferences, reconstructed itineraries, experimental travelling exhibitions, scientific research, and art workshops. It applies art where historical fact may not be sufficient emotionally to understand the problem, but it always relies on historical genuineness. The best guarantee for the authenticity of individual items in the programme batch is the person of the professional mentor responsible for finalizing the programme. Zoltan Kunckel was born in Caracas, Venezuela in He studied art at the Academies of Budapest and Berlin. He currently resides in Berlin, where he leads art projects helping the accommodation of refugees, in a joint commission from the German government and the city of Berlin. He moves freely between Budapest, Berlin, and Caracas. As an active member of the Hungarian community in the Venezuelan capital, he is an expert on the history of Hungarian refugees there, whom he has also helped extensively. With his mother and his aunt, Csilla Boeselager, he co-founded the Hungarian Charity of the Order of Malta, actively participating in the events in Budapest and Sopron in His projects build on the power of art to deal with traumas, to promote integration, and to document and present the lives of refugees. Husam Abed was born in Jordan, Until age 18, he lived in a refugee camp on Baqa a. He graduated in Prague as a director of alternative and puppet theatre. He has founded and led the Dafa Puppet Theatre. He has led workshops and projects of puppeteering and story-telling for children and youths, especially in refugee camps and disadvantaged areas. He is a founding member of the Amman Theatre Lab, Hazaart. He is a member of the Arabic Puppet Theatre Foundation and UNIMA. Modern Flows Conference (H/1): Scholars of history pay relatively little attention to how the discovery of America changed the relationship between Eastern Central Europe and Western Europe. Substantial divisions were initiated by the chain reactions launched by the discovery, primarily with Eastern Europe in the focus. The new trends in the flow of information and commerce toppled age-old routines and indirectly led to the birth of a modern Europe. These procedures have a bearing on our present time as well, and yet there has scarcely been objective and determined analyses dedicated to them a gap this conference wishes to fill. As a side consideration, the conference will also discuss the direct impact of this chain reaction upon Győr and its region, with a general focus on how the flow in the centre may influence the periphery. H/1 GYŐR

36 1500s and 1600s: German mercenaries in the castle of Győr, Croats settled in the Szigetköz area, Serbs and other Southern Slavs settling in Győr. 1700s: Swabian and German waves of immigrants in historic Hungary. 19th and 20th centuries: waves of emigration to America, Hungarian-Americans, Jewish migrants after World War I 1944: ways of the deported and labour camp victims 1947/48: population cleansing in Upper Hungary / Southern Slovakia 1956: refugees of the Revolution 1989: opening the Austrian-Hungarian border at Sopron H/5 H/4 H/3 H/2 Travelling Art Projects (H/2): The travelling projects described among the Thematic ways, related to the Refugees and Settlers programme batch, are each based on personal emotional experiences and memories as reflected through subjective artistic reactions. The attitude of the professional mentor focuses on territories external to Hungary, himself being a foreigner when it comes to his own impressions as a refugee. Thus the destiny of Hungarian refugees gains a European context, transforming actual events into European-scale artistic and historical programmes. In the centre of our investigations are the past and present histories of Győr citizens and people fleeing from or through Győr how refugees have encounter the locals throughout history. In addition to the touring car exhibition following the events of the 1989 opening of the Sopron border crossing, other projects will use artistic tools to relate to the holocaust, the refugee crisis after the 1956 Uprising, the dissidents of the 1970s and 80s, as well as the recent wave of refugees. It prefers individual open-air solutions but eventually leaves the choice of artistic devices to the artists working from their personal experiences or from the recollections of other people involved in refugee crises. Group Visual Art Projects (H/3): The exhibition representing the trauma of the holocaust aligns individual reflections by European artists working independent of one another. The artworks to be placed at a range of European railway stations use art to contextualize the events of World War II at original historic sites, confronting today s travellers at Europe s major junctions. A similar curatorial model will be used when seeking out the European destinations of 1956 Hungarian refugees, relying on European and overseas artists with a link to communities that once received Hungarian victims of persecution. The emerging thematic works will unite as one exhibition in virtual space, while continuing to live as individual creations within the communities they deal with. This project will explore the instructive force of individual destinies for the community. Competitions and Exhibitions in Local History (H/4): City and school competitions and related historical exhibitions will aim to sensitize the local population. The shows, reaching beyond the traditional halls and into schools and streets will present the lives of people fleeing through Győr, embedding individual stories in the historical context, using installations to build emotional bridges between former and present citizens of Győr. Pan-European Picnic Sopron (H/5): The Pan-European Picnic Memorial Park, awarded the European Commission s European Heritage Label, lies by the road connecting Sopronkőhida, Hungary with St. Margarethen, Austria. Strictly speaking, it is a monument to the peace demonstration on August 19, 1989 and the 600 East German citizens who gathered for the event and broke through the border, fleeing to the West. The memorial park has become a symbolic site for the demolition of the Iron Curtain, which had long divided Europe along ideological and economic lines. As an emblematic place for the idea of a united Europe, it forms a pivotal point in our Flow exhibitions as well. In addition to the exhibition reaching Sopronkőhida on 34 GYŐR 2023

37 August 19, 2023, we will invite the actors of this historical event to a European discussion and present the Sopron breakthrough by way of complex scientific exhibitions, linking the Pan- European Picnic to the fall of the Berlin Wall. We wish to stress the historic significance of the unstoppable flow that started from a churchyard in Budapest and carried the spirit of freedom and liberation with overwhelming power through Sopron to West Germany. Invisible Győr (H/6): Every city is different. Every city has its own life, its own spirit, often invisible precisely to those who live in it day by day. What happens if we try to grasp that spirit? Can we see clearly how the city influences the souls of its inhabitants, what they would take of it, should they, too, become wanderers or refugees? People live in the city, but the city also lives in its people. How do travellers adapt their own stories to the places where they arrive? What inner freedom and power or what obstacles does the city living in us raise? These questions are addressed by Husam Abed in Prague, with a drop of Damascus in his heart. The project processes the personal materials (stories, memories, tales, photos, songs) of the artists and inhabitants of Győr and Damascus, artistically analysing the city crossed by divergent routes, applying the aesthetic ideas of puppet, object, and physical theatre through site-specific solutions and story-telling to multi-layered creative procedures. The artists involved in the programme live in various European places, each carrying in their heart a town they were forced to leave for one reason or another. In the first project phase, preparatory workshops, researches, and rehearsals will help the active participants immerse in the history of Győr. The outcomes will then be presented in public performances, exhibitions, and conferences, as well as a project documentation. The programme is aimed primarily at the secondary art-school students and the local artists of Győr, inviting them together to consider and brainstorm the invisible city they live in. Kamchatka Projects (H/7): Kamchatka is primarily a special space-related performance of street theatre, presenting eight people who have lost their way in an unknown city. Eight people with eight suitcases unclear whether tourists or refugees. Naive, curious, unfamiliar with the rules. The game they play is about reality. The performance turns into a dialogue where the observer voluntarily enters into the experiment, for it is due to the mutual willingness of the traveller and the local that a connection may be born. The projects of Kamchatka aims to generate a dialogue between the travellers and the city, the refugee and the host, the persecuted and the persecutor, through such intensive experiences of action theatre and initiation as Habitaculum, Fugit, or the Migrar workshop where the audience can gain intense life-long experiences and impressions about something we may only hope they will never be forced personally to live through. Flow Model Workshop (H/8): The model workshop will emphasize the primarily art educational training of local and Hungarian teachers and museum instructors and animators. Zoltan Kunckel and Husam Abed have participated in a number of European and international programmes where the integration and trauma management of children from widely divergent backgrounds was the primary objective of art projects. Their professional experience and the collaboration of invited experts will offer advance trainings and model art classes and exhibitions where the educators may learn to know programmes they can adapt to their own environments. Apps for Wanderers (H/9): Users of one of our apps can listen to the last poems of the Jewish-born Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti and the recollections of his final days, using H/6 H/7 H/8 H/9 GYŐR

38 their imagination to walking along the forced march route of deported people leading through Győr in November They may accompany Radnóti down to the tideland forests near the city, where he died. Similar online software will serve to collect the memories of those expelled from their native territory as well as other refugees. I/1-5 DANUBE PROJECTS (I/1 5) Impact: European Venue: Győr and other cities and towns along the Danube Partners: Gerald Herringer (Rowing for Europe), Linz, Austria Die Fabrikanten, Linz, Austria (Cogo Ahoi), Germany Die Urbonauten Urbonauten (Isarlust projekt), David Benjamin, Munich Drops of Breath, Greece Y.East Festival, Budapest Kulturanova, Novi Sad, Serbia Udruga Plantaza, Osijek, Croatia Elias Canetti House, Ruse, Bulgaria Process Festival, Lomea, Bulgaria Flussbad Berlin Terasz Csoport, Győr Budapest History Museum Margó Literary Festival, Budapest Professional mentor: Barna Petrányi The most important undertaking of our Danube-related art projects is to co-operate with those international groups and organizations which have addressed the Danube as a carrier of European culture. This is why we have appointed Barna Petrányi as the professional mentor for the programme batch, who founded Pro Progressione in 2010 in order to organize and implement international artistic programmes, including ECOC projects as well (e.g. Timișoara, Elefsina). In recent years, he has led several large-scale programmes supported by Creative Europe; his creation, the RIVE Rivers of Europe programme travelled the entire way of the Danube from Regensburg through Zimicea in 2014, striking direct connections with the artistic actors of each region, a network he has cultivated in the framework of a range of similar Europe programmes ever since. Pro Progressione has earned The New York Times title of Ambassador of Culture. I/1 Riverbank Utility Community Building (I/1): Wooden bathhouses were an organic part of late-19th and early-20th-century landscapes in riverbank cities. As late as in the 1970s, Győr had an operational community swimming pool on the Danube. By year 2000, however, most cities, including Győr, have lost contact with their local rivers, leading to the gradual disappearance of such facilities. In recent years, the many new ways of utilizing Europe s riverways have emerged. We can build on the best examples from Zurich through Berlin, which may inspire us together to rethink the community use of Győr s riverbanks. In the years to come, local initiatives, artistic ideas and their implementation will be harmonized in step-by-step development, finally to culminate in accessible and user-friendly riverbanks worthy of Győr s traditions, ushering in the ECOC year 2023 under the auspices of the universal Flow. In January 2019, a workshop will be hosted, with confirmed sponsorship from the Danube Strategic Project Fund, where we will invite local and international partners to discuss the options of manageability through past and international examples and project plans. As soon as 2019, the Budapest History Museum and the Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History in Győr will launch a joint exhibition presenting the domestic examples to audiences in Győr and Budapest. This show will later serve as a travelling exhibition involving our international partners, gathering new impulses, ideas, and inspirations throughout Europe. In 2015, the Terasz Csoport (Terrace Group) created Győr s single floating swimming pool to date. In the next period, workshops will help us populate the downtown riverbank sections year after year, through installations and artwork enabling the use of the river, whose technical basis will 36 GYŐR 2023

39 be ensured by the water-level rehabilitation of the Moson Danube to be completed by The growing number of artists and community architects from Hungary and abroad invited over the years will lead to an increase in the scope and impact of the workshops, so that in 2022, we will be in a position to setup a large-scale floating beach and wooden swimming pool. This programme happens also to be the continuation of the Budapest-based DunaHack initiative in Győr. Travelling Performances (I/2): The Danube has served now as connection, now as border in the course of history. Its impact on regional development, the stories, myths related to it and their artistic renderings were the basis for the RIVE Rivers of Europe programme in The ongoing purpose of this international collaboration is to take the Danube as a venue for art, resulting in a shared Danubian art. This heritage will continue with growing intensity between 2019 and 2023, from Ulm (the Donau Festival) through Ruse (Elias Canetti House), ranging over a wide variety of artistic programmes, performances, workshops, lectures, and exhibitions or art installations. The Győr 2023 programme will thus be presented within a network of another 40 cities. In 2019 and 2020, an international call will enable twice five artists to take advantage of a special Danube residence. The participants will move down the Danube over two months, visiting our partners and gathering inspiration for the travelling programmes of subsequent years. In 2020 and 2021, two smaller-scale art programmes will bring together our international team: an immersive installation on the boat for 2 to 3 persons at any one time and a performance based on the boat, involving the riverbank as a site-specific venue. For 2022 and 2023, we will prepare a larger-scale performance, which will visit the 40 Danuberelated cities on a special floating stage. This event will take place as a coproduction of the Ballet Company of Győr, the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra, and the programme series hosted by our international partners along the River Danube also serving as an advertisement for the 2023 Musical Danube Festival to be hosted by the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra in Győr. Sports and the Danube (I/3): The Danube is one of the factors that have made Győr an internationally renowned centre of sport. The river offers manifold opportunities for competitive and leisure activities alike. Recently, art organizations have also begun probing into the potential connections between sport and creativity. Hungary has seen performances where the audience could do sports while participating at art events. Győr is a city of sporting excellence, so its ECOC programme will provide prime opportunities to continue such experimentation and bring together sport and arts within the framework of an annually renewed collaboration. A variety of sports and disciplines will be in focus during the preparatory years: running, rowing, cycling, and triathlon, respectively. Building on the outcomes of the years leading up to ECOC 2023, we will organize a conference on Sport and Art in 2023, where the symbiosis of various disciplines of sport and branches of creative art will be presented, with the participation of organizations paving the way of best examples internationally. At the end of the festival, a conference will take place, bringing together the leading sports, cultural, and art managers of the world for the first time ever. Site-Specific Performances (I/4): We prepare performances utilizing the Danube and its environment which do not talk to their audience in a traditional, frontal-direct way, but rather enable all observers actively participate in the events. The members of the community will be invited to look at the public spaces of their city as their own property, to participate in shared decision-making, so that we can shape the urban space in which we live together. Each year during the lead-up period before the ECOC year will see a different type of creative performance. I/2 I/3 I/4 GYŐR

40 2019 will see a walking-theatre performance based on the midsummer-night theme, staged at night on the banks of the Danube and its backwaters. In 2020, a collaboration of six international groups led by the Linz-based company Die Fabrikanten will be invited to continue the Spottertrip programme where three to four vehicles are placed on a ferry, each performing an extraordinary piece created specifically for the event. In 2021, we will transform a small boat on the Danube into a theatrical stage, where a play composed for this specific site by a leading Hungarian playwright, in collaboration with the Margó Festival. In 2022, we will cooperate with the Drops of Breath team to show an underwater choreography, which the audience will be able to see both from the water and from the riverbank (via projection screens). This show will be presented both at the new aquapark of Győr and at the reconstructed pool of our partner city, Dunajská Streda, Slovakia. The four-year preparatory period will serve to turn the complete Danube area into an artistic ambience for the ECOC year, involving its every aspect and locale. This experience and example will be discussed at a conference plus symposium involving international creators and art organizations should see the first international conference of Site-specific and Theatre Adventure Games in Győr which we hope to turn into a tradition of annual conventions. A separate section in the conference programme will be dedicated to the European convention of ParaPark games developed by Attila Gyurkovics, a native of Győr. The thematic basis for the escape games based on Gyurkovics s Győr franchise in 20 cities of Europe and Australia is Mihály Csíkszentmihályi s flow theory. In order to achieve the Flow effect, the difficulty of the challenge must be proportionate to the team s abilities. In addition, a clear objective and continuous feedback is also needed, so that the team feels coming ever closer to the solution. I/5 J/1 5 J/1 Residences (I/5): In order that the above artistic programmes may come into a real symbiosis with the city of Győr and the local artists and institutions, it is indispensable that the meetings with the audience be complemented with letting the artists create and communicate freely. This programme, organized around ongoing grants and symposia, invites international artists and provides openings for an exchange of ideas and experiences. The city can offer special residence grants by which the creators may either work in the close vicinity of the Danube and Győr s other rivers (cf. Elias Canetti House, Ruse or Process Festival, Lomea) or travel the entire length of the Danube to gather inspiration (cf. Rowing for Europe or Cogo Ahoj). For our travelling residence programme, five to six artists will be selected each summer from 2020 in an open competition, who will have the opportunity to travel on or along the Danube, meet our partners and the inhabitants of Danubian cities and towns, and create new works of art or literature gaining new impulses (such as in performing art) that can subsequently be incorporated into our programmes detailed above. GARDEN PROGRAMME (J/1 5) Impact: regional (across the borders) Venues: gardens of palaces and monasteries in the region, Szigetköz and Győr Partners: Eszterháza Cultural, Research, and Festival Centre Non-Profit Co. of Public Interest Sopron Municipality University of Sopron Széchenyi István University Northern Transdanubian Water Conservancy Directorate Herbal Garden of the Archabbey of Pannonhalma Garden of the Monastery of Metten Lower Bavaria Garden of the Abbey of Melk Garden of the Abbey of Einsiedeln Heinz Gerbl Klaus-Jürgen Bauer Renewable Gardens (J/1): The palace and castle reconstructions to take place from governmental funds in Nagycenk, Sopron, Fertőd-Eszterháza, and Mosonmagyaróvár by 38 GYŐR 2023

41 mid-2020 also involve the historically authentic restoration of the related parks as well. Hungary s earliest public park, the Erzsébet Garden in Sopron underwent complete reconstruction recently; the nearly 110-year-old botanic garden of the University of Sopron (Ligneum Visitors Centre) will be upgraded soon, while the Herbal Garden of the Archabbey of Pannonhalma will also be subject to large-scale touristic expansion and development. At the same time, through familiarising ourselves with the cultural history of European gardens, we may discover the interactions between park and garden design, European humanism, and human-scale artistic tendencies. The ultimate objective is consciously to harmonize the Baroque gardens, public parks, and private gardens in as broad a reach as regionally possible. Parallel the renewal of gardens, a permanent horticultural exhibition will be opened in Nagycenk, while in 2023, the Archabbey of Pannonhalma will host a conference and temporary exhibition dedicated to European monastic gardens. The emphasis on horticulture in our bid as well as the secondary targets of the projects to be realized aim to draw the population s attention to built and natural environments and, by foregrounding the cultivation of gardens, to increase social awareness and positive attitudes towards our surroundings. A number of minor regional exhibitions and lectures as well as professional support and city and school competitions will complement the central programme. City Garden Programme (J/2): The decades after World War II withered Hungarian horticulture, though this micro-environmental culture is crucial in personality development. The awareness and cultivation of one s habitat is a central message of mental harmony. The primary way to restore garden culture into the everyday life of urban communities is through shared city gardens. Our experiment directly to familiarize city-dwellers with garden environments begins right in the kindergarten and primary school. The City Garden element in our ECOC programme builds on Győr s ongoing City of Flowers project. The programme of shared gardens for institutions and districts is not only co-ordinated on one platform, but it also extends to such community actions as garden feasts celebrating the common harvest and crops. The institutional basis of managing community gardens is an existing city project fund for the decoration of private gardens and balconies, which will undergo a substantial face-lift supported by a municipal framework for assets and seedlings, complemented with a separate online surface and external sponsorship, whose co-ordination will also happen via the online platform of the City Garden unit. Szigetköz-Csallóköz (Žitný ostrov) Project (J/3): The area encompassing Szigetköz and Žitný ostrov is the largest island of Hungary and Slovakia, a European natural curiosity, a river delta without a sea. The region, impenetrably zigzagged by incessantly changing and shifting rivers and waters before the large-scale river regulations of the 1800s, remains a unique natural landscape in Europe of countless backwaters and immense biodiversity despite all human effort during the last two centuries to control it. Geographically, it has merged together with Győr, whose certain districts are in fact located in Szigetköz proper. Still, the local inhabitants are not sufficiently linked to this area emotionally, nor properly dedicated to the preservation of the natural environment that surrounds them. The Szigetköz Project has multiple aims. First, it serves to restore the severely tilted ecologic equilibrium, the landscape, and the environment; to stress the international uniqueness of the Szigetköz region within the local community and the urban consciousness; and to improve the environmental awareness of the regional population. Second, the realization of the up-todate touristic orientation of Győr s inhabitants by creating favourable opportunities. We aim to construct a community-implemented ecological visitors centre in addition to developing J/2 J/3 GYŐR

