This talk was given to the City-Link Congress in Hamburg, in September 2014. The congress brought together researchers, artists, and practitioners to reflect on the issue of resilience and culture in cities. The congress had presentations by Sharon Zukin, Elke Krasny, Levente Polyak, Sacha Kagan and Oleg Koefoed.

1. Cultural interventions in cities
- resilience in connections of policy
and micro-innovations
Oleg Koefoed
Action-philosopher
Cultura21
City-Link Congress
Hamburg
September 2014
Swimmers jump in the harbour, Copenhagen, January 2014 – Sharing Copenhagen 14

2. Pