AVOID THE GENERIC QUESTION AT ALL POSSIBLE COSTS

Markus Miessen in conversation with Shumon Basar

A researcher, curator and author with a keen interest in cultural politics, Shumon Basar is affiliated with the Centre for Research Architecture at the University of London’s Goldsmiths College. Portscapes caught up with him, asking him about the significance of an art and culture program in the new extension to the Port of Rotterdam set to be developed. He shared his views on the pros and cons of state funded initiatives for art and culture in relation to urban development

MM Portscapes has developed an introductory artistic program consisting of temporary events and manifestations in order to set the framework for the construction of a new port and industrial zone in Rotterdam. Does the cliché that one only needs to ‘bring either artists or the gay community into an area and investment will follow automatically’ still hold true?

SB Although I’m a fan of intelligent clichés, I find that one a little bit too crude to sanction. Whilst the cultural dollar or the ‘pink euro’ has meant success in many European cities-in-decline, it is far from guaranteed and should not be seen as a necessary salvation. I’ve been to respectable cities in Europe that suddenly assume that culture is what you have to have next once you have everything else: the SUV, the Gucci boutique, the Michelin-starred restaurants and the architect-designed houses for its successful citizens. But every city can’t and shouldn’t necessarily become a cultural hub. Rotterdam, may be different, as it has an honorable tradition of creativity, and a kind of grittiness that its picturesque cousin, Amsterdam, totally lacks.

MM Broadly speaking, what are your thoughts on industrial zones becoming hubs for creativity?

SB Broadly speaking, my thoughts are and can only be broad. I don’t mean to be tautological but I am resistant to offering generalized answers to what should always be specific situations. On one level, of course, there is some kind of aesthetic or experiential pleasantness to the conversion of industrial zones into cultural or creative ones. In fact perhaps it is an honest one also, in that if the surface of the earth is a palimpsest of past and present presents, then it’s right that the current modes of commerce and economy ought to replace the defunct ones. But to repeat my initial answer, I’m wary of it as a generic typological answer to a specific socio-cultural question.

MM If you want to be specific, can you please tell me your thoughts on Rotterdam becoming just another stop on the annual art circuit?

SB Rotterdam has a number of very well respected and historically active art and architecture institutions. Witte de With, Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Kunsthal and NAI are just a few I could mention, and I am sure there are many more that I am not aware of. This bodes well. Not that they should necessarily dominate any new initiative that would be a shame. But there is an established art community – both practicing and consuming – which can be the pretext for something else that operates at the scale of the city, occurring at the harbor. But – not to sound too dour, I hope – I really don’t think that the international annual art tour necessarily needs another destination on its already exhaustive itinerary. Unless, that is, it does something very different and inventive that justifies adding to the art footprint already being churned out.

MM What have been your experiences with the misuse and/or misinterpretation of cultural capital?

SB I don’t know if I have had any personal experiences that come to mind – only reactions in retrospect. If by ‘cultural capital’ you mean the money set aside to develop culture as a thread of urban generation or regeneration then the official answer – which is that of an optimist – has to be ‘sure, it’s a good thing!’ Maybe it’s the circumspect Brit in me, but, my stomach starts to groan when cultural capital is just a codified decoy for business by another name. There is too much jargon, the kind validated by government-sponsored architecture and design initiatives and forums that all apply management theory to art and culture. While I wouldn’t want to espouse a position that holds either art or culture in a precious ethereal cloud hovering above the more prosaic instruments of evaluation and appreciation, I think there is a huge amount of fuzziness in the interface between culture and commerce, the effects of which are akin to new-age capitalism – incense sticks compulsory.

MM Is ‘culture’ a remedy, and, if so, for whom?

SB It may well be a remedy for disappointment, desolation, delinquency, despair, bad food, unemployment, nostalgia for more real times, ennui, affluence, and the guilt of contentment.

MM Why are politicians so fond of cultural funding these days?

SB Are they? In the current economic climate I think we will probably see the end of the zealous era of political-cultural exuberance. The so-called ‘real economy’ demands more jobs and I am not sure they are about to come in bulk from the cultural sector. I may be wrong – but I think a corrective is about to take place. This isn’t necessarily bad for culture as a whole but it is bad for government-sponsored ‘creativity’ and the industry that has spawned around this kind of glee.

MM As an artist, designer or architect in the Netherlands, one is exposed to an amazing regime of funding opportunities. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of such a system?

SB Advantage: comfort and reassurance and the absence of risk. Disadvantage: comfort and reassurance and the absence of risk.

MM The Dutch have a long-standing relationship with the sea and maritime trade. They adore its beauty and their own coastline, yet they are constantly under threat by that same sea, as most of the country is below sea level. There are relatively few European countries that have such a love-hate relationship with the water as the Netherlands. Land reclamation, which was initially invented by the Dutch and later hijacked by the Emirates, is now back on the Dutch agenda. In comparison to the Dubai model of building into a vacuum, a newly and forcefully established culture bred in a test tube, how would you assess the potential for a similar operation in the context of a city that has a long maritime tradition?

SB Histories can be invented as well as be inherited, so, there isn’t necessarily anything authentic and therefore superior about Holland’s maritime tradition compared to that of Dubai (which actually goes back longer than you might think). What is productive about a tradition is not to slavishly be subsumed by it, but to have it there as a spur, to develop from it, and critically – even lovingly – cherish it without being suffocated by it. With any proposal geared to the future, you have to tacitly know that it too will one day become history, and therefore, it is this two-way attitude towards time that matters, I believe.

MM Do you think globalization as an operative condition is overestimated?

SB I think that globalization doesn’t even exist in the form that we once thought it did and as such it ought to be overestimated and underestimated simultaneously, just in case it exists and just in case it is a phantom. I just heard the phrase ‘deglobalization’ on TV tonight, and while I don’t think that this is actually even possible (like turning back time), the fact that such a concept is being formulated and given a title suggests we are entering precarious times that demand a thorough examination of what we have till now assumed to be the fundaments of our shared reality.

MM What do you think is the fundamental difference between a place like Rotterdam and your hometown, London?

SB London is unique because it is the agglomeration of the post-colonial after-effects of the British Empire. Whilst Holland had its colonies they were relatively small compared to Britain’s. For all my reservations about London – and I have many – I am always astounded by the true complexity and richness of its ethnic make-up, which is an after-echo of the grander sweep of world history. Strangely, the less that Britain seems to matter in the new world order, the more robust London becomes. I think that is quite an achievement.

MM London finally has its Terminal 5, Berlin is building a new mega-airport, and Frankfurt just started building a new runway. How important is the idea of a port city, a transit hub, to the actual city rather than its economy only?

SB I think that there are all kinds of exchanges that take place that are symbolic at first but slowly snowball into concrete effects. I would never suggest that everywhere should be connected to everywhere – but when there is a history of global connectivity to a city I would exploit it and modernize it for the future to come. Only good can come of it.

Markus Miessen is a London and Berlin-based architect, researcher, educator and writer. Miessen has contributed to (and edited) diverse international publications in the academic, scientific and popular culture field. In 2009 he was PhD candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, London, investigating conflict and non-consensus-based forms of participation as a form of alternative spatial practice. In the same year he was a visiting professor at the Berlage Institute, Rotterdam.