42 walkways, waterways, and bicycle roads (many such projects will be completed in the near future independent of our bid). Our strategic partner, the Fertő-Hanság National Park, a major environmental agent in the region, provides a solid fundament for our experiment in ecological architecture, while we will also build on the active participation of the inhabitants of Győr. Third, we hope the joint effort will cement emotional attachment not only towards the emerging centre but the whole Szigetköz area as opposed to ready-made facilities delivered to the people. The visitors centre will present the geography, biodiversity, history, and anthropology of the Szigetköz through instructive and interactive tools, primarily attracting school groups and families. Approaching the centre will entail going on an excursion since no direct parking lots will be installed and only service vehicles will be allowed to drive in. Educational pathways and waterways will be available, and visitors may come on foot, by bicycle, or in rowboats. Energy supplies will also draw on alternative sources, while volunteers and activists will help operate the facilities. The architectonic solutions of the projected centre will also involve alternative construction materials. A major challenge in maintaining the ecological balance of the Szigetköz is the prevention of siltation. As hazardous waste, the sludge to be removed might mean extra expenses in environmental protection. Its recycling is not merely cost-efficient but also offers new potentials. With input from the universities of Győr and Sopron and the support of the Fertő-Hanság National Park, we will attempt from 2019 onwards to manufacture adobe bricks from the sludge excavated. Adobe is a traditional component in Hungarian architecture. In case of successful implementation, it can also be the building material of the projected visitors centre, while its technology could boost community building. After the adobe experiment with university students in summer 2019, the architectural planning and the outlining of the interactive exhibition may commence within a competitive framework. Once the designs are finalized, the local population can contribute to the construction process, using, we hope, adobe produced with a shared effort using the new technology. J/4 Gesamtkunst-Festival in the Esterházy Palace, Commemorating the visit of Queen Maria Theresa (J/4): On September 1 2, 1773, Maria Theresa visited Miklós Esterházy in his palace. The Prince hosted a spectacular feast in her honour that outshone most of its European counterparts. The monarchs, aristocrats, and papers would dwell on the event for a long time afterwards. The queen s welcome was not only luxurious but also immensely creative. A breath-taking series of outdoor happenings was tailored to the occasion by eminent international theatrical experts (Girolamo Bon, Pietro Travaglia), while the excellent musical accompaniment was provided by Haydn and his troop. Prince Esterházy s artistic taste was matched by his generous patronage; his predilection for curiosities went hand in hand with extravagance and imaginative boldness. The two-day celebration was the most significant all-round art event of the time, so well documented that it can be reconstructed almost perfectly after 250 years, paying tribute to the Prince, Baroque garden culture, and Joseph Haydn. The international Gesamtkunst-Festival to be held on September 1 2, 2023 in the park of the Esterházy Palace, however, should not merely be a reconstruction. In the footsteps of Miklós Esterházy, preferring experimental performers and avoiding mediocre, reproductive shows, our aim will be to create a forward-looking project with the highest European standards. The programme will be implemented in the same spirit as Prince Esterházy displayed: to bedazzle our guests and give them an experience they will never forget. 40 GYŐR 2023

43 Mobile Garden and Boxwood Ball (J/5): Summarizing our experiences acquired in planning and executing historical gardens, we will collaborate with Győr-based gardeners to create a mobile historical garden which may decorate outdoor city events in 2023 and subsequent years in variable shapes and forms. The first occasion where the mobile garden can be presented will be the Baroque summer programmes in Győr s jubilee year The feedback gathered here will help expand and develop the garden even further by 2023, complementing it with temporary elements such as a live sculpture exhibition or the Boxwood Ball. The Boxwood Ball project will be launched in spring 2019, provided that we earn the ECOC title: we will distribute identical boxwood seedlings to people responding to our call, which will respond to cultivation by growing to several times their original size by We request that the owners of each shrub love and care for their boxwoods and cut them to any shape they like before bringing them to the Boxwood Ball, a side event of the Baroque Wedding, that is, the inaugural happening of our mobile garden project, complete with ornamental plant sculptures. ON THE WAY THEMATIC STREET FESTIVAL (K/1) Impact: European Date: July 2023 Venue: Győr Partners: La Strada, Graz La Strada das Festival der Straßenkünstler, Augsburg La Strada Festival, Brescia La Strada Internationales Festival der Straßenkünste, Bremen Le festival La Rue des Artistes, Saint-Chamond Festival Chalon dans la Rue, Gagy Krennize, Cirkulart, Bratislava J/5 K/1 The On the Way festival is not only a mid-year synopsis of the flow theme of the ECOC year but also an international forum which collects, addresses, and interprets the problems of the European flow of people by artistic means in Győr, The free open-air programmes are the best chance culture has to reach the broadest possible audiences. We count on the active participation of the spectators in street theatre performances free of the shackles of language difference. These events are set to celebrate the power of the European community and create a veritable flow experience. On the Way is one of the prime events of Győr s ECOC programme, wedged between the year-initial and final happenings as a grandiose symbol of the complex project. It does not seek to establish a tradition, being singular and unique. Thus, it becomes the symbol of an exceptional opportunity that the ECOC may mean to a city, its life, and its future. For the ECOC programmes, the expressive framework of the street theatre has always been an important asset, since it facilitates enormously the creation of such community moments which determine the emotional success of all related programmes. The themes of the event and the selection of the productions are based on travel, on life on the way. We not only seek performances exploring travel and fleeing through the means of art, raising related questions, but also invite the La Strada festivals of Europe in order to think together about our shared ways, paths, and roads. The final programme of the festival and the range of invited performers will be compiled in 2022 by Adrian Schwarzstein, the international artistic manager of the Way programme package, considering the thematic filters detailed above. GYŐR

44 L P L/1 2 CITY PROGRAMME PACKAGE (L P) WHO LIVES IN THE CITY? (L/1 2) Impact: local Venue: Győr Partners: Győr s artistic, cultural, educational, and social institutions civil actors ERIAC (The European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture) Roby Lakatos Foundation Budapest Gypsy Symphony Orchestra Menuhin Foundation, Watermael-Boitsfort The units in this programme package address the inhabitants of Győr, being about them and for them all: everyone living together in this city, overarching districts, all age groups, athletes, culturally interested people, homeless people, people with learning difficulties, recent newcomers, repatriates, majorities and minorities, people ready to give a helping hand and people needing to receive help. All of us together are the city, and if Győr has serious ambitions as the European Capital of Culture, it must know and reach all that live here. L/1 L/2 Living Memory, Living Communities, Living City (L/1): In the preparatory years, this programme will provide professional assistance (museum, archival, school schemes) and project funding for the people in various district communities to acquaint themselves with the development and flow history of their own environment. In clubs of local history, temporary groups, school competitions, quiz games, the inevitably divergent solutions emerging from the individual districts and relating to them may foster the local patriotism of the inhabitants and the bonding of newcomers. They will also prepare the citizens of Győr to welcome the ECOC year visitors warm-heartedly. We will provide funds through grants to support district communities to find their own solutions for mapping their neighbourhood and its history, as well as to collect to shared memories. During the project, the acquired solutions will amalgamate into a texture of personal bonding within each district and indirectly in the entire city also. The research outcomes of the programme will be presented at district exhibitions; the findings will be published in print and online, to make them easily accessible in the future as well. This subjective lore of local history, based on personal stories, will help cement the groundwork for the programmes of the city s jubilee year From the most interesting stories, open-air installations in each district may emerge in Roby Lakatos Mentoring Programme (L/2): The mentoring programme is harmonized with Roby Lakatos s creed: to help and support talented children and young musicians whose breakthrough is possible through music, just as Yehudi Menuhin had helped Lakatos himself. At the same time, the programme aims to provide every youth desiring to learn and improve with opportunities and positive examples. It will be in his family s native Győr that Roby Lakatos and our partner musicians representing the Budapest Gypsy Orchestra will launch their model programme which, in co-operation with the ECOC programme packages, may gain enhanced publicity as an ECOC flagship project. In addition to foundation grants, the internationally acclaimed gypsy musicians also wish to present their personal examples to contribute to the success of the undertaking. Therefore, they intend to start a one-to-one mentoring programme in Győr, whose programmes of talent cultivation and community building may help talented but disadvantaged children in Győr to find their personal paths in their native city, contributing to the preparatory process preceding ECOC In the district of Újváros, a side project will research the documents and memories relating to the Lakatos family, culminating in a survey exhibition. The emerging show will not only address the history of local gypsy musicians but also establish the groundwork for a comprehensive history of Hungarian gypsy musicians of European fame. 42 GYŐR 2023

45 SIGNS IN THE CITY (M/1 3) Impact: local Venue: Győr Partners: Győr s artistic, cultural, educational, and social institutions civil actors This programme attempts to launch workshops and competitions through which to catalyse the birth of objects and icons adequate as long-term emblematic monuments of the Győr 2023 year. The most important memories of the ECOC year will subsequently be cherished in peoples hearts and communities, but equally important is the establishment of objective spots of memory. We think it far more personal and lasting than the installation of various commemorative plaques if organic signs are born from the interaction of the people, the urban spaces, and creative thoughts. Such signs are capable of carrying transferable messages and hence establishing new traditions. The birth of these signs is preceded by thinking together about the outcomes of the Who Lives in the City? programme on the one hand, and by carrying through implementation via grants, competitions, workshops, and public forums. Flag Project (M/1): Flags are an obvious means to create symbols. In this thematic unit, several art competitions will be organised, and the emerging designs will be used in advertising not only the ECOC 2023 year but also individual programme units. The system of flags and banners of varying types will help mark the location of divergent programme elements, types, and venues, orienting those visitors who are not yet familiar with Győr. Tower Project (M/2): The Fehérvár Gate and its turret had for many decades been perhaps the most characteristic landmark in Győr. It was completed in 1793 and served as a central urban meeting point until its demolishment in On the 230th anniversary of the turret s construction, creative art and 21st-century light technologies will join forces virtually to restore it in its original place. This event may provide a good opportunity to identify Győr as a gate to Europe. Promenade Project (M/3): In the preparatory years, the Who lives in the city? programme will list the prominent natives, inhabitants, and guests of Győr. The participants will together decide who can be considered key actors in the development of the city. The riverbank promenade will be skirted by memorial spots in their honour. By adding an interactive dimension to these places, the promenade may serve as a point of departure for a thematic city walk, subsequently utilised in the local history instruction of primary school classes as well. CITY WORKSHOP (N/1 4) Impact: local Venue: Győr Partners: Urban Nation Museum, Berlin Thrift Festival, UK Hebden Bridge Handmade Parade, UK Kartonkamsk, Cardboard Town, Perm Polytech Festival, Moscow City Workshop in Virtual Space (N/1): The City Workshop is a forum that primarily exists in virtual space. It provides young creators with an opportunity to share their emerging thoughts about Győr with each other. It establishes a platform for the free flow of ideas, informal discussions, while its clearly oriented projects, contests of innovation, and guiding questions help all discourse keep the focus of the ECOC programme. The virtual space is by definition a filter as well, channelling this programme item specifically to those individuals who react sensitively to the technological challenges of the future, who think about community building in innovative M/1 3 M/1 M/2 M/3 N1 4 N/1 GYŐR

46 44 GYŐR 2023

47 terms, and who eventually contribute to shaping the city by freely sharing and recording their mental associations. The end result belongs to everyone, but the potential for development is only available in virtual space. The professional basis for this programme package is provided by the architectural training in Győr, complemented by industrial design, urban planning, interior design, and applied art, leading to a highly competent collective of young experts in these fields. At the same time, the system makes it possible for people outside of the formal framework of education also to join in. The individual contributors are not evaluated on the basis of their degrees or professional references but according to their ideas and plans. The City Workshop raises a problem in virtual space, to which the community may suggest possible solutions. The given problem may come from the team managing the ECOC year, from the leadership of the city, from an institution, or even from a primary school pupil. City Workshop Programmes (N/2): Beyond virtual space, the City Workshop also offers an opportunity to organise activities in actual reality. It is a trademark, as it were, which can be subject to a tender. We would prefer if the young artists and creators in Győr invented their own City Workshops and realised their ideas, triggering chain reactions. Workshops may be arranged in design studios, cafés, or community spaces. City Workshop walks are also possible. Such City Workshop happenings may be initiated by individual districts or the Local Government before finalising a development project, or even by the ECOC programme organisers themselves. The professional coordination of broader workshops, however, is the task of the ECOC programme. In effect, the City Workshop is an institutionalised encouragement for all to come forth with the problems they personally face in the city, so that anyone may offer potential answers or solutions. City Workshop Club (N/3): Two weeks after receiving the first-round evaluations, we established the ECOC Club a discussion forum bringing together creative citizens, nonprofit organizations, cultural and creative enterprises and entrepreneurs. These conversation events, held every two weeks with almost the same scope of participants from the outset, have had a great impact on the creative sector involved in our bid and our Creative Győr Strategy, forging a team that will not merely help foster the local embedding of the programme and its ultimate implementation but have been inspirational in the entire preparatory period through their insights and ideas. The ECOC Club has, over the past half year, worked within the City Workshop framework, laying out its tasks. This promises to continue in the years to come, providing civil control and support in order that the ECOC Győr 2023 programme be a source of future-oriented inspiration not only for Europe but also for the city of Győr, arming with positive personal experiences all those who will continue to perpetuate and expand the outcomes of our Flow programmes over the years commencing in Cardboardia Győr (N/4): Cardboardia is a research project using gamification, creativity development, and artistic teamwork to explore local social issues within the life of a city or a community. By opening the Győr lab of Cardboardia, we will join the flow of a creative programme already running in the United Kingdom, Russia, Poland, Denmark, Taiwan, Finland, and Slovakia. Those involved in the project may seek new forms of community building, based not merely on isolated areas or interests but encompassing new notions of integration and community. The community flow experience not only reveals our resources but also shapes our conceptual frameworks. Under the leadership of Sergey Korsakov, the art advisor of the City programme package, Cardboardia was created in Moscow so as to connect fine art and social creativity, thus N/2 N/3 N/4 GYŐR

48 establishing alternative platforms of collaboration between the contributors and the artists who lead various creative events. He shares ideas, technical expertise, and methodologies with local communities, helping them to create or recreate the conditions of co-operation, exerting a positive influence upon the strengthening, celebration, and preservation of those very communities. Creative sessions utilise simple materials and tools such as cardboard, paint, scissors, knives, and glue. The joint effort of planning and execution helps participants create spectacular props and costumes for their group exhibition or procession, as well as to experience the lasting effect of the flow of community creativity. The objective of the Cardboardia Győr programme is to support the creative economy and to secure a favourable environment where play and community brainstorming may prove a valid problem-solving method, organically incorporated into the toolkit of the community. Active participation at the programmes helps the participants to change their work and living environment along similar conceptual lines, or even to launch their own creative enterprise. Whoever wishes actively to join the flow, may experience various art forms theatre, music, fine art, and architecture in new, interactive ways, while also feel that community spirit which is constructive not only for the individual but also for the society of the city as a whole. The Cardboardia Győr programme consists of the following prospective elements: Cardboardia Programme Launch Workshop: aimed primarily at creative artists, art educators, teachers, university students of architecture and art, who may thus familiarise themselves with the nuances of the programme and undergo a selection process for a team of organizers assisting with the subsequent implementation of the programmes. City Cardboardia Workshop: the aim of the shared programme day is to help prepare the props and costumes for a large-scale community parade in the specific theme (the celebration of the 750th anniversary of the free royal city of Győr), coordinated by local volunteers. School and District Cardboardia Workshop: individual tasks or themes will be developed by smaller communities involved in the area of interest, harnessing community planning and construction (communal mapping of Festival Inn, supply and demand analysis). Conference and Exhibition: during the preparatory years, we will thoroughly document the achievements of community creativity, subsequently compiled into a photo and installation show and presentation as part of the 2023 international conference hosted at the Festival Inn, inviting the representatives of noted European forums dedicated to the area (IETM, European Seminar for the Development of Street Arts, Fresh Street by Circostrada, Tandem). This European exchange will enable us to summarize and share our experiences of several years, while also creating a platform for similar international programmes and helping local artists to make their international début. O/1 LET IT BE YOUR PLACE! (O/1) (Let it be your theatre / Let it be your concert hall / Let it be your museum) Impact: local Venue: Győr Partners: Győr s artistic and cultural institutions Győr s twin cities The renovation of the theatre and the building of a new concert hall and exhibition space encourage us to extend the consultations beyond the leadership of the institutions involved, the local government of the city, and the architectural experts. Parallel with these actors, community forums may be launched concerning the subsequent content of development, the expectations of the public, as well as sustainability and renewal. Thus, the renovation of actual buildings will be a mental as well as physical process. The Let It Be Your Place! programme item does not focus on architectural solutions. Instead, it 46 GYŐR 2023

49 addresses projects in the phase of implementation, helping them to be filled with new contents. The first such development will concern the modernisation of the theatre. In the spring of the companies moving out, a two-day mini-festival will help us say goodbye to the old building as well as simultaneously greet and learn to know the new. The happening will coincide with the first Let It Be Your Place! session, presenting the audience with the technical details of the commencing two-year development. The prime developments leading up to 2023 follow a strict order of implementation, building upon one another s experiences in their Let It Be Your Place! succession. DAY OF THE CITY S JUBILEE (P/1) Impact: local Venue: Győr Partners: Győr s artistic and cultural institutions Győr s economic and strategic partners Győr s twin cities The Day of the City s Jubilee is primarily a local event, an important tool in the formation of local identity. It addresses the citizens of Győr rather than the outside world. At the same time, it helps us to become integral, honest, and authentic hosts for the year As much as Győr has gained from its gateway role in European history, it also has major difficulties and challenges to face when probing into the integration of its citizens and the history of consecutive generations in Győr. The essence of the Day of the City is to summarise our shared history and to enumerate our achievements. It is a fine occasion to present awards and to allow art groups and communities to introduce themselves. Its date is also projected to inaugurate several new facilities eventually serving the 2023 programme selection. The units marked within the programme package in the preparatory years will all belong to the city s jubilee year 2021, primarily on a local and regional level, when a whole year will be dedicated to commemorating the 750th anniversary of Győr s privileges as a free royal city. The planning and implementation, however, will give us ample experience in order to play good hosts to entire Europe two years later, in The complexity and all-year spread of the programmes will anticipate the challenges we are about to face in the ECOC year, helping to fine-tune the execution of the 2023 event series. After 2021, as a tribute to the year-long celebrations, the Day of the City s Jubilee will be held annually, condensing into one calendar day the essence of the festivities. The 2021 jubilee year will serve as a dress rehearsal of sorts for the ECOC year DIALOGUE PROGRAMME PACKAGE (Q W) DIALOGUE ON THE BAROQUE (Q/1 6) Impact: European Venue: Győr Partners: under selection P/1 Q W Q/1 6 In our bid for the ECOC title, the Baroque is seen not merely as an era of history or an architectural asset for the stimulation of tourism. On the basis of the Baroque influences manifest in entire Europe, we launch an international dialogue in all geographic directions of the continent. The Baroque period was saturated with great intellectual trends. By anticipating the idea of Enlightenment, it laid the fundaments for modern Europe. The technical achievements of the Baroque, the boom in the printing of books, music, images, and newspapers, as well as the GYŐR

50 progress of transportation resulted in an explosion of transmitting information and opened new horizons for the flow of culture in Europe. The restructuring of the availability of art, concomitant with the general improvements in efficient manufacturing, raised the prestige of fashion and introduced domestic music-making, focusing on the home, which also incorporated the concept of the family. This boom in culture, society, and art can be an example and a lesson for us experiencing the IT boom of the 21st century. Therefore, our dialogue on the Baroque will not only discuss artistic styles but will also touch on the potential that technological advancement carries in shaping art and society. The restructuring of the flow potentials due to technological innovation is as topical today as it ever was, and interesting outcomes may emerge if the Baroque is not primarily considered as an artistic style but as a liberating structural novelty. Q/4 Q/3 Q/2 Q/1 Baroque Salon Conferences (Q/1): In establishing and analysing our theme, the major forums will be conferences involving Hungarian scholars in 2021 and 2022, and an international pool of experts in 2023, occasionally in the milieu of mini-exhibitions on art or history. Salon conferences, modelled on salon culture emerging in the Baroque period, merge scientific investigation with art and social life, embedded in spectacular settings at a wide variety of venues, utilising individual solutions to achieve a characteristic mood for each programme. The thematic variety suggested by the Baroque will accommodate as broad a range of topics as the multi-perspective examination of the revolution in technology and communication, an exhibition of local industrial history, a geographical and temporal delineation of the Baroque era with a bearing on continental borders and stylistic revivals, or, to give one more example, the Baroque-inspired formal or substantial creations of contemporary art commenting on the Baroque zeitgeist and its impact on the present era. A clock exhibition will discuss the revolution in the measurement of time, its spatial representation and influence on the intellectual development of humanity. Historic portraits will help us identify traits of Baroque thinking and the Baroque character from Casanova to Potemkin. Finally, a historical exhibition will serve as a backdrop to period festivities as prototypes for modern festivals. Baroque Garden Tours (Q/2): The Garden programme and the Dialogue on the Baroque programme batch overlap to initiate a discourse on Baroque gardens, while mobile thematic exhibitions will serve as a basis for the historical assessment of regional gardens, involving strategic partners and made available in the form of lectures and group excursions visiting notable garden after garden in the area. The exhibitions will be organized around the following themes: sacral and ecclesiastic Baroque gardens; secular, aristocratic, and noblemen s gardens; cultic gardens; freemasons emblems in gardens; contemporary oriental horticulture; American influences in garden culture. Fashion in the Baroque Baroque Fashions (Q/3): Historical shows, exhibitions, lectures on the evolution of fashion, as well as competitions will address all areas of interest from Baroque heels through period perukes. The zeitgeist of abundant pomp and playfulness and its impact on our times will be our experimental starting point. Free associations in space and time, challenges for young designers and artists. The programme will culminate in a residence workshop taking the selected participants on a professional journey in time, where they can develop their own Baroque pieces while becoming acquainted with the Baroque period, living and experiencing it as guests in a veritable Baroque palace. Baroque-Themed Art Competitions and Exhibitions (Q/4): Related to the Baroque period, a range of annual art exhibitions will be organized, providing a wide selection of 48 GYŐR 2023

51 contemporary responses to the Baroque genres. Each selection process will be thematised by individual manifestoes, providing the call for submissions with its special character and mood. The free-association competition addressing Voltaire s Candide will be held in 2019, the 260th anniversary of the book s first publication, while the best works selected will go on show in 2020: traditional as well as conceptually abstract responses to Voltaire s classic will both be accepted. For the thematic Garden exhibition in 2021, we will prefer freely interpreted associative works rather than naturalistic representations or en-plein-air works will see the thematic peruke exhibition and performance which, according to the manifesto, accepts all artistic interpretations of Baroque wigs and/or contemporary wigs. Sedan-Chair Race (Q/5): The streets of Győr s Baroque Old Town will serve as the track for our sedan-chair race. Anyone meeting the criteria (whose details will change from one year to the next) may enter the contest. The traveller in the home-made sedan-chair must be a physical as well as intellectual alter ego of a well-known Baroque personage. BAROCK (Q/6): The rock festival whose name reveals its relation to the historic period will take on an exceptional and uniquely modern Baroque character by evoking the spirit and visual world of the period style. Our aim is to free the Baroque from the mummified state of empty cultural histories and bring it to the youth. The Baroque is an ongoing battle for non-stop renewal, a fight between lights and shadows, often unpredictable, sometimes cruel, but always miraculous and lively. This open-air festival will merge alternative visual effects and stagecraft with the extravagance of Baroque designs, resulting in a highly individual prime event for music that interests the young generations, with side productions of crossover art forms such as Musica Fugit (where classical music meets street theatre) or gigantic street performances by Compagnie Transe Express (exploiting the external flamboyance of Baroque design). DIALOGUE ON DANCE HUNGARIAN DANCE FESTIVAL (R/1) Impact: European Venue: Győr / online space Partners: Europaballet, St. Pölten Deutsches Tanzfilminstitut, Bremen Sopron Ballet Professional mentor of dance film programmes: Heide-Marie Härtel (Bremen), János Kiss (Győr) Q/5 Q/6 R/1 The Hungarian Dance Festival hosted each year by the Ballet Company of Győr has taken on an international orientation in recent years, inviting not only productions, but also leading critics and professional associations from abroad. The preparation for the ECOC year has given extra boost to this expanding perspective. The online FesztiválON festival, launched in 2017, commissioned young choreographers to address the theme of Flow for the 2018 thematic event. The emerging dance productions were made available to the public through a mobile app in Győr. This process in online space will intensify in the years to come, so that by 2023, a network will be accessible, linking all major actors in European dance. At the same time as the 2023 Hungarian Dance Festival unfolds, the venues of the European partners of the Ballet Company of Győr (opera houses, theatres, studios) will share those contemporary dance films on site which will be submitted to the call for proposals for the ECOC year In turn, Győr will see an international conference concomitant with the Hungarian Dance Festival, whose participants will convene to discuss the European questions of professional dance deemed most urgent in year Keywords will range from technical developments through the use of virtual space, 21st-century mindsets in dance, and tradition. The motto GYŐR

52 of the conference, supplemented by scientific and art exhibitions, will address Flow on the dance platforms of Europe, stressing the importance that in Győr, 2023, the European dance profession will have a unique opportunity to investigate possible future solutions and prospects. As another side event, hosted for the first time in 2023, a Dance Film Festival will be introduced to the programme, under the expert leadership of Heide-Marie Härtel, artistic director of the Deutsches Tanzfilminstitut in Bremen. Exploiting the dizzying development of screening technology, this festival will clothe Győr s inner city in dance films. These movies, projected onto a wide variety of surfaces through divergent technical solutions, will multiply the dance festival attendance since the seating capacity of both indoor festival venues (the National Theatre and the Iron Rooster Art Centre) is, by definition, finite. The outdoor screenings, some of which will be site-specific, will utilize innovative solutions, complemented by traditional indoor shows in more conventional cinematic rooms (Rómer House, St. Ladislaus Visitors Centre). S/3 S/2 S/1 S/1 3 DIALOGUE ON MUSIC (S/1 3) Impact: the Danube region Venue: Győr, Pannonhalma, Sopron Partners: Philharmonia Chor Vienna Musical Ensembles of the Hungarian Radio, Budapest Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra Georgisches Kammerorchester, Ingolstadt Musical Danube Festival (S/1): The Győr Philharmonic Orchestra is not only a world-class ensemble, but also an excellent artistic unit that has established a solid mode of operation. The basis for the ever-rejuvenating orchestra is provided by the secondary and tertiary system of education, continuously raising eminent artists and, together with them, a receptive audience of connoisseurs. It is high time that this world-class orchestra should have their very own citadel, a project to be realised within the Modern Cities Programme framework, establishing the technical preconditions for an international music festival as well as to provide a high-demand audience and its hosts with the best state-of-the art venue for musical connoisseurship. The Danube as an inspiration for music as well as a flowing river of its cultural history is the fundament of an international festival projected by the Győr Philharmonic, which creates a dialogue in 2023 between European artists in the international language of music, evoking the waves of the Danube. Arcus Temporum Art Festival Pannonhalma (S/2): The prestigious contemporary art festival hosted by the Archabbey of Pannonhalma explores and creates connections and arcs, not only between musical works and composers but also between various branches of the arts. The three-day festival fosters a dialogue in the monastery complex s huge, 2.7-acre indoor spaces between music, fine art, and spirituality, resulting in a unique opportunity to experience the crossover of several fields of culture and creativity. The concerts and programmes take place in the representative cultural spaces of the Archabbey of Pannonhalma: in the modern concert hall, the awe-inspiring 19th-century ceremonial hall of the main library, the intimate Baroque milieu of the Chapel of Our Lady, as well as the (Neo-) Gothic basilica. The major works of 20th and 21st-century artists help reveal the ways in which a monastic community unites the search for God with culture, art, and humanistic service contemplative calm and creative playfulness. Stone Quarry and Cave Theatre Fertőrákos (S/3): Lake Fertő / Neusiedlersee (shared by Hungary and Austria) is a biosphere conservatory listed by UNESCO due to its singular natural assets. The old stone quarry in the region, refurbished for the purposes of concerts and theatrical 50 GYŐR 2023

53 performances, is managed by the city of Sopron in the related World Heritage region and will be a prominent site for programmes presenting the intersections of music and nature in DIALOGUE OF GENERATIONS GYŐRKŐC / GYŐRKID FESTIVAL (T/1) Impact: regional Venue: Inner City, Győr Partners: Mokka Creative Workshop, Győr Kisalföld Forestry Management, Győr Saint Ladislaus Visitors Centre, Győr Benedictine Archabbey of Pannonhalma Hungarian Railway & Győr-Sopron-Ebenfurt Railway, Sopron Xantus János Zoo, Győr Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History, Győr Happy Kids Union, Győr Gézengúz Foundation, Győr Mobilis, Győr Playful Science, Kazincbarcika Experience Workshop, Pécs Vojtina Puppet Theatre, Debrecen Bóbita Puppet Theatre, Pécs Mesebolt Puppet Theatre, Szombathely The Győr-based Vaskakas (Iron Rooster) Puppet Theatre has hosted the Győrkőc Festival for ten years. Originally a regional event, it has now grown into a nationwide happening. Its development so far justifies its international expansion. The potential granted by the title of European Capital of Culture would accelerate this process and orient the festival as part of the DIALOGUE programme package after all, it offers a real dialogue between the generations of Hungarians today. We plan to inaugurate this prestigious festival, which will have had sixteen years of international renown and tradition in 2023, as an event attracting families from all over Europe. Győr invites the children, adults, and families representing all nations to meet each other, make friends, and experience the overwhelming family flow that unites generations in play and creativity. In 2025, the 18th year (i.e. full maturity) of the festival, we will welcome back the first generation that has grown up together with the Győrkőc event, introducing a new programme package for them. Parallel with the festival, the ECOC year will see a conference of children s event organizers from Hungary and the region, in order to discuss the needs and demands of such a special audience, as well as the potentials and challenges inherent in the youngest generations. Our objective is to channel the festivals targeting children into the circulation of the international festival workshop operating at the Festival Inn all year round, initiating discourses with their organizers with a focus on those themes that are central to the future of Europe. After all, these events are channels for the flow, and the groups they reach are the future itself. The number and range of impact of complementary competitions and exhibitions will steadily increase as we approach Creative competitions will not only address the children but also raise questions of festival management that may yield solutions adapted to the special audiences through the involvement of young experts internationally. The programme will be implemented in collaboration with the Tündér / Elfin Festival of our partner city Sopron. DIALOGUE OF RELIGIONS FESTIVAL OF FIVE CHURCHES ADVENT OF FIVE CHURCHES STREET OF THE FIVE CHURCHES (U/1) Impact: European Venue: Győr Partners: Lutheran Congregation of Győr Jewish Community of Győr Congregation of the Reformed Church in Győr Greek Catholic Parish of Győr Roman Catholic Parish of Újváros, Győr T/1 U/1 At the 2006 genesis of the Festival of Five Churches in Győr, the central factor in the festival concept was Europe s Judeo-Christian tradition as the fundament for European identity, with GYŐR

54 focus on the dialogue between cultures and cults. It drew attention to the humanistic values manifest in our built environment. The organizers also deem atheism to belong to this cultural sphere as an important component of our European cultural history and shared future. During the past ten years, this community cooperation became a city brand, while a cultureoriented district rehabilitation has complemented the festival s development, enabling communal developments not only creating new festival sites but also strengthening the togetherness of the congregations upon which the cultural and community experience of the festival rests. Today, we are in a position to state that Győr, building on its own historical heritage, can present Europe with such a model for a dialogue between religions in which the communities belonging to divergent denominations but living side by side can actively co-operate, and show great openness towards the representatives of other religions and cultures on the basis of their rocksolid communities, enabling such outstanding encounters as Parvathy Baul s Hindu spring ritual in the synagogue, for instance. Tour of Five Churches: The guided tours to the five host churches both present the venues from the point of view of art and cultural history and represent most illustratively the curiosity of the five religious communities living next to one another, offering a compact opportunity to learn about the religions of Europe. In the preparatory years, this programme will be detached from the festival periods and made available all year round first to the citizens of Győr and gradually to domestic or foreign school or tourist groups. In 2023, we will invite professional experts interested in our methodology to study our programme in an international context. History Exhibitions and Museum Pedagogy: The host congregations of the Festival of Five Churches have increased their public sphere by establishing new community and exhibition spaces extending beyond the expectations of the forthcoming years of ECOC preparation, in keeping with the technical demands and message of the festival. The Jewish Community of Győr has restored the Menház (Refuge) building to its public functions, installing a permanent exhibition on the Religious and Local History of Jewish People, complemented by an ongoing reconstruction, which will enable a further exhibition on the Holocaust, with activity rooms adjacent to it. The Insula Lutherana complex reconstruction project of the Lutheran convent is in its final phase, encompassing chamber-hall and exhibition space developments. The Greek Catholic and Calvinist congregations are about to embark on similar projects. The emerging complexes, part infrastructural, part spiritual-intellectual, will host several programmes in the Refugees and Settlers batch, as well as advanced courses in museum education. Musical Programmes: The most emphatic elements of festivals are musical events, concerts of classical church and secular music, traditional sacred music, and world music. The organizers encourage contemporary experimental productions, school concerts, and even the most special church concerts by rock bands. In the acoustic environment of a church, musical performances, whether internal or external to liturgical rites, always respect the traditions and precepts of the host and visitor religions. At the same time, they seek the points of connection, thus enabling involvement for all parties: audience, performer, and organizer alike. In order to broaden the dialogue between religions the following programmes are projected for the forthcoming years: Armenian church music; presentation of the traditional Orthodox community of Istanbul; religious service in Africa (Zimbabwe, Zambia); services in India; Islam as our guest. Programmes of Sacral Theatre: Sacral theatre will be presented as the most ancient form of dramatic performance, while traditions will be expanded in the widest possible term of 52 GYŐR 2023

55 contemporary responses through productions in church spaces as well as the most divergent venues of our outdoor and indoor architectural milieu: cellars, kitchens, abandoned shops, streets, parks, and even community transport vehicles, consciously seeking alternative spaces and filling the entire district with the spirit of the festival. The organizers will provide openings to generate new performances and to initiate a dialogue within the creative processes of international theatrical workshops. Examples include several workshops with DAMU, Prague, or street theatre expert Peter Schumann. This programme would gain new impetus from the preparation for the ECOC year 2023, creating a platform for a fruitful collaboration between European artists and art schools. Exhibitions and Workshops on Art and Architecture: The organizers launch regular architectural design competitions for the university students of Hungary, while also hosting conferences around the professional issues relevant for the district and for the festival s management. In fine-art projects, contemporary creators and artworks testing all boundaries will be emphatically represented, with special encouragement for the creation of new works. The programmes investigating the sacred in the most modern forms of visual and spatial constructions will lead up to 2023 and continue in the ECOC year, broadening the dialogue beyond the Judeo-Christian traditions. The tradition of the Festival of Five Churches and the Advent of Five Churches event series, as well as the supportive background of the host congregations, will provide a solid basis for the discourse that is to take on an ever more European dimension within the ECOC programme complex and points far beyond the Jewish and Christian religious foundations. Europe and, within it, Hungary must learn to know those other religions and religious communities with which we will shape the shared future of Europe. DIALOGUE IN VISUAL ART (V/1 3) Impact: European Venue: Győr Partners: Albertina, Vienna Belvedere, Vienna Vienna Museum Leopold Museum, Vienna Bröhan Museum, Landesmuseum für Jugendstil, Art Deco und Fuktionalismus, Berlin Egon-Schiele-Geburtshaus, Tulln Egon Schiele Art Centrum, Česky Krumlov Kunstmuseum, Basel The Metropolitan Museum, New York The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Museum of Fine Art, Budapest National Gallery, Budapest Lentos Museum, Linz metallurgy industries in Győr Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt MOME (Moholy-Nagy University of Art), Budapest Metropolitan University, Budapest KIBLA Multimedijski Center, Maribor Ars Electronica, Linz V/1 3 Győr s Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History as the professional organizer of the Dialogue in Creative Art programme batch connects directly to the Flow theme and launches a prime ECOC event focusing on the dialogue between artists and patrons with special regard to the traditions of Győr and the topical issues of the Europe of our time. The central element in the programme batch is the Artists and Patrons exhibition, which builds on the collaboration of European museums in presenting a Győr-centred, but sadly characteristic story relevant to entire Europe. The exhibition and its professional side events draw attention not only to the role of major collectors and their invaluable influence on individual cities or regions, but also an all too real danger that a totalitarian regime may annihilate the emerging epochal collections. The basis for Győr s significant collections of fine and applied art is a selection of other private GYŐR

56 collections that had a happier lot, presenting positive examples for the survival of collections even after the collector s death. The programme package encompasses a discussion between present-day collectors and museums regarding the destiny and organization of collections. We hope such a dialogue may raise awareness of this important question and establish a positive example for economic actors with a view to becoming collectors and patrons of art. The revival of collectors culture, handed down from generation to generation in the past but sadly interrupted by World War II, has been sporadic and scant so far in Eastern Central Europe; thus, greater publicity and dialogue are needed in order to fix the broken threads. This programme package is a complex opportunity to connect European models for many more years to come. V/1 V/2 Residence Programmes (V/1): From spring 2019 onwards, the museum as interface will take an active role in connecting more tightly the local enterprises supporting artists and creative processes. Apart from funding, the process of artistic creativity can also be supported through an environment that forges opportunities. The Creative Győr Strategy emphatically states the objective of creating a fruitful atmosphere of innovation, helping young artists to make lasting artworks. Győr has hosted an international artists colony for fifty years, while the city has provided contemporary graphic artists with the technological background to produce relief, intaglio, and planar prints in image graphic works for forty years. This gap-filling initiative has turned the workshop managed by the Rómer Museum a freely accessible studio, a venue for practical education at the level of art schools and universities. The reconstruction of the Napoleon House will not only provide options for the graphic workshop and an exhibition space but also add studio apartments in the loft area, where relatively long-term residence programmes will be feasible. The Győr Graphic Workshop and the related painters ateliers will enable the AIR Győr (Artist In Residence) programme to help realise new international contemporary art programmes or exchange schemes in the following fields. (1) With the help of Győr-based industries, we propose to revive the metal sculpture symposium hugely successful in the 1970s, continuing its best traditions in launching metal sculpture workshops and connecting artists with their relevant workshops. (2) Building on the traditions of early photo studios and Carl Zeiss s erstwhile lens factory in Győr, we will host photo-art as well as Camera-less workshops, lecture series, and exhibitions in collaborations with the professors of MOME and the Metropolitan University in Budapest. This will generate a dialogue between photograms and photochemical painting techniques, that is, László Moholy-Nagy s heritage and the latest technological challenges. (3) At international workshops and street art projects in space graphic art, harnessing the 3D potentials in image graphic works, we will bring together young graphic artists from Győr and a range of European creators to explore the city, focusing on an innovative image of the future interacting with the monuments and remains of the past. Conference and Exhibition on Contemporary Art Collection (V/2): We hope the regular residence programmes to be launched from 2019 onwards will activate the connections between the economic and artistic actors in Győr, generating art collection processes along the same lines. By 2023, this supportive environment will create a receptive audience interested in contemporary creative art suitable for a conference series on contemporary art collection, which will attract experts and lay guests from Hungary and abroad. In spring 2023, the time of the conference, two exhibitions will be open to the public in Győr: the first dedicated to Artists and Patrons, presenting the atmosphere of art collection before the Great War; the second presenting a comprehensive selection of Károly Gerendai s collection, installed in the new, 400-square-metre exhibition hall of the reconstructed Napoleon House, 54 GYŐR 2023

57 displaying an unprecedented cross-section of the leading businessman s contemporary art collection. The programmes of the professional conference series also run along two lines. First, discussing questions of contemporary collections and the procedure of collecting, we will address collectors awareness, as well as the networks and functions of art historians, curators, and collectors in compiling and maintaining contemporary collections. Second, we will investigate the responsibility of posterity through the case study of the annihilated Lederer Collection, considering the possible limitations of a museum environment in recovering lost artworks and reuniting historical collections. Artists and Patrons: Klimt, Schiele, and the Lederer Estate (V/3): Due to the business profit made at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Győr-based Lederer family could grow to be one of Europe s most generous art collectors and patrons. The industrialist August Lederer, native of the region of Böhmisch-Leipa (Česká Lípa) and Jungbunzlau (Mladá Boleslav), took the heritage and responsibility of paternal investment capital to Győr, where he continued to make ever more profit. The prosperous enterprises of the Lederer empire and the substantial dowry of his wife Serena Pulitzer enabled the family to acquire paintings and sculptures of Renaissance Italian art, which August esteemed above everything else. In the process, he gained an expertise in the opportunities and challenges of an art collector s life. In their Vienna mansion at 8, Bartensteingasse, next to a Renaissance salon, a separate room was dedicated to the outstanding Viennese Art Nouveau painter Gustav Klimt, who painted an impressive portrait of Serena Lederer, a favourite in Viennese society, posing in a white dress. It was also Klimt, the family friend, who recommended his young protégé, Egon Schiele to the Lederers. Egon would later become the art teacher and intimate friend of August and Serena s son Erich Lederer. Schiele s impressions of Győr are recorded in a picture he painted about the city and a number of portraits about the members of the Lederer family. In the deteriorating political climate from the 1930s onwards, the Jewish family suffered persecution, their collection was plundered by the Nazis. Some works were destroyed by fire, others scattered throughout the world. Our exhibition presenting the story of the Lederer family will be realised in co-operation with major international experts and museums and rely on the contribution of foreign and Hungarian private collections, presenting a mutually constructive relationship between patrons and artists through an example of European dimensions, whose focus is the city of Győr. As a grand art collector s career clashes with the terrors of the mid-20th century, a cathartic case study of art and other art-related issues will unfold. FESTIVAL INN HOUSE OF DIALOGUE (W/1) Impact: European Venue: Győr Partners: YOUROPE the European Festival Association The Festival Academy, EFFE European Festivals Association Piranha Arts AG, WOMEX, Berlin Hungarian Festival Association PxP Embassy e.v., PXP Festival, Berlin Open Air St. Gallen, Switzerland Exit Festival, Serbia Pohoda, Slovakia Alter Art / Open er Poland ARTmania Festival Sibiu Lollapalooza Berlin Northside Øya Festivalen, Norway Paléo Festival, Nyon Roskilde Woodstock, Poland Wacken Open Air Haldern Pop Colors of Ostrava Sziget, Budapest Ruisrock Way Out West, Sweden Das Fest, Germany Nova Rock, Austria Pinkpop, Holland Pukkelpop, Belgium Rock for People, Czech Republic Lowlands, Holland Eurosonic Noorderslag Holland, MaMA Paris Popakademie Baden-Württemberg (University of Popular Music and Music Business) FH Kufstein Tirol (University of Applied Sciences) V/3 W/1 GYŐR

58 The Festival Inn programme batch will collect the professional programmes dedicated to the preparation and management of festivals, establishing a discourse for the representatives of European festival organizers, managers, and lobbyists. The Festival Inn is not merely a venue to host festivals but a real and symbolic centre for the dialogue of European festivals and the culture transmission power inherent in dialogue. As a community feast, the festival arms its participants with the flow experience of unity, enhancing the long-term effects of the information and impulses gained by living through that experience. The cultural dialogues about the social problems pertaining to the destiny of Europe, reaching out towards the younger generations, will focus on festivals as the most effective contemporary channels of transmission. The social organizations recognizing this chance are increasingly visible within the festival framework; in turn, the professional management, understanding the responsibility this chance entails, more and more often supports causes that may help the improvement of the destiny of Europe or the globe, whether assisting those in need or averting the threat of ecological catastrophes. The Festival Inn intends to be a real and virtual forum for these initiatives in Through exhibitions, conferences, and educational courses, it will support the dialogue between individual actors and provide a venue for the physical implementation of existing travelling platforms. In November 2023, Győr will host The European Festival Conference (organized by Yourope), while early in the year, the EFFE European Festival Association will bring The Festival Academy, Atelier for Young Festival Managers course to our city. In addition to the programmes already confirmed to date, we are making a bid for a number of further international projects, WOMEX being one of the most prestigious of these. Our purpose is to stress the importance of social responsibility in organizing festivals a task we intend to pass on to the organizers of the ECOC 2024 programmes after the conclusion of what we believe is an exceptionally strong programme year. During the ECOC year, the Festival Inn will also provide a unique opportunity for the Hungarian professionals of festival organisation to communicate on any level of authority. In 2023, we will invite the best twelve festivals of Hungarian regions on both sides of the country s borders, to introduce their events and to join in with the ongoing international discourse. The selection of domestic and across-the-border festivals will follow a competitive setup from the year 2021, according to the then current and topical considerations. The coordinator of the international programmes of the Festival Inn is Fruzsina Szép, the Chief International Advisor of our ECOC programme. The prime professional partner of the Festival Inn is YOUROPE. This organization, founded in 1998, is the most important association of European Festivals; as such, it constantly discusses commercial themes and shares the best practices among its 100 member festivals and associate members. In 2017, YOUROPE established the TAKE A STAND movement promoting tolerance, respect, peace, and social understanding among the tens of millions comprising global festival audiences consumers of European music and festivals in particular. YOUROPE and its members are fully devoted to developing the festival scene: work conditions, health and security protocols, environmental awareness, know-how and information sharing, as well as the international exchange of musical talents in Europe with a general outlook to improve individual and social dialogue and tolerance. How will the events and activities that will constitute the cultural programme for the year be chosen? (This question is optional at pre-selection stage) The compilation of the cultural programme for the year 2023 is the task of the artistic director and their professional staff. The basis for the selection of concrete programmes will be a clearly defined structure catering for the direct link to the theme of the Flow. The choice of individual 56 GYŐR 2023

59 artistic programmes, the invitation of particular artists and productions will take place within the grid thus described, so that the selection of a concrete programme is assisted by debriefed experts of the given field. The artistic director, the international advisory board, and the professional mentors will personally guarantee the artistic quality of each programme. The professional and artistic content of each of our three programme packages will be supervised by renowned international artists, whom we have commissioned to compile a European-scale programme selection and guarantee its professional standards. The professional mentor of the WAY programme package will be Adrian Schwarzstein (Estonia); the CITY programme package will be supervised by Sergey Korsakov (Russia); the DIALOGUE programme package by Matija Solce (Slovenia). For certain programme batches requiring special contents, know-how, and professional networks, further professional mentors will assist with compiling the final programme. Anthropologist Dr. Zsolt Sári will supervise the programmes related to the way of grey cattle and the trade as well as apprenticeship axes. Chief librarian Tamás Kiss of the Diocesan Library and Treasury of Győr will support the staff in the Way of the Corvinas and the Way of Christianity programme packages; Barna Petrányi, artistic director of Pro Progressione, will lead the professional preparation of the Danube projects; while Zoltan Kunckel will coordinate the professional work done for the Way of Refugees and Settlers. The connection network and personal expertise of our professional mentors will guarantee in each field the highest possible quality and authenticity of the programmes selected. In detailing the individual programme packages above, the choice of the professional partners as listed has already been approved by our mentors team. How will the cultural programme combine local cultural heritage and traditional art forms with new, innovative and experimental cultural expressions? The thematic framework of the Flow rests upon Győr s cultural heritage. In each of our programme batches, we have striven to unfold and understand this heritage. The benefit of our cultural heritage for the present era lies in its innovative survival and revival. The ECOC programme gives us an opportunity to locate our own flow in the European dimension and, via the traditional threads and routes connecting us with the continent, to reach our European future. Every one of our artistic programme batches mixes traditional art forms with parallel excursions into virtual space. We consider the virtual summary of all accumulated knowledge and experience key for the broadest spread of the flow philosophy. Certain programmes can only yield full benefits in virtual space, such as the virtual dance theatre productions of FesztiválON. Others reach their summary conclusion and presentation there, with particular regard to the group exhibitions related to the Thematic pathways, which will be realized simultaneously at various points of Europe, elevating their immediate environment to the artwork itself. The programmes linking sport and performing arts within the Danube project are also innovative and experimental, transgressing boundaries. Our Garden programme reaps the lessons of European horticulture, upon which urban gardens of artistic merit may be experimentally designed. Certain community-building and audience development programmes will be supported by online platforms where the members of the community will be able continuously to discuss their experiences and exchange information. An example is the online platform of the City Workshop or the homepage connected to the City Garden programme. Each of our history-oriented programme will be complemented by its 21st-century counterpart, through which the younger generations will encounter direct and first-hand interpretations of the given theme. In the Baroque programmes, we will address the boom in technology and GYŐR

60 its impact on society; in the Journeymen s pathways, the importance of scholarship schemes today; the Way of the Corvinas will be counterpointed by another form of information exchange evolving at the very moment, i.e. emoji culture. By 2023, this modern visual script may well have developed into a veritable world language of everyday life, carrying the summary of period knowledge similar to King Mathias s Corvinas. This 21st-century semiotic iconography is devoid of all the political ballast of actual world languages, independent of age and language proficiency, thus providing an adequate option for the information exchange and communication of travellers, wanderers, or refugees. Together with the Corvina exhibition, an exciting virtual show will present this new phenomenon in information transfer and its evolution, with a conference discussing its potential and influence on humanity. How has the city involved, or how does it plan to involve, local artists and cultural organisations in the conception and implementation of the cultural programme? Please give some concrete examples and name some local artists and cultural organisations with which cooperation is envisaged and specify the type of exchanges in question. In those programme batches where the implementation of the programmes is directly related to an already running festival or professional workshop of individual institutions in Győr (Dialogue on Dance / Ballet Company of Győr / director: János Kiss; Dialogue on Music / Győr Philharmonic Orchestra / director: Géza Fűke; Dialogue of Generations / Iron Rooster Puppet Theatre / director: Rozi Kocsis; Dialogue in Visual Art / Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History / director: Bernadett Grászli), the given institutions will undertake to compile the 2023 programme, as well as to select and commission the Hungarian and international cooperative partners. These programme units will be embedded into our thematic Flow that their contents, as detailed above, have been determined by the leaders of the listed institutions. The primary objective of the CITY programme package is to release and channel the creative energies latent within the city by supporting individuals and organizations in Győr. The ECOC Club, meeting every other week from 2018 onwards, has gathered the young artists and community actors of Győr; the artistic management has invariably counted on their nonstop feedback in finalizing the individual elements in the CITY package. This dialogue will continue into the future, laying the groundwork for our creative take on the city. It has also helped establish the Creative Győr Strategy, providing ongoing civil professional monitoring and assistance for the artistic management of the programme. The City Workshop, complete with the active agency of the ECOC Club, will establish an individual creative planning framework within the programme structure, ensuring that our joint efforts will unfold smoothly as part of the ECOC programme. During the preparatory year 2018, we have sought the widest possible collaboration in making our Flow theme known to the public, inviting the contribution of creatives based in, or intimately related to, Győr. The cover of our information booklet published in spring 2018 was designed by amateur photographer Emánuel Kántor. Our GYŐR2023 themed bag was made by artisan Zsuzska Csermák. The mini-boat gift for our partners signing the declaration of support was created by silk painter Erzsébet Csurák. In the short film series devoted to promoting the programmes of Győr2023, a range of influential cultural and sport personages have expressed their own concept of the FLOW and how they feel the ECOC 2023 title would boost the development of Győr, including Csaba Bede-Fazekas, Csenge Dunai, Márk Járai, Oszkár Gáti, Anita Görbicz, René Mednyánszky / Menzkie, Károly Nyári, Konrád Szabó, Mátyás Weisz / DJ Matyi, and Bogi Dallos. 58 GYŐR 2023

61 PROGRAMMES FINANCING (EURO) Axis of Commerce A Axis of Apprenticeship B WAY THEMATIC PATHWAYS Axis of Waterways C Way of Christianity D Railway Line E Way of Musicians F Way of Corvinas G Ways of Refugees and Settlers H Danube Projects I Garden Programme J On the Way Street Festival K Who lives in the city? L Signs in the City M CITY City Workshop N Let It Be Your Place O Day of the City P Dialogue on the Baroque Q Dialogue on Dance R DIALOGUE Dialogue on Music S Dialogue on Generations T Dialogue of Religions U Dialogue in Creative Art V Festival Inn W Opening-Closing Ceremony TOTAL AMOUNT ( ) HIGHLIGHTED PROGRAMMES PERMANENT OR TEMPORARY PROGRAMMES PRECEDING AND FOLLOWING ECOC YEAR PROGRAMMES CITY JUBILEE YEAR PROGRAMMES GYŐR

62 60 GYŐR 2023

63 4. Capacity to deliver Confirm and supply evidence that you have broad and strong political support and a sustainable commitment from the relevant local, regional, and national public authorities. Local political and professional support On February 13, 2017, the preparatory committee for the ECOC competition was established, with Mayor Zsolt Borkai of Győr at the head. The organization includes cultural professionals and the leaders of cultural institutions located in Győr, as well as the representatives of political parties, in order to produce an application that will have a good professional foundation and have the support of all the political actors of the city. The General Assembly of the Local Government of Győr Municipality, with its resolution of 154/2017 (X/27), taken at a meeting held on October 27, 2017, officially demonstrated its interest to participate in the bidding process issued by the Ministry of Human Capacities, to win the ECOC in 2023 title. The General Assembly adopted the resolution with a unanimous vote, as it had the local support of each political party. On November 8, 2018, the same body approved the Creative Győr Strategy and the present tender with resolutions 182/2018 (XI/8) and 183/2018 (XI/8), securing the support and future implementation of its programme, overarching political parties. Investment support On April 28, 2017, in the framework of the Modern Cities Programme, the Government of Hungary and the Local Government of Győr Municipality entered into an agreement of cooperation to further develop and reinvigorate the city. To ensure a successful governmental execution of the content of the agreement, the Government confirmed its intent in a government decision. In the governmental decision of 1387/2017 (June 27), in connection with the tasks to execute the agreement of cooperation between the Government of Hungary and the Local Government of Győr Municipality, the Government supports the boost of the cultural life of Győr directly with several developments. Regional support To secure the implementation of the Győr ECOC application in a regional partnership and in the form of a solemn signing ceremony on December 12, 2017, Mayor Zsolt Borkai entered into an agreement of cooperation, with the Mayors of Sopron and Dunajská Streda, the operators of the Esterházy Palace in Fertőd and the Széchenyi Palace in Nagycenk, the board of directors at the Fertő-Hanság National Park and the Benedictine Archabbey of Pannonhalma. The delegated specialists of the signing partners have cooperated with us in the elaboration of the cultural programme items, in order to assure a firm base for their future implementation. Support from the business sector Reliable local businesses morally and financially supporting the cultural and social projects of the City of Győr has a history. As a cooperative partner, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Győr-Moson-Sopron County also assists, using all of its forums, in strengthening the relationship between cultural and business actors even further, and supports the programmes GYŐR

64 of the ECOC year. Attendees of the professional programmes organized by this Chamber have become familiar with the ECOC bid of Győr and decided to join the FLOW, bringing it closer to a successful implementation with their own resources. Initiated by Mayor Zsolt Borkai, a solemn signing ceremony was held in the form of a gala on September 26, 2018, to finalize the written declaration of partnership intent between the city and the business actors of Győr to support the GYŐR2023 programme. Mayor Zsolt Borkai from the city, as well as chief executives from Agrofeed Ltd., Alcufer Ltd., Audi Hungaria Inc., DANA Hungary Ltd., Leier Hungária Ltd., NEMAK Győr Ltd., QP Inc., Security Patent Group, UNIVERSITAS- Győr Non-profit Ltd. and Vill-Korr Hungária Ltd., representing the business sphere, signed this document. The line of business actors from Győr supporting the programme is not broken here additional companies have indicated to join the cause after the gala, West Hungária Bau Ltd. being the first one. Support from educational institutions Our programme is particularly founded on educational institutions, especially artistic studies. The leadership of Széchenyi István University and the Mayor of Győr Municipality ascertained their cooperation in a declaration and set the objective to develop the Art Faculty established in December 2016 along with the ECOC application. Confirm and evidence that your city has or will have adequate and viable infrastructure to host the title. To do that, please answer the following questions Explain briefly how the ECOC will make use of and develop the city s cultural infrastructure. Current situation Relying on its own cultural institutional system for the most part, the city provides access to high standard cultural and communal programmes for its citizens. In the somewhat cramped downtown area, the five theatres and one concert hall can seat 1,610 each day. Currently there are 4 renovated public places to host open-air events in the city centre, this number to rise to 6 by Further developments partly aim at the stretching of this downtown-centred infrastructure of artistic life, finding new home for these essential cultural institutions outside of the crowded city centre, thus generating to create new cultural focus points by these new investments throughout the entire city. Developments of the Modern Cities Programme Developments of the Modern Cities Programme provide the essence of the investments in our application. Each of the 18 developments described in the programme directly or indirectly serve the successful implementation of our ECOC year. The development of green surfaces, the guarantee of sustainability, and the wide range use of smart technological solutions are major considerations in each investment of the programme, which Győr interprets as the development of a viable city. For details on these developments, please refer to the charts found at the end of this chapter. The governmental guaranties for these arrangements are detailed in Chapters Capacity to deliver and Investment Support. ECOC-related improvements by the local government All infrastructural development needs that are to meet our goals in the field of culture and 62 GYŐR 2023

65 11 1. Ballet Company of Győr 2. Győr Philharmonic Orchestra 3. National Theatre of Győr 4. Iron Rooster Puppet Theatre 5. House of Generations Cultural Centre 6. Győr Art and Festival Centre 7. Synagogue University Concert Hall 8. Győr Municipality Archives 9. Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History exhibition sites 10. Kovács Pál Public Library 11. Széchenyi István University m have been identified during the first round of the ECOC bid and the strategy planning process, and were fixed in the Creative Győr Strategy in order to maintain their essential necessity, irrespective of the end result of the bid. Complex youth community scenes: The analysis from the Creative Győr Strategy and other strategic documents all pointed out the shortage of available youth community scenes. There is a need to create a complex community space/youth development centre, using external resources. The scene will have to provide complex services. The operating conception of such a youth community scene providing complex services will have to be based on relevant test results. Providing indiscriminating accessibility to cultural institutions as widely as possible: In order to improve accessibility to cultural values, infrastructural upgrading must consider the improvement of communication channels to provide remote access, including the continuation of the digitalization processes started last year. Also, just like in the past, new investments will have to focus on indiscrimination while providing access. Renewal of community spaces: In order to provide the infrastructural background for this social life and events, ongoing constructions the House of Generations and the Rómer House and scheduled developments Napoleon House, Abbot s House, the main building of the local library and the theatre will have to be paired with further improvements. The main goal within this scope is that these cultural institutions of Győr, also functioning as community spaces, will become adequate and decent socializing points. New meeting points, pop-up social places: The Creative Győr Strategy proposed the following GYŐR

66 areas to establish new meeting points and pop-up social places at: residential areas by combining permanent and temporary elements, these would not only provide community meeting points, but present public services as well that may promote attendance and foster cohesion; river banks for the use of (mainly) youth communities already using them as meeting points, but also for those who wish to find a quiet and peaceful area, away from the commotion of the city; and the parks both extending the functions thereof and helping to maintain the environmental qualities and public security of these areas. The annual re-establishment of these pop-up spaces will give the people the chance to let their voice be heard as to what function(s) to keep and what new function(s) to add. Furthermore, monitoring the popularity and success of their social events will serve a great base for the planning of establishing such perpetual spaces in the long run. Centre of Autonomous Art Communities: Analysis has shown how artists, groups, and communities of performers grow in number when these community institutions function properly. This favourable tendency also worthy to maintain has but one shortfall: some artistic communities cannot be hosted (for rehearsal purposes) in the over-utilized cultural facilities. Examining, therefore, the possibilities of finding other existing or new facilities to host such functions has become a pressing need. Creative Spaces: The benefits of adding to the number of these collective, operating creative spaces are twofold: they will help generate artworks to make the city even more exciting as well as contribute to the partial goal of turning Győr into a centre for innovation through artistic projects and initiatives. These creative spaces not only form the framework for the birth of new pieces of art of the highest value, but they inspire and even involve, providing professional support as well. They also offer the opportunity for Győr to develop into being a host to the most influential artistic figures, domestic and foreign, whether by exchange programmes or anything else. Design Incubation Centre: There are two hindrances to the strengthening of the aspiring design actors and businesses in the market: the red tape of legal, accounting, and taxing issues, as well as the lack of proper communication channels and the challenges to locate these. The first step in creating the Design Incubation Centre is to launch and operate the aforementioned services. The next step is to expand the range of the available services with an exhibition hall, a marketing place, offices to rent at discount prices and workshops then, having the necessary resources, within a specialized infrastructure, possibly located in one of the decentralized areas of Győr. Festival Inn: In our bid for Round#1, we included the construction of two new venues to best serve the outstanding programmes of Győr2023. First, we will build a green open-air area, a City Event Park, and we will convert an already existing building into a temporary Festival Reception venue for the ECOC year. We have found a solution for these two significant investments that, in the case of successful implementation, will combine, and even multiply the efficiency of these two community scenes. By merging the functions of the City Event Park and Festival Reception, we will create the new youth community scene of Győr the very Festival Inn for the ECOC year on the ground of a currently vacated site of 159,128 square metres, formerly used as a Russian military area. The city of Győr will provide the land and budget for the implementation of this project in the event of winning the title of the ECOC please refer to the table found at the end of this chapter. Constructions can commence as early as the spring of 2019, the local government being the owner of the site. Planning and construction phases will definitely offer unorthodox community-building 64 GYŐR 2023

67 experiences. Local workshops, architectural tenders and surveys conducted among the youth will serve as ground for the community planning, mutually developed with the involvement of both architects, garden builders and town builders, as well as the team of Cardboardia and the City Workshop Club. The community planning process is supervised by the Artistic Directorate of ECOC. This project, unique in Central Europe as is, formulates several questions on the issues of urbanism, searching the answers with various research methods to mark the future path. Due to testing, need survey and try-out reasons, as well as connecting the venue to the bloodstream of the city the soonest possible, events are planned to be held here as early as Capacities already available public utilities, public road and bicycle road connections make this site ready to start being used, enabling the construction process to evolve from the duality of planning and use. Environmentally conscious solutions play a major role in both the planning and the investing phases such as the solar panel park on 20,700 square metres, already in the bidding process in order to preserve the current ecosystem and protect the trees. Building construction expectations include light structural work, environmentally conscious, power saving and eco-conscious planning and construction. The project site will receive careful planning when establishing the construction essentials, such as port-o-lets, mobile offices and homes, tents and pavilions, to improve its future utilization to the highest. The planning process is mentored by the Board of YOUROPE, who, as organizers of the largest music festivals of Europe, bring their personal expertise in supporting our work with an annual on-site walk through, to make sure the facility meets the European standards by 2023, as outlined in the Cultural and Artistic Content chapter. As an effort to add the area more intensively to the bloodstream of the city, a scheduled commuting boat in the ECOC year is considered with stops at the University and in the downtown area. These ports will also serve as temporary information pavilions during the ECOC year, for the planning of which ports we will organize international student workshops in the preceding years. The ultimate goal is to create a new, youthful and creative inner-city alternative in Győr by the ECOC year, spreading the programmes and their spectators across the two poles, providing fast transportation and flexible schedules between them in every accessible way boats, buses, bike rentals, parking lots and bicycle stands. What are the city s assets in terms of accessibility (regional, national, and international transport)? The accessibility of Győr The city of Győr is located in the Vienna Budapest European transportation corridor, with excellent public road, rail, and waterway connections to East and West. Accessibility on water The development of the Győr Gönyű National Public Traffic Port is ongoing. The opening of the shipway on the Moson Danube fork of the river, planned before 2023, will definitely boost the number of visitors who will choose to arrive to town this way. Accessibility on public road Neighbouring capitals Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava can directly be accessed on turnpikes M1, A4, D1, and D2 within minutes, and even Prague is a mere 3.5 hours away by car. The bypass ring around Győr is not finished yet, but the eastern bypass connecting Road 14 and M1 motorway was completed in Accessibility by air Győr enjoys the close proximity of three international airports (BUD: Ferenc Liszt GYŐR

68 International Airport, VIE: Vienna-Schwechat International Airport, BTS: Milan Rastislav Štefánik International Airport), connected to the city by motorway. Developments of the Pér International Airport, situated 16 kilometres from Győr, now allow for receiving Boeing 737 and Airbus 320 category aeroplanes. Accessibility by rail Győr has excellent railroad connections to East and West, it being an important stop for local, fast, InterCity, EuroNight, and Railjet trains on the international railway connecting Budapest and Vienna. In international rail traffic, Győr is accessible from the cities of Europe directly or via Budapest or Vienna. The Győr railway station, located in the city centre, is planned to be renovated by Accessibility on bicycle Győr is a bicycle-friendly station on the international EuroVelo6 bike route along the Danube, with excellent infrastructure. Currently, thousands of tourists arrive to the city by bicycle, increasing the number of commercial overnight stays. The bicycle roads within the city are in excellent condition, the network is exuberant, ongoing development is provided. Of all the roads coming into the city, the section connecting Győr with the UNESCO site of Pannonhalma is in the pre-construction phase. Transportation available within the city Public road transportation, parking The public road network of Győr mainly has a radial structure, amended by the southern external bypass of the M1 motorway and the Szigethy Attila Road Ipar Street inner circle route, and Szent István Road (Road #1) crossing the inner city. Lighten inner city roads by constructing bypass roads. Of the planned bypass roads, the construction of the western bypass, connecting Road 1 and Road 14, has recently been completed. Each state investment National Theatre renovation, Concert Hall and Conference Centre currently under construction or in the planning phase handle the extension of parking places a priority. The downtown area will also have a new parking garage with cultural functions made available in the near future. Parking structure on the rim of the city centre is constantly extending. Bus transportation The existing bus transportation network of the city receives continuous adjustments to the needs. At the time of larger events, night bus services are provided by the Local Government. Apart from the paying bus services, City bus is a free service to all, connecting the city centre with the university campus, touching the main transport nodes and potential transfer places. Bicycle transportation The GyőrBike network, assisting public transportation in Győr, was launched in docking stations and more than 200 bicycles are available throughout the city. The bicycle road network, already exceeding 100 kilometres in total length, is continuously being added unto. What is the city s absorption capacity in terms of tourists accommodation? At present, 92 accommodation facilities and 5985 units of commercial accommodation await the visitors of the city. As pertaining to the division types of the accommodation facilities of Győr, hotels lead with a total number of 27, followed by 23 pensions, 36 other accommodation places, 3 camping and 3 additional facilities, functioning as either dormitories or commercial lodging. 66 GYŐR 2023

69 Visitors prefer lodging places with higher standards. In addition, business- and conference tourism also plays a significant role, influencing the establishment of capacities accordingly. Accommodation category Quantity Rooms Accommodating 4-star hotels star hotels Pension Other Total Győr does not have a 5-star accommodation facility, while the most prominent 4-star hotel has 103 rooms. Since the capacity of these accommodation facilities has been showing growth in recent years, developments have taken place, leading to improvements in quality as well as quantity. By 2020, two larger accommodation development projects will have been completed. A three-star sport and conference hotel will be built with about rooms, and one four-star hotel will extend its conference and room capacity up to 40 additional suits. The guest turnover of commercial accommodation facilities In 2018, 190,337 guests spent 417,491 nights in the commercial accommodation facilities of the city, in this division: 58.3% (111,027) foreign and 41.7% (79,310) domestic guests. In regard to overnight stays, 50.4% (210,458) of the total were foreign and 49.6% (207,033) domestic guest nights. In comparison, the number of overnight stays moved from 187,567 (2009) to 417,491 (2017). During the European Youth Olympic Festival of 2017, the city was able to provide overnight accommodation for almost people with no glitch, by combining commercial accommodation facilities with dormitory accommodation and temporary facilities at the Olympic Village. Winning the ECOC title would greatly boost interest in the commercial accommodation facilities in the city. The current booked capacity of approx. 50% would definitely grow, with more balanced yearly indicators. By means of developments scheduled until 2023, the city will be able to offer additional lodging places, promptly meeting the increased demand, most likely escalating the use of accommodation capacities in the region as well. In terms of cultural, urban and tourism infrastructure, what are the projects (including renovation projects) that your city plans to carry out in connection with the ECOC action between now and the year of the title? What is the planned timetable for this work? (This last question is optional at pre-selection stage). See Table on subsequent pages GYŐR

70 Investment I. Direct connection Renovation of the National Theatre of Győr, along with normalizing the parking situation at II. János Pál square. Preliminary planning phase Construction phase Planned budget (in EUR) 1 EUR=312 HUF Construction of a new Concert Hall Creation of a new exhibition and conference centre Renovation of the Abbot s House Festival Inn and City Event Park Renovation of the Napoleon House Creation of a new ballet room Digital Development Centre (University) National Castle Programme in Győr-Moson-Sopron County Nagycenk, Fertőd, Sopron, Mosonmagyaróvár Space for the community develop community-building spaces Shaping a green city I Shaping a green city II Develop the infrastructural background of the cultural events in Győr Creation of a water park Capacity expansion of the cultural events in Győr Dunajská Streda spa, cultural development Creation of a youth community space Creation of the Design Incubation Centre II. Indirect connection Economy- and sports economy developments with transportation system developments to motivate mobile workforce, I. Economy- and sports economy developments with transportation system developments to motivate mobile workforce, II Development of cycling and parking infrastructure in Győr Development of cycling and parking infrastructure in Győr, II Development of cycling network in Győr Construction of the Győr Pannonhalma bicycle road Construction of the final part of the eastern bypass road, as well as the new bridge over the Moson Danube Overall development of the Xantus János Zoo Construction of a Sports Hotel Improve intramodality and settle the parking situation around the railway station and the intercity bus station GYŐR 2023

71 Financing resources Executives / Implementers Facilities Management Modern Cities Programme (state) Modern Cities Programme (state) Modern Cities Programme (state) Local government Local government Local government Local government / governmental actor(s) involving personal capital Local government Local government (operated by the National Theatre of Győr) Local government (operated by the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra) Local government Local government local government (operated by the Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History) Local government Local government Local government Local government Local government Local government local government (operated by the Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History) Local government Local government, Győr-Szol Inc. Ballet Association of Győr Modern Cities Programme (state) Széchenyi István University Széchenyi István University EU ERDF resource Budavári Real Estate Development and Facilities Management Ltd., NÖF Nonprofit Ltd. Project implementation organizations EU ERDF resource Project implementation organizations Project implementation organizations EU ERDF resource Local government, Győr-Szol Inc. Local government, Győr-Szol Inc. EU ERDF resource Local government Local government EU ERDF resource Local government, Győr Projekt Ltd. Local government, Győr Projekt Ltd. Modern Cities Programme (state) Local government Rába Quelle Ltd. EU ERDF resource Local government Local government EU ERDF resource Municipality of Dunajská Streda (SK) Municipality of Dunajská Streda (SK) State resources (direct state financial support for ECOC projects) State resources (direct state financial support for ECOC projects) Local government Local government Local government Local government EU ERDF resource EU ERDF resource Local government, Magyar Közút Non-profit Inc. Local government, Magyar Közút Non-profit Inc. Local government Local government EU ERDF resource Local government, Győr-Szol Inc. Local government, Győr-Szol Inc. EU ERDF resource Local government Local government EU ERDF resource Local government Local government Modern Cities Programme (state) NIF Inc. Magyar Közút Non-profit Inc. Modern Cities Programme (state) NIF Inc. Road Maintenance Management of Győr Modern Cities Programme (state) Local government János Xantus Zoo Public benefit Non-profit Ltd. Modern Cities Programme (state) Local government Győr Projekt Ltd. Modern Cities Programme (state) Local government, MÁV Inc., ÉNYKK Road Maintenance Management of Győr, MÁV Inc., ÉNYKK, Győr-Szol Inc. GYŐR

72 5. Outreach Explain how the local population and your civil society have been involved in the preparation of the application and will participate in the implementation of the year. In 2018, we have worked hard to familiarize the citizens of Győr with the message of our Flow theme, the importance of the ECOC initiative, and the preparations which we can all participate in. It is central that everyone feel our shared responsibility and pay attention to our initiative, thus opening up towards the messages directed at them and join our all-encompassing enterprise with trust and confidence. They must feel the outstanding role they may play in shaping the future of European culture, for each and every programme is designed for them, in order to strengthen the cultural grassroots of the continent. This was our main objective in transmitting our Flow theme as approved in February 2018 towards Győr, the region, and the Republic of Hungary. Győr s existing programme selection with its extraordinary scope in both high and mass culture has provided an opportunity to present our bid and goals at divergent events reflecting the European spirit. We have successfully reached out to the children, translating the flow experience into their language at the internationally acclaimed Győrkőc (GyőrKid) Festival. Our young visitors, not only from Hungary but also from across the borders, could be parts of the flow and take its message with them in the form of a self-made paper boat or a hand-painted pebble from the Danube, which we collected from the flow in the heart of the Szigetköz region. The team of the Győrkőc Festival and the Iron Rooster Puppet Theatre will continue to offer vital partnership in accessing even the smallest children creatively. In June, the beginning of the summer camp season, an exhibition presented the past ECOCs of Europe at the Győrújbarát youth camp run by the Local Government, which has, since the beginning of the academic year, toured the schools of the city. Complemented by competitions and creative challenges, it will convey the excitement of the bidding period to all our pupils, big or small. Although most educational institutions in Győr are state-run, we are on most cordial terms with their managements, which ensures that all these institutions can help us efficiently to involve primary and secondary-school children and youths in our preparatory procedure of planning and community building. Young adults, usually very difficult to reach and to involve in active dialogue, were collectively addressed at the 31! 3 Rivers 1 Isle festival, organized according to the feedback gained from a public poll as early as This event aimed to bring closer together the youth and art, as well as to provide such culture-based entertainment where the events at a range of different venues could present the participants with a true community experience. The festival may, in the future, continue to create an ideal forum between the ECOC and the younger generations. Apart from the promotion of the ECOC project, the groundwork for the volunteer recruitment for 2023 was also laid at the Sleep Another Time! 24-hour competition in Győr, where 10 high-school teams (representing, among others, our partner city Sopron) participated after weeks of enthusiastic preparation in ECOC fever, shooting May Győr be the ECOC videos. At the actual event, 500 young people faced creative challenges that tested their perseverance as well as comradeship, giving them a memorable experience of positive competitive spirit. They felt what we, too, feel, vying for the ECOC title with our respectable rivals. The local social sphere has also substantially contributed to the involvement of elderly citizens 70 GYŐR 2023

73 and people with disabilities. Their events centred on the flow as well. In addition to folding hundreds of paper boats, they discussed the possible strategies of our bid in small groups, too. The ECOC stage installed for the Night of the Museums series (June 22 24) hosted popular street festival animators for three full days; the visitors could create their own small boats and wear them as badges. It is scarcely possible that a single youth in Győr should not have heard about our ECOC bid and the Flow theme over a range of attractive and entertaining events. A number of notabilities related and devoted to Győr sent video messages, explaining what the Flow means to them and why it would be important for the city to win the ECOC title. These prominent people, coming from all age groups and walks of life, included handball star Anita Görbicz, Kossuth Prize winner actor and opera singer Csaba Bede-Fazekas, and Tailorland founder Konrád Szabó, who has made it to the Forbes list of 30 Successful Hungarians under 30 as an extreme athlete and BMX cyclist. His commitment makes him a true role model for the youth of Győr, along with many ballet artists, musicians, and other creatives who also expressed their support. Through our network of local media, extending into an increasingly intense Facebook and Instagram presence and complemented by the 2023gyor.hu information site, we have kept apace with every ECOC-related programme and the development of our tender. Not a single week passed without several Győr Plus Media platforms addressing the current issues concerning Győr s bid. The Győr Plus Radio station launched a separate magazine titled GYŐR2023, followed by 20,000 listeners regularly. Since August 1, our advertisement shorts promoting the ECOC bid have been broadcast daily on Győr Plus TV. A photo competition targeted the citizens of Győr, which resulted in our small boat probably visiting more European countries than any one of us did in person. Wherever the flow took it, the small boat was photographed with or without passengers, and the pictures were shared on social media, bringing them back to Győr, too. The artists visiting our city also loved posing for photos with folded paper boats, thus showing their support for our programme, which they intend to join whole-heartedly. Many of them, too, shared the emerging portraits, promoting the significance of Győr s ECOC bid. The ECOC Day in the City event was organized in an unprecedented collaboration for the second time: amateur performers, street musicians, and representatives of a broad spectrum of genres took the stage, while the evening performance brought together the three most prestigious cultural institutions of the city, with the Ballet Company of Győr, the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra, and the National Theatre of Győr joining forces to throw a spectacular show. The We Are the Flow! ECOC Day, which took place at the first weekend of September, will continue to manifest the togetherness of the citizens of Győr and their active participation in cultural programmes, helping major institutions, amateur clubs, and creative groups alike to (re)introduce themselves. Győr is justly proud of its women s handball team. Every week, the Audi Arena Győr is packed for the matches Győri Audi ETO play. Every time the crowd of up to 5,500 fans gathers in the arena, the ECOC video is screened, informing them how they may become part of the flow themselves. The above elements have served to popularize our bid and to earn it maximum support and information spread. We have attempted to reach out to the broadest possible local public and prepare the citizens of Győr for the next phase, when they will be invited actively to shape and speak for all our programmes. In order to promote our bid among the youth of Europe, we have installed and operated a permanent stand at the Sziget Festival, where more than 500,000 festival visitors had an opportunity to learn about Győr s bid. Festival guests could make their own boat badges, bags, or photographs in our little boat, as well as put their respective cities on our map of Europe. GYŐR

74 How will the title create in your city new and sustainable opportunities for a wide range of citizens to attend or participate in cultural activities, in particular young people, volunteers and the marginalised and disadvantaged, including minorities? Please also elaborate on the accessibility of these activities to persons with disabilities and the elderly. Specify the relevant parts of the programme planned for these various groups. Every element in our CITY programme package aims to bring about a complete overhaul of community attitudes during the preparatory years leading up to 2023, exploring and releasing our resources in each and every area, channelling our creative energies into concrete programmes. Our short-term objective is to prepare a worthy and memorable celebration of Győr s jubilee year 2021, in order for it to yield maximum returns in long-term urban community building. In the long run, we intend to corroborate Győr s creative economy and to expand the opportunities that may make Győr an attractive target for the creative sector and creative economy an alluring career model for the citizens of Győr. The latter objective far transcends the ECOC year Access to cultural activities needs less a direct extension of options and opportunities than a shift in basic attitudes addressing the issue. Instead of passive spectatorship, we will emphasize active participation and the community-building potential in the flow experience. Establishing the Cardboardia Győr workshop, we will provide a toolkit for community urban planning. The Roby Lakatos mentoring programme will help disadvantaged children of talent to bring their skills to full fruition by assigning successful professional mentors to them as role models. The Garden units within the WAY programme package suggest typically urban solutions to individual construction, garden design, and production. The platform of the City Workshop enables Győr-based creative artists to connect to social employment agencies. Fine examples are the design products made in the Misina Design social workshops. By widening the emerging channels, we intend to ensure that ECOC souvenirs are manufactured in such ways, too. We have contributed the necessary infrastructure as well as a supportive environment for the street furniture and utility articles recycled from cotton-cloth posters for former city events by the Mokka Group, as well as the development of the Győr-based brands of SetUp and Miabaro. The ECOC Club and its offshoot, the City Workshop are the collective platform and coordinator for such individual projects, where the listed examples have also come to the foreground. Our aim is to connect the individual creative initiatives with the suitable opportunities, using methods of community creativity as a problem-solving device. This is a system all of us need to learn together, and the learning process will be dramatically accelerated by a motivation such as winning the ECOC title. As an objective of the Creative Győr Strategy, we have highlighted Providing indiscriminating accessibility to cultural institutions as widely as possible (see above, Chapter 4, Capacity to Deliver ). In implementing our Flow programme, we will progress even farther, aiming at all-round psychological accessibility in order to break down mental as well as physical barriers. For this purpose, we have launched numerous programmes listed above as of this year, so that we can reach and involve everyone from kindergarten age through retired people. 72 GYŐR 2023

75 Explain your overall strategy for audience development, and in particular the link with education and the participation of schools. Active participation on the part of the audience is essential in the authentic elaboration of the Flow theme, since passive reception will not lead to the desired flow experience. Therefore, encouragement to participate is the basis for involving the audience, primarily built on formal communities that already provide the experience of affinity. Primarily, these are the schools where our future audiences can be found today. They will mainly be addressed through workshops, forums, and specific actions during the preparatory years, so as to trigger creativity and dialogue as elements of the City and Dialogue programme packages. The funds listed in the Finance section below, which we have already procured, provide multiple opportunities for us to buttress these programmes beginning as early as Establishing new community spaces, projects for community and identity formation, and tenders will help embed the local community into the ECOC programmes. These district developments will be linked emotionally to the ECOC title and, indirectly, the opportunities it provides for the city. In addressing children and young people, we focus on a triple message: first, the exploration of the city as a creative space; second, the importance of the dialogue between different cultures; and third, the flow experience extended to the community and the transmission of that experience, where playfulness and interaction are key. As a priority, we have formulated the plan to involve the Győr-based high schools of art, highly acclaimed throughout the country, in the active implementation of the programmes. On the one hand, they provide the base of the emerging adult generation of the creative sector in Győr, which we seek to expand; on the other, they also establish the groundwork for the future actors in creative economy and art, with the graduates moving on to the local universities. This solid professional basis, complemented by the Győr Artists Colony, the creative tenders of the Torula atelier space, new city art competitions, and the creative urban planning tasks of the City Workshop, empowers the students of not only Győr high schools, but eventually all secondary schools in Hungary, if bolstered by the ECOC title. This age group may become by far the most sensitive and intellectually receptive to the incomparable potential inherent in an ECOC year. Our task, therefore, is to raise the interest of this target group and engage it in the project. An important future pillar of our ECOC programme is the university instruction at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Széchenyi István University established in December The new faculty is currently developing its course profile; in launching an ideal selection of specialized courses, our future depends to a large extent on the potential success of our ECOC bid. In implementing several of our programmes, we will heavily rely on the architectural and engineering courses of the university, as well as its international relations, touristic and research programmes, and student base. On the basis of our approved collaboration with YOUROPE The European Festival Association, we will inaugurate a college course in festival organization and management, unique in Europe, whose practical courses will be fluently aligned and harmonized with the tasks of the preparatory years leading up to In the related educational exchange schemes, we will build on collaborations with such European universities as the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg (University of Popular Music and Music Business) or FH Kufstein Tirol (University of Applied Sciences). GYŐR

76 6. Management A) FINANCES CITY BUDGET FOR CULTURE What has been the annual budget for culture in the city over the last 5 years (excluding expenditure for the present European Capital of Culture application)? (Please fill in the table below.) The table below shows the cultural budget of the Local Government for the time period of (In all the tables of this bid book, budget data are to be understood at a 312 HUF/EUR exchange rate.) Year Annual budget for culture in the city (in euros) Annual budget for culture in the city (in % of the total annual budget for the city) ,2% ,5% ,6% ,4% ,0% ,1% The cultural budget item for 2018 in accordance with the city s commitment to handle the budget for the ECOC project and the Local Government s cultural budget completely separately does not include the self-financed costs of 253,451 euros dedicated to the operation of the ECOC project in In case the city is planning to use funds from its annual budget for culture to finance the European Capital of Culture project, please indicate this amount starting from the year of submission of the application until the European Capital of Culture year. For the sake of transparency, the Local Government proposes to handle the ECOC project s budget independent from the cultural budget. The separate ECOC project budget is to be detailed below, both in terms of operation and investment. Which amount of the overall annual budget does the city intend to spend for culture after the European Capital of Culture year (in euros and in % of the overall annual budget)? After the implementation of a successful ECOC project, based on the increased demand on culture, the Local Government will expand its cultural budget accordingly. From the current cultural budget, which is on average 10-11% of the total yearly budget of the Local Government, it wishes to expand to 15% of the yearly cultural budget in order of magnitude following the ECOC year given the current conditions and an unchanged legal environment. 74 GYŐR 2023

77 In nominal value, assuming that the Local Government budget (at a 312 HUF/EUR rate) will be around million euros in those years, the city plans to spend million euros on culture from its budget which, nominally speaking, means a significant, 4-7 million euros worth of increase. OPERATING BUDGET FOR THE TITLE YEAR Income to cover operating expenditure Please explain the overall operating budget (or specifically the amounts set aside to cover operating expenditures). The budget must cover the preparation phase, the title year, as well as the evaluation and maintenance of activities related to the effects of bearing the title. Please also fill in the table below. Total income to cover operating expenditure (in euros) From the public sector (in euros) From the public sector (in %) From the private sector (in euros) From the private sector (in %) ,7% ,3% From 2018 on, the city plans to spend 25.0 million euros on the operating costs of ECOC, about 90% of which will come from the public sector. This proposed operational budget includes the costs of preparation years, as well as the execution resources of the ECOC year. Further tables indicate the composition and timing of the resources. Income from the public sector: What is the breakdown of the income to be received from the public/governmental sector to cover operating expenditure? Please fill in the table below: Income from the public sector to cover operating expenditures in euros % National Government ,71% City ,86% Region 0 0,00% EU (with exception of the Melina Mercouri Prize) ,43% Other 0 0,00% Total % Have the public finance authorities (city, region, state) already voted on or made financial commitments to cover operating expenditures? If not, when will they do so? On November 8, 2018, The General Assembly of the Local Government has with support from all parties unanimously voted on and accepted the ECOC application to be submitted as General Assembly Resolution 183/2018 (XI/8) and, as part of the application, also agreed to provide the necessary resources to finance infrastructural investments. For the optimal organisation of the ECOC project, the city deems it necessary to include GYŐR

78 governmental subsidization as indicated in the budget. As per the government s statement: The governing authority of the selection process related to the title of European Capital of Culture 2023, after having named the title-bearing city, will initiate the submission of a motion for governmental support to the operating and capital expenditure of the winning application. What is your fund-raising strategy to seek financial support from EU programmes / funds to cover operating expenditure? The Local Government is already very successful at using a resource covering strategy that enables Győr to be among those few cities that have direct applications that won in Brussels and have already been implemented (Project Ref. Num.: EPP HU-SPO-SNCESE; Project Title: Volunteering at European Youth Olympic Festival Győr 2017). In addition, the Local Government has already won certain tenders that will be used to prepare for the ECOC. (See table below.) 65% of the above listed European Union resource of 4,807,692 euros is already available, of which the Local Government or its strategic partner has already signed a grant contract. The below listed applications are in complete synergism with the objectives of ECOC and are intended to achieve and support the improvements listed in the application material. Project ID and Title Time / period Total cost (in euros; 1 EUR = 312 HUF) TOP GY Strengthening local identity and cohesion in the city of Győr TOP Who lives in the city? Living memories, living communities, living city TOP Show yourself! Improving the communal activity of local residents TOP Multi-coloured communities Implementing synergy generating mutual initiatives SKHU/1601/1.1/041 Cultural programmes for bridging gaps between Győr and Dunajská Streda (Cultacross) TOP GY A complex programme in connection with the social city-rehabilitation of Győr-Újváros to improve community cooperation The complete financial support for these projects is 3,055,600 euros, which comprises 65% of the total committed European Union resources. The remaining planned support is currently in the developmental stages of the application in the following areas: ECOC project volunteer application 500,000 euros resource: Erasmus+ Main activities: recruiting, selection, education, Participation of volunteers in implementation, coordination of volunteers and follow-up with participants A culture-themed programme to encourage professional and programme level cooperation between cultural institutions of several different countries 750,000 euros possible resources: Danube Transnational Programme, Interreg Europe, Interreg Central Europe, Norwegian Fund 76 GYŐR 2023

79 Enhancement of cultural-touristic cooperation of cities along the Danube 500,000 euros resources: Danube Transnational Programme, Interreg Europe, Interreg Central Europe Certainly, the Local Government continues to monitor all those competition resources that could be inserted into its developmental plans. This ongoing monitoring includes national, regional, and direct resources in Brussels. We have to emphasise that the Creative Győr Strategy was created in 2018 with regards to possible future resources, so developments can be determined more accurately. To increase the efficiency of resource identification, the Local Government keeps in contact with several international partners with similar development ideas and composed joint development concepts to be able successfully to participate in an operative programme invitation not only by itself, but in a consortium. The planning of the programming term began this year, and during the initial assessment and strategy building session, the city emphasised the importance of culture and the necessity of support in this area and notified the government of the same. We will continue to emphasise the importance of cultural support in future meetings as well and thus, at the beginning of the next support term, we should be able to successfully apply for and implement from EU resources projects that focus on the objectives of ECOC. According to what timetable will the income to cover operating expenditure be received by the city and/or the body responsible for preparing and implementing the ECOC project should the city receive the title of European Capital of Culture? Please fill in the table below (this question is optional during the pre-selection stage): The city plans to cover operating expenditure from four main separate resources (own resources, private resources, governmental resources and EU support) for the most part. The table below shows the receipt of income to cover operating expenditure. Source of income for operating expenditure EU National Government City Region Sponsors Other Income from the private sector: What is your fundraising strategy to seek support from the private sector to cover operating expenditure? What is your plan for involving sponsors in the event? GYŐR

80 Raising cultural awareness in the private sector is a decisive element of the ECOC project. This awareness includes not mere sponsorship (in money and kind), but also an increase of societal responsibility in terms of culture, along with a commitment to the cause of European culture. We pay special attention to the sponsorship of the project: specific associates will be assigned to keep in contact with the private sector. These associates task will be the operative implementation of our business contact strategy. Based on our experience, the main pillar of forming any successful sponsor relationship is that the businesses values and interests should clearly and directly meet the object of sponsorship in this case, the messages identified with the ECOC brand. Alongside this main guideline we need to point out that in addition to traditional sponsorship methods (such as providing visual advertisement options) we also emphasise creative sponsorship methods as well, thus striving to create the most win-win relationships possible. While applying a mindful contact search strategy, the informational capital strength of the ECOC brand is always emphasised to show how it can help the business reach out to not only their current but also their future customers, and how it can also present a certain societal responsibility in terms of culture. During these contact searches, we examine how we could connect the business future developments with the ECOC project elements. This technique allows for a win-win relationship that could further encourage a business to directly support the ECOC year, as well as the improvement of Győr s cultural life with their developments and/or capital. We are certain that bearing the ECOC title could not only influence the city and its cultural institutions in a positive way but would also be helpful to all those involved in the city s economy. In addition, we also wish to involve companies as sponsors to implement our flagship project elements. Along with sponsorship, another significant instrument is the option provided by Hungarian law that allows economic figures to directly support performing and cinematic art from their corporate tax. With this support, companies can enjoy certain economic and specific financial advantages, as a certain percentage of these donations is tax-deductible, in addition to the benefit of being able to control their corporate tax payments from a societal responsibility point of view. The contact search will focus on three groups. The first group includes those businesses already present in our network of contacts who currently sponsor cultural events and activities. The second group includes those businesses where the ownership structure includes the state or public property in general. We feel it is important that these large employers are made aware of the ECOC programme and consider culture as their own, for this contact also makes it possible for us to address the target group of the programmes directly. The third group includes businesses that could be sensitive to a societal responsibility for culture and are willing to provide resources for such activity in proportion to their economic strength. There will be different sponsorship categories for the applying organisations to choose from, thus allowing businesses of different sizes to all be able to contribute to the events. Operating expenditure: Please provide a breakdown of the operating expenditure by filling in the table below. 78 GYŐR 2023

81 Breakdown of operating expenditure Programme expenditure (in euros) Programme expenditure (in %) Promotion and marketing (in euros) Promotion and marketing (in %) Wages, overheads and administrative costs (in euros) Wages, overheads and administrative costs (in %) Other (please specify) (in euros) Other (please specify) (in %) Total operating expenditure ,03% ,85% ,70% ,4% Based on actual programme organising experiences, the implementer spends about 70% of the operational expenditure on the implementation of programmes. We will spend half of the remaining resource or 3.71 million euros on promoting the project and the programmes, and the same amount on the programme implementers wages and other costs. The Other category includes all such expenses related to the programme implementation which will recurrently occur over a longer period of investment and development. Planned timing of the realisation of operating expenditure (this question is optional at pre-selection stage): Year of expenditure* Programme expenditure (in euros) Programme expenditure (in %) Promotion and marketing (in euros) Promotion and marketing (in %) Wages, overheads and administrative costs (in euros) Wages, overheads and administrative costs (in %) Other (please specify) (in euros) Other (please specify) (in %) ,28% ,22% ,87% ,63% ,25% ,56% ,80% ,38% ,73% ,30% ,74% ,23% ,80% ,38% ,41% ,41% ,19% ,59% ,66% ,57% ,78% ,31% ,73% ,18% ,72% ,92% ,38% ,98% later ,88% ,00% ,75% ,38% GYŐR

82 Budget for capital expenditure: What is the breakdown of the income to be received from the public sector to cover capital expenditure in connection with the title year? Please fill in the table below: Direct expenditure Income from the public sector to cover capital expenditure in euros (in %) National Government ,72% City ,13% Region 0 0,00% EU (with exception of the Melina Mercouri Prize) ,16% Other 0 0,00% Total ,00% Direct and indirect expenses combined Income from the public sector to cover capital expenditure in euros (in %) National Government ,74% City ,00% Region 0 EU (with exception of the Melina Mercouri Prize) ,26% Other 0 0,00% Total ,00% Have the public finance authorities (city, region, state) already voted on or made financial commitments to cover capital expenditure? If not, when will they do so? The largest proportion of funds to cover the investments assisting and supporting the implementation of the GYŐR2023 programme will be provided by the Government of Hungary, committing to it in governmental decision #1387/2017 (VI. 27.). The Local Government already has grant contracts for all resources from the European Union designated in the chart, so we can safely assert that in case of a successful application, the necessary infrastructure will be available. On November 8, 2018, the General Assembly of the Local Government of Győr Municipality accepted the ECOC application to be submitted as General Assembly Resolution 183/2018 (XI/8) and, as part of the application, also agreed to provide the necessary resources to finance infrastructural investments. 80 GYŐR 2023

83 What is your fundraising strategy to seek financial support from EU programmes/ funds to cover capital expenditure? The city will use the same resource acquirement strategy for investments as it used to cover operating expenditure, but it is important to highlight that most planned investments already have grant contracts. Irrespective of this fact, the Local Government continually seeks additional resources to amend its developmental plans. According to what timetable will the income to cover capital expenditure be received by the city and/or the body responsible for preparing and implementing the ECOC project should the city receive the title of European Capital of Culture? (Please fill in the table below: This table is optional at the pre-selection stage): Income from direct cultural investments Source of income for capital expenditure EU National Government City Region Sponsors Other Total income from direct and indirect investments Source of income for capital expenditure EU National Government City Region Sponsors Other If appropriate, please insert a table here that specifies in detail which amounts will be spent for new cultural infrastructure to be used in the framework of the title year. The investments in connection with the new cultural infrastructure will be completed by the title year. Its scheduling can be found in detail in a table at the end of section titled Capacity to deliver. GYŐR

84 B) ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE What kind of governance and delivery structure is envisaged for the implementation of the European Capital of Culture year? Taking into consideration the recommendations of the jury, we have altered the organisational structure we had suggested in the first round in a way that would provide a more solid foundation for the project s implementation and ensure the protection of the artistic concept throughout the entire process, as well as the possibility for the achieved results to live on afterwards. The governing organisation of the GYŐR2023 ECOC year treats the areas of programme creation, evaluation, monitoring, and investments separately. STRATEGIC PANEL EVALUATING PANEL INTERNATIONAL EVALUATORS CIRCLE INTERNATIONAL ART ADVISERS CIRCLE ARTISTIC DIRECTORATE GENERAL DIRECTORATE DEVELOPMENT PANEL PROGRAM COORDINATION FINANCIAL DIRECTORATE BACK OFFICE DIRECTORATE SPONSORSHIP AND MARKETING DIRECTORATE COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND VOLUNTEERISM DIRECTORATE TOURISM AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS DIRECTORATE The developmental area is independent of the ECOC organisation coordination of investments is done by employees of the Mayor s Office of Győr Municipality. The Office s professional administration possesses enough human resources to fulfil this task. The realisation of these investments is independent of the application outcome; their completion is expected before 2023 both in terms of scope and scheduling. Mostly the Strategic Leadership, and partly the General Director, will keep in contact with associates in the developmental area. The governing organisation of implementation is the Strategic Panel. This Panel is a wideranging governing organisation appointed by the Local Government who have won the ECOC title and who carries the legal responsibility to implement the programme. Its task is to coordinate the implementation process among representatives of the city and the office, harmonising and aiding in the implementation process, and monitoring the achieved results. The Chair of the Panel is the Mayor of the Municipal City of Győr; its members are representatives of the city s organisations and institutions involved in the implementation of the programme, along with representatives from the areas of tourism, economy, and education. The Strategic Panel will hold its meetings bi-monthly, monthly, and then weekly, during which it will consult with leaders of the General Directorate specifically involved at the time, occasionally inviting outside experts or other representatives as well. This panel will also make decisions in questions concerning the 82 GYŐR 2023

85 city during these meetings. In addition, its task is to receive reports from the Evaluating Panel, and through them from the International Evaluators Circle. The General Director s tasks in connection with implementation is operative leadership, overseeing and coordinating all professional areas with their own autonomous leaderships and administrations that are working on preparing and implementing the ECOC year, directing communications and resolving general questions, and being in contact with Strategic Leadership. The different areas are as follows: The Artistic Directorate with the Artistic Director s leadership is responsible for the professional quality of the programmes associated with the ECOC year, for the thematic coherence of Flow, and for coordinating the individual programme schedules. He directs the Program Coordination team whose task is to prepare and organise each specific programme, and to keep in contact with artists and experts in 2023 and during the preparation years. The direct advisory panel for the Artistic Director is the International Art Advisers Circle which consists of international art advisers and the Chief International Adviser and is involved in the creation of the artistic programme for the three programme packages even during the application phase. The Financial Directorate is responsible for the economic coordination of the ECOC programme, for paying invoices, bookkeeping, settling grant and sponsorship payments, and monitoring financial transactions. The Back Office Directorate is responsible for preparing contracts, arranging public procurements, legal support, as well as for completing and ensuring functional tasks, such as info-communication and supplies. The Sponsorship and Marketing Directorate is responsible for the implementation of all ECOC programmes, for fulfilling commitments in the areas of marketing and sponsorship, and for synchronising them with the programme. Its primary responsibility is to seek out and win over supporters for the GYŐR2023 Flow programme both general supporters for the programme as a whole, and specific supporters for individual elements of the programme and to manage the agreements entered into with regards to maintaining the artistic content and the messages of the ECOC programme intact, and supporting the communication of these messages through its partners as well. The Community Outreach and Volunteerism Directorate is responsible for keeping in contact with social and educational organizations and representatives of the city, for managing and preparing programmes intended to activate the entirety or certain groups of society, of the residents of Győr, thus creating an organisational and human background for the artistic programmes. It is responsible for organising and coordinating volunteers actively involved in putting on year 2023 of ECOC, for training volunteer leaders, and for laying a foundation for the continuation of volunteer programmes even after The Tourism and International Relations Directorate is responsible for ensuring a strong presence in Europe for the GYŐR2023 programme. It maintains close contact with its partners in and outside of Europe, mostly in the areas of tourism, general direction and representation, as well as with past and future ECOC cities, foreign strategic partners and Győr s sister towns. Its major responsibility is to prepare and organise year 2023 with representatives of international tourism who might be considered potential partners. Each individual unit under the General Directorate is highly responsible for supporting in their respective areas the message and mission of the programme articulated in Győr s ECOC application the Flow and aligning it with the spirituality of the ECOC programme with special regard to providing widespread professional support to the implementation of the artistic programme organised by the Artistic Directorate. GYŐR

86 How will this structure be organised at management level? Please provide details about who will be the person(s) having primary responsibility for global leadership of the project? How will you ensure that this structure has the staff with the appropriate skills and experience to plan, manage and deliver the cultural programme for the year of the title? The above two questions may be answered by attaching diagrams, organisational provisions, the number of staff, and the curriculum vitae of persons with primary responsibility. The General Director is responsible for operative management. Persons responsible for implementing a high quality, artistic programme that is in harmony with the application have already been selected during the application stage. Creating the artistic content of our application is their accomplishment. Kálmán Pál (H): Cultural Director of the GYŐR2023 programme, editor of the GYŐR2023 application s artistic and cultural programmes, creator of the programme structure comprising of the Flow theme and the programme packages of WAY, CITY, and DIALOGUE that are the foundations for implementation. Artist, stage-manager, cultural expert, event organiser. Festival director of the EFFE Laureate award-winning Five Churches Festival and Five Churches Advent festivals of Győr. Co-organiser and implementer of the Circus and Street Theatre Festival that was an outstanding programme of the Pécs 2010 ECOC event. Programme owner of the EU Trio rotating presidency event. Organiser and implementer of the official closing ceremony of the rotating presidency of the EU in Brussels in His theatrical work mostly comprises street theatre productions at festival settings, as well as international and local workshops. One of his major international works is a street theatre production, the Eastern European Fair, put on in 2014 at the Sziget Festival with 250 participants from eight different countries. Fruzsina Szép (H/D): Chief International Advisor for the GYŐR2023 programme. Festival director and artistic director of Lollapalooza Berlin (D) since Previously, programme director of the Sziget Festival (H) for 6 years. She has a BA, speaks 4 languages, and has a professional degree in cultural management. Board member of YOUROPE The European Festival Association, a well-known presenter at international music and cultural conferences, honorary associate professor, recipient of the French national honour Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and the European Festival Award for Excellence and Passion. In 2017, she co-founded the TAKE A STAND social movement, whose creed focuses on tolerance, respect, peace, openness, acceptance of otherness, and democratic dialogue in the European music industry, the global festival community, and the millions of festival-goers. She was born in Budapest but grew up in Munich. However, she obtained all her university degrees in Hungary. She worked as the manager of the band Muzsikás and Márta Sebestyén for 7 years, and she served as the acting director of the Hungarian Cultural Institute of Brussels in She participated in the foundation of the Hungarian Music Export Office, which she directed for 3 years. She established the international music conference and music showcase festival RegiON. She co-founded CEETEP (Central Eastern European Talent Exchange Program) a programme that was run with the help of EU resources between 2010 and 2015 and is now part of ETEP (European Talent Exchange Program). Thanks to this organization, Central East Europe was the focus of the prestigious Dutch music professional and showcase festival Eurosonic Noorderslag in January of Szép was the Hungarian partner of the international talent development programme Roots & Routes, started in She has also been a member of the organisation panels for Italian, French and Dutch-Hungarian cultural seasons, as well as contributor, participant, and performer of several international music and art projects and gatherings. 84 GYŐR 2023

87 Adrian Schwarzstein (ES): Artistic advisor of the WAY programme package, actor, director. He travels the world with his one-man street performances (Europe, Israel, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Argentina). He holds workshops on street performance and Commedia dell arte in Europe, as well as in the United States, Australia, India, and Israel. Founder and leading director of Kamchatka international street performance troupe of Barcelona whose members participated in a group improvisational training under his direction and conducted surveys on the streets of Barcelona regarding immigration, so that via their performances they could face a society which has been thrust into deep integration problems because of its contradictions. Kamchatka s productions have been performed over 400 times at international street performance festivals in 27 countries from Norway to Japan. Adrian Schwarzstein is the chief award winner of La Strada Festival of Bremen and has been invited multiple times to direct the La Strada Festival in Graz. Sergey Korsakov (RUS): Artistic advisor of the CITY programme package, journalist, producer, leader of Cardboardia a group of Russian, American, British and Dutch members, artist, director. Cardboardia is a country without territory that has been organising outdoor workshops throughout Europe and the world since 2008 to solve issues of urbanisation and other topics by reviving creativity, inviting participants to create something together. Sergey Korsakov participated in the ECOC programme of Košice in 2012 (USE THE CITY Tributes Festival) and is currently working on preparing the Elefsina 2021 programme. Matija Solce (SLO): Artistic advisor of the DIALOGUE programme package, musician, actor, puppeteer and director. Teacher at the DAMU Theatre Faculty in Prague. Despite his Slovenian citizenship, he was the recipient of the Best Czech Actor Award in Recipient of the grand prize at the Estonian TREFF Festival in 2007, and special mention at the Lutka Festival of Ljubljana in He organises and directs international music workshops in Slovenia and the Czech Republic and also hosts theatrical workshops and works with different musicians and other artists worldwide. The foundation of his artistic work is an international dialogue in the language of music and non-verbal theatre. He participated in the Maribor 2012 program. How will you make sure that there is an appropriate cooperation between the local authorities and this structure (including the artistic team)? An ongoing, constructive relationship between local authorities and the organisation managing the ECOC programme is guaranteed by the system of Strategic Panel detailed above and marked on the organisational chart. Continuous contact, as well as the control system directly channelled to the Strategic Panel ensures that the programme s quality is maintained, and its purposes upheld. The fact that we have prepared this application using a similar structure and were able to respect the independence of the artistic leadership throughout the process is proof of appropriate cooperation. According to what criteria and under what arrangements have the general director and the artistic director been chosen or will be chosen? What are or will be their respective profiles? When will they take up the appointment? What will be their respective fields of action? The General Director is the person in charge of operative implementation. He/she manages and controls the work of individual areas, and how they fit into the plans and milestones set out in the application. He/she is chosen through an open bid in Filling this office requires experience in managing projects of similar size and complexity, while it is also important to be an expert who is familiar with GYŐR

88 local figures and possibilities. Having said that, experience in the field of art is not required, since art management will be a totally independent entity when it comes to professional issues. Kálmán Pál is the acting Artistic Director of the ECOC programme. He is the single, independent person responsible for developing the artistic programme. His task is to maintain a high artistic standard during the implementation of the entire programme. His job and decisions are directly assisted by the four-person International Art Advisors Circle (Fruzsina Szép, Adrian Schwarzstein, Sergey Korsakov, Matija Solce). This panel is responsible for every artistic decision related to the GYŐR2023 Flow programme, and for the implementation of the programmes at the appropriate standard. The persons selected in and of themselves, as well as through their joint efforts so far are the guarantee for the artistic quality and professional implementation of the programme. The appointment of the Artistic Director for the implementation of the programme will take effect as of 2019, in case of a successful application. The international advisers will begin their work at the same time as independent experts on a contract basis. In 2019, all directors will begin working with at least three associates each, although the exact number will depend on the actual task. As of 2021, this number will increase to 6 associates, and then to 10 each in In 2024, at the close of the programme year, the number of staff will decrease to three people per directorate in a way that the associates thus freed up from assisting with the program should be hired on by cultural institutions of the city as much as possible, thus maintaining and further cultivating the knowledge they had gained during the programme. During the operation of this structure, we are continuously mindful of the theory of flow; should the actual tasks or the experiences gained during implementation so dictate, the above staffing limits are flexible and expandable. For finding associates, we will utilize conventional methods of head hunter referrals, job interviews, and advertisements but we will also strive, wherever possible, to promote to the ranks of our full-time employees those professional, motivated and appropriately skilled and able volunteers whom we have met during our preparations. In addition to our permanent associates, we will also start an internship programme in 2021 to further share the widespread experiences of the programme and to hold on to the knowledge gained. In 2022 and 2023, we are going to welcome foreign volunteers in a residency programme, especially youth who wish to continue working in a new ECOC programme starting in We also feel it is important to have those join the implementation team who have had experiences with preparing and implementing the ECOC title, meaning they have already worked on other ECOC projects. We will contact them separately and motivate them to join us. C) CONTINGENCY PLANNING Have you carried out/planned a risk assessment exercise? Risk assessment is an important part of implementation, to secure the success of our GYŐR2023 project. With careful planning, we can greatly contribute to preventing possible obstacles or consciously overcoming difficulties already present. Consequently, we had involved representatives early on from all related fields to reveal all the possible risks that may arise. In workshops and interviews, assisted by experts, we mapped out the risk factors and looked for solutions that can alleviate or prevent them. In addition, we used all available information and past experiences to develop our contingency plan. What are the main strengths and weaknesses of your project? To examine the GYŐR2023 project, the committee assigned designated topics and examined the factors in a SWOT analysis, assisted by experts. The examination was based on the following three main aspects. 86 GYŐR 2023

89 Area Strengths Weaknesses Cultural Economic & Political Social Historic and award-winning festivals, popular community programmes Our cultural heritage in people, events The direct presence of the Danube and one of the main European highways as direct, spontaneous transporters of cultures Due to the geographical location of Győr, recipients of culture are not only residents of the city but can also include the area of the Golden Triangle (Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest). Internationally acclaimed troupes putting on languageindependent performances Appropriate foundation for cultural infrastructure A variety of cultural choices based on a strong historical environment Bipolar city structure: Baroque (Catholic) Újváros (five European religions) We have the resources available for major investments; the Local Government is providing the required own contributions for the project The Local Government has good international relationships The societal responsibility and cultural sponsorship of local businesses is strong Local residents are becoming more solvent, unemployment is low All fractions of the local General Assembly unanimously support the application The application concept is being developed by experts independent of political parties Stable and reliable short-term institutional financing The city is easily accessible Dynamic, economy oriented political sensitivity among the residents Active and increasingly strong connection between persons dedicated to the development of a start-up ecosystem The University s activity in the area of creative economy Cultural effects of multiple religions (bishop s seat, a variety of sacral traditions) The community is willing to participate in volunteer work (EYOF) High level of cultural education in public institutions Strong cultural cooperation between generations Győr has a university with over 10,000 students The quality of the outdoor event venues taking advantage of Győr s possibilities requires improvement The museum infrastructure is not sufficient for staging representative exhibitions The unified online presence of cultural institutions is not solved yet Few high quality, culture segment appropriate programmes Few employment opportunities in the cultural sector beyond the public sector Weak support for Győr s own culture, lack of patronage/ management for taking it abroad Lack of cultural career options Lack of innovations and patents Expansion of a unified online ticketing system to all cultural participants Few creative economical incubation centres that can provide physical (work)areas Members of the creative economy possess insufficient knowledge and competence in terms of running and managing a business Shortage of educated and motivated workforce in the cultural sector Weak identity on a city district level, local values are forgotten and are not processed adequately An imbalanced educational structure due to the overemphasis on technical training Weak local patriot bonds in youth; their cultural consumption is quite unsophisticated How are you planning to overcome weaknesses, including risk mitigation, planning tools, contingency planning, etc.? The tables below prioritize the risks that can be defined at the present state, according to the likelihood of their occurrence and possible effects. Risk alleviation steps can be defined accordingly. During the implementation, we keep monitoring the development of probable risk factors. In the future, we will examine risk-related comments in the biannual, annual, and biennial reports, and forward these to the evaluators. GYŐR

90 Risk Factor Alleviation Risk probability (1 4) Risk impact on project (1 4) Risk Cultural The interest of the target audience in culture is stagnating Due to the constant change in cultural trends it is possible that the programme loses its actuality or becomes uninteresting to the audience The coding-decoding process of cultural messages is not necessarily obvious, messages do not find their targets with 100% accuracy Economic There is a risk in the lack of information regarding the EU s support system after Risk of cancelled programmes and events 6 Risk of delays due to infrastructural construction 7 8 A low number of foreign visitors compared to the plans Future under-utilisation of facilities aiding the implementation of the programme Social 9 Conflict of interests due to the diversity of cultures Involving experts in the planning and evaluation process in order to select the right programmes and culture marketing Implementers pay special attention to changes in trends and fine tune certain programmes accordingly Careful selection of target group analysis and communications channel The resource side of the implementation is diversified, it relies on local resources, on support from the state, the private sector, as well as the EU Signing contracts that handle cancellations well, protecting the commissioner Signing contracts that handle accountability for commitments and force majeur events well, protecting the commissioner Special focus on international audience development and the needs of cultural participants Investments are based on realistic needs; sustainability is a key aspect during planning Ongoing dialogue between social groups is the central element of several programmes An increase of social tensions (the everyday use of city areas is impossible due to the programmes) The solution is the good, thorough division and scheduling of the events A change in the living conditions of residents 12 Security factors Advance planning, continually informing and involving residents A high level of security is guaranteed for the programmes Impact on project Risk probability Chance of occurrence ; ; 11 7; 9; 10 1; 2; D) MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION Could your artistic programme be summed up by a slogan? As a result of increased cooperation and brainstorming and keeping in line with the achievements of the artistic programme, in the spring of 2018 we decided to change the slogan Enjoy the flow! used in the first round and going forward we would like to describe 88 GYŐR 2023

91 our concept using the slogan We are the flow!. This change represents the process during which active residents of Győr, multi-coloured individuals, and the communities they form have become the focus of our artistic programme s implementation. Those who alter, who form the whole carry with them and within them this feeling of flow so typical of the city and the programme. The city s accepted Creative Győr Strategy does not focus on a consumer-based community either, but rather lays its foundation on active participants as shapers of culture. The year 2018 passed in the spirit of flow in Győr cultural institutions, partners who joined the programme included the spirit of flow in their everyday activities and in their events, and thus became, along with the attendees, active participants, designers and mediators of the articulated message. Along with our new slogan, we also introduced as the symbol for the GYŐR2023 application a boat that has not only become the physical symbol of our application but also represented everything we would like to present in our application in connection with the flow theme. As a unique approach among ECOC programmes, Győr would like to use not only the name of the city and the year of the ECOC as its symbol but this folded paper boat as well, the significance of which will be remembered even after 2023, reminding us of our joint creativity, our common experiences, and the new possibilities we have discovered together. What is the city s intended marketing and communication strategy for the European Capital of Culture year? (In particular with regard to the media strategy and the mobilisation of large audiences. At the final selection stage, consideration must be given in particular to the partnerships planned or established with the written press and the audio-visual sector with a view to ensuring media coverage of the event and of the plans relating to this strategy). The goal of the marketing and communication strategy is to popularise the high-quality cultural programmes envisioned in the artistic concept in a cost-efficient way, taking advantage of our current era s opportunities, using our marketing tools but not in a classical way so that European citizens could become active participants of the ECOC initiative. To provide an opportunity for citizens of Europe regardless of age, gender, educational level and social status to experience the flow. We want not only residents of Győr and Hungary to shape our flow but to have our programme implemented in 2023 as the result of an all-european joint effort. The marketing activities and tasks we had planned in our first round of application have been completed this year (image handbook, branding, 2023gyor.hu, etc.) and are essential elements of our further activities. Besides the goal we had identified earlier, what else do we wish to accomplish in order to popularise the Győr ECOC programme on an even larger scale by 2023? During our communications activities we have identified several target groups and the messages intended for them that are in line with our programmes. However, during our communications campaign we will need to create even more detailed segments within these categories as we strive both in the style of the messages and in selecting communications channels to ensure that in addition to being authentic, we also use mediums and communications techniques that will reach all those we intend to reach. Furthermore, it is also important that we plan our activity consistently, so that we could be adequately prepared for everything and be open enough to receive suggestions from different target groups. GYŐR

92 With regards to communication, the following are the major and additional target groups: Major target groups in communication Population Citizens Tourists Nations Further communication groups Cultural institutions of the city Cultural institutions of the region Other organizations Official press Partners, businesses Nations outside of Europe Major segments Complete population of Győr All Hungarian citizens Domestic visitors and those coming to the European Union (not residing in the country they visit) to spend their vacation in the target country Foreign tourists (residing in the target country) The nations of Europe Segments Institutions that play a dominant role in the cultural life of Győr Institutions that play a dominant role in the cultural life of the region Cultural organisations, possible partner cities International, national, and local (television, radio, print, and online media) Press with cultural orientation Businesses dedicated to support culture, other participants Partners to help with our communications goals with whom we can strengthen each other s goals through a mutual partnership Residents outside of the European area, whom our programmes target We are not planning to further subdivide the various target groups since it s important for us to allow everyone to be involved in the programmes as actively as possible given their circumstances, so we will utilise possible communications channels to try to reach everyone. Most important strategical and communications goals: Strategic goals Promotion of the ECOC initiative Earning the support of all involved, motivating active participation in the programmes on as wide a scale as possible Gaining the trust of as many partners as possible, including other cities also competing for the title, motivating all who work in the area of culture Implementing ECOC 2023 as a joint effort Communication goals Presenting the significance of the ECOC initiative, reinvigorating cultural roots in the collective consciousness Highlighting the opportunities provided by the ECOC initiative Communicating the role and cumulative effect of ECOC 2023 Presenting the cultural programme and specific ideas of ECOC 2023, as well as the channels of joining the programme Presenting the role of the individual in the initiative Sharing the flow experience as widely as possible Enhancing international partnerships and European dimensions, communicating the strength of unity, and activating cooperation as an internal goal of communication We will utilise all possible communications methods to be able to implement an integrated campaign (ATL, BTL, PR tools, alternative advertising techniques, and new media tools) while using a cost-effective approach that is made possible by forming partnerships. Below is a list of how we intend to utilise certain methods: Sponsors: during 2018, several businesses have already committed to sponsoring our programme and expressed their intent to join. This will allow us starting next year to include the idea of flow in the events they organise and in their company philosophy, thus making them active mediators of our application s purposes. We will also include our sponsors in our Dialogue programme element. For example: The automobile wonders that roll off of the assembly lines of Audi Hungaria Inc. then flow all over Europe and the world. We are encouraging their over 10,000 employees through their internal communications channels to join the programme, while also providing them with a flow experience via the mobile platform on their way to work. Our goal is that by 2023, we not only share Győr s cultural experiences throughout Europe with the help of our communications activities, but also bring Europe s colourful culture to Győr, to 90 GYŐR 2023

93 our residents, and international businesses can be a great help in this. Some of our sponsors will include our messages and the image of the programmes in their product selection which we will use to popularise the programme and create contests. Media partners: we have excellent relationships with the local media; they have already been supportive of our communications goals this year. We have created our media partnership programme to widen these partnerships, to form new ones within the country and outside our borders. With this, we can further both our sponsors and our own goals, in addition to continuously providing our media partners with interesting and unique content. Our goal is for representatives of our partners to experience the flow both via the elements of our artistic programme and in person during their trip, our cooperation, and the time they spend in our city. Our application has been a topic this year aboard the InterCity trains arriving to Győr; next year we are planning on providing VR-glasses there to give travellers a taste of our thematic trips, but we are also planning on achieving this on a variety of printed materials of our media partners based on different themes. Ambassadors, major mediators: this year we have asked for the help of mediators who have ties to Győr. We do not wish to have a set number of ambassadors and mediators as part of our programme, so we will increase the number of people involved each year, following the dynamics of flow. In early 2019, we will continue to involve mediators tied to Győr, then the following year we will involve nationally famous people not necessarily tied to Győr, then internationally famous ones, and finally we will have a team who, for one reason or another, is proud of being a major and authentic figure of ECOC, in addition to their own personal successes and accomplishments. By 2023, this will provide a material that can aid in the communications of future capitals as well. We would like to utilise the power of social media as well, and although it is hard to project how these possibilities will change by 2023, we are planning on launching several emotional campaigns related to each specific programme. Through this platform, we would like to present how important the role of the individual and the community is for our programme. The purpose of our campaign designed to get individuals and the community to act is to provide a flow experience to all those who may not have any or only limited access to it due to some kind of social reason. We are not planning to utilise public property in a traditional manner, either rather to display significant pieces of our exhibitions there as if they were being viewed in different museums. Our goal with this is to make quality culture available to all, and to motivate a wide audience to be consumers of culture, to actively participate in culture and in our programmes. Thus, we would not only use the streets but outdoor advertisement surfaces as well for a cultural purpose, indirectly advertising our programmes mostly for those events that have no outdoor installations, exhibition boxes or other unique props. Based on our plans, those arriving to Győr in 2023 via waterway will be able to do this on the GYŐR2023 boat, aboard which they will have a true cultural adventure while experiencing the flow. The programmes on the boat will be connected to the cultural concept of our projects and will aid in better understanding the role of the Danube, since that river is flow itself. In the preparatory years, we will alter the sightseeing boat on the city s rivers to our own image and will provide a separate sightseeing tour in the spirit of cultural flow. Our cultural concept clearly shows that different locales will be utilised. One of these exciting locales is included in the Garden programme which will place cultural events into quite special environments. Based on the knowledge we gained through the Garden programme, our goal is for European garden history experts to create the park or garden of the future in our city that will always remind locals and visitors of the ECOC title in the future, and which will also be the result of a mutual cooperation between mediators of flow. GYŐR

94 With our communications and marketing ideas, we do not wish to present messages but rather to provide themes along our articulated goals which enhance the interactions of the mediators and ensure the presence of an ongoing cultural dialogue along specific roadways in our city. By 2024, we would like to see that we have left several permanent marks for future generations thanks to the ECOC initiative, which will be topics of discussion for many more years to come. How will you mobilise your own citizens as communicators to the outside world? The purpose of our programme is to actively involve our city s residents in each element, to have them alter and form the flow, to have a flow experience. If we can succeed in that, then they will feel like they are owners of the ECOC title and will become mediators for our application. We would like to have the programme itself provide the authenticity of the artistic value, and the message of communication be the greatness of experiences already acquired, from the most legitimate source, the audience itself. The audience of Győr is quite the fan and consumer of culture, they have a high demand for quality and above-the-standard culture they have been the means of the city s cultural bustle and have willingly shared their experiences. They will even more readily embrace experiences they experience in the spirit of flow, so we need to provide opportunities for them to come into direct contact with these on even a wider scale. To achieve this, we will utilise the digital advancements of our days and create a mobile Experience platform that we will not only edit centrally but allow local citizens to modify it as well, upload content, share experiences through which they can then encourage others to actively participate in the ECOC programme as well. This multilingual application will encourage them to actively experience the flow, to visit Győr but will not require local presence for its use. Anyone can join this platform built on a strong visual articulation and conventional symbols to blur geographical borders and linguistic barriers from any country of Europe to become an active participant of the flow. To communicate this, we will be assisted by our media partners, and our designated European partners. We will channel this platform into several programme elements providing an artistic concept and will connect it to all other platforms possible. Our goal is to enliven the city we live in, and to fill it with virtual content, so that every local citizen could understand its past, present and future, as well as the mission and credo of the ECOC. The historical background for the platform will be provided by information gained from the Who Lives in the City? programme, the current information of the Make It Your Place! programme, or the results of the City Workshop. This way anyone can learn interesting cultural trivia about their surroundings while going to work or taking a walk with friends or family, and then share these with others. It is important that this continual flow and desire for something new should not be interrupted, that we maintain interest, and even progressively enhance it by the active participation of local citizens. If we do this as a joint and not an individual effort, then all of this will reach its peak in 2023, by which time local citizens, armed with all of this information, will become hosts, true ambassadors of the European Capital of Culture. How does the city plan to highlight the fact that the European Capital of Culture is an initiative of the European Union? Most of our projects are implemented thanks to a European partnership for which it is not only an expected but an obligatory element to emphasise the role of the European Union. In our design we have placed a separate emphasis on utilising symbols of the Union, however, 92 GYŐR 2023

95 we have placed the most emphasis on possibilities within the flow, as flow has such a wide range of meaning. Many see this as a problem of our age and misunderstand it, they see limits instead of possibilities, so information flowing from one person to the other is highly emphasised and is an essential accessory to dialogue. And dialogue and common thinking is the foundation of the EU, as well as a synergistic flow that is the motivator of our concept. It is important that we dedicate enough time and energy to emphasise the role of the dialogues taking place during our programme, to implement these on as wide a scale as possible, taking advantage of opportunities provided by the EU, and to have a mutual respect towards our partners, towards all participants of the flow. Cultural dialogue and a common flow experience strengthen European cohesion; they strengthen Europe s cultural roots. We imagine that the city winning the ECOC title will have a significant role in this during the implementation of its communications activities and programmes and the European Union does not limit but rather widens the perspective of the flow. Individuals and communities at the heart of the joyful moments created by the dialogues and programmes will experience the flow, forget about themselves, their environmental problems, and will become one with the mission of the ECOC an EU initiative. Our goal, then, reaches back to the very beginning, when Jean Monnet declared, We are not forming coalitions of states, we are uniting [people]. With this message he expressed the true purpose of communities, the most effective method for which is bringing cultures closer, making them known and accepted, thus deepening tolerance, solidarity, expansion of freedoms and acceptance of differences among people. These are all part of the most important values of the European Union, and we should not forget about them in our days, either. The flow that is at the heart of our programme, and the back and forth movements and different impacts it encompasses, can all contribute to this by allowing every citizen of the EU to become a participant, indeed, a shaper of our ECOC concept through the flow, thus achieving the purposes of the founding fathers. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION In a few sentences, please share what makes your application unique as opposed to all the others. The topic of Győr s application is the flow. We say we are the flow. But the flow is also the basis for the European community, since the four basic freedoms of the European Union are the free movement of goods, services, people, and capital flow itself. If the flow were to be stopped within Europe, that would endanger the EU as well. In 2023, the flow of Győr would also like to address the importance of the European Union. Our thematic ways offer examples for all the four fundamental freedoms of Europe in the flow: the Axis of Commerce presents the potential and importance inherent in the free movement of goods; the Axis of Apprenticeship of persons; the Way of Musicians of services; and the Way of the Corvinas of capital. The implementation of our project centres on those persons and institutions that have accompanied, assisted, and trusted us so far. It was only possible in unity for that positive energy to flow which has taken us through this beautiful and noble process. We have observed but one challenge, one dream, and one goal: for Győr to bear the European Capital of Culture title proudly, amiably, bravely, and humanely. You may attach further comments to your application should you feel the need to do so. GYŐR

96 ANNEX 2 DECLARATION OF HONOUR BY THE APPLICANT CITY I, the undersigned, Zsolt Borkai, representing the following legal person: full official name: Local Government of Győr Municipality official legal form: Local Government of Győr Municipality full official address: H-9021 Győr, Városház tér 1. VAT registration number: certify that the applicant city is not in one of the following situations which would exclude it from receiving Union prizes: a) is bankrupt or being wound up, is having its affairs administered by the courts, has entered into an arrangement with creditors, has suspended business activities, is the subject of proceedings concerning those matters, or is in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations; b) has been convicted of an offence concerning professional conduct by a judgment of a competent authority of a Member State which has the force of res judicata; c) has been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the Commission can justify including by decisions of the European Investment Bank and international organisations; d) is not in compliance with all its obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions and the payment of taxes in accordance with the legal provisions of the country in which it is established, with those of the country of the authorising officer responsible and those of the country where the action is to be implemented; e) has been the subject of a judgement which has the force of res judicata for fraud, corruption, involvement in a criminal organisation, money laundering or any other illegal activity, where such activity is detrimental to the Union s financial interests; f) is subject to an administrative penalty for being guilty of misrepresenting the information required as a condition of participation in a procurement procedure or another grant award procedure or failing to supply this information, or having been declared to be in serious breach of its obligations under contracts or agreements covered by the Union s budget. 2 declare that the applicant city: g) has no conflict of interests in connection with the prize; a conflict of interests could arise in particular as a result of economic interests, political or national affinity, family, emotional life or any other shared interest; 94 GYŐR 2023

97 h) will inform the Commission, without delay, of any situation considered a conflict of interests or which could give rise to a conflict of interests; i) has not granted and will not grant, has not sought and will not seek, has not attempted and will not attempt to obtain, and has not accepted and will not accept any advantage, financial or in kind, to or from any party whatsoever, where such advantage constitutes an illegal practice or involves corruption, either directly or indirectly, inasmuch as it is an incentive or reward relating to the award of the prize; j) provided accurate, sincere and complete information within the context of this prize award procedure. 3 I declare that the applicant city is fully eligible in accordance with the criteria set out in the specific call for submission of applications. 4 I acknowledge that according to Article 131 of the Financial Regulation of 25 October 2012 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union (Official Journal L 298 of , p. 1) and Article 145 of its Rules of Application (Official Journal L 362, , p.1) applicants found guilty of misrepresentation may be subject to administrative and financial penalties under certain conditions. If selected to be awarded a prize, the applicant city accepts the conditions as laid down in the call for submission of applications. Last name, first name: Borkai, Zsolt Title or position in the city: Mayor of Győr Municipality Signature [and official stamp] of the applicant: Date: 8 November 2018 Your reply to the call for submission of applications will involve the recording and processing of personal data (such as your name, address and CV), which will be processed pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data. Unless indicated otherwise, your replies to the questions in this form and any personal data requested are required to assess your application in accordance with the specifications of the call for submission of applications and will be processed solely for that purpose by [fill in the name of the entity acting as data controller]. Details concerning the processing of your personal data are available on the privacy statement at the page: Your personal data may be registered in the Early Warning System (EWS) only or both in the EWS and Central Exclusion Database (CED) by the Accounting Officer of the Commission, should you be in one of the situations mentioned in: the Commission Decision 2008/969 of on the Early Warning System (for more information see the Privacy Statement on or the Commission Regulation 2008/1302 of on the Central Exclusion Database (for more information see the Privacy Statement on ) GYŐR

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99 EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE 2023 BID FINAL SELECTION PHASE APPLICANT: Local Government of Győr Municipality Mayor Zsolt Borkai CULTURAL CONCEPT AND ARTISTIC CONTENT: Karzat Theatre Non-profit Ltd. Kata Borsa Kálmán Pál In cooperation with Tekla Juhász, Vanda Kovács, Barna Petrányi International contributors: Adrian Schwarzstein, Husam Abed, Matija Solce, Sergey Korsakov, Fruzsina Szép, Zoltan Kunckel FINANCE, ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE, CONTINGENCY PLANNING: Győr Area Development and Project Management Ltd. Péter Sárkány In cooperation with Lajos János Czakó, Tamás Zoltán Németh, Renáta Nyári Sulyok, Anikó Szvoboda-Major COOPERATING PARTNERS: Local Government of Győr Municipality Dr. Dávid Fekete, Vice Mayor Dr. Lajos Csörgits, Vice Notary Department of Culture, Sport, and City Marketing Nikoletta Hermann Gesztrich, Petra Jakab, Nikolett Pápai, Annamária Rácz Preparatory Committee for the Győr 2023 application Győr Art, Festival, and Culture Centre Dr. Krisztina Tóth Kardos Art and cultural institutions of Győr Municipality Advisors: Márton Beke, Szabolcs Morvay, István Polgári, Gyula Varga Published by Local Government of Győr Municipality, Mayor Zsolt Borkai Layout & graphics Zsuzsanna Csermák, Zoltán Ilyés, András Tóth Proof-reader Beáta Silnicki Translation Boldizsár Fejérvári, Olivér Mecséri Photography Gábor Marcali, Péter O. Jakócs, Dániel Streer Printed by Palatia Nyomda és Kiadó Kft. Official homepage of Győr Municipality: Official homepage of Győr 2023: Facebook: Instagram: #Gyor2023EKF

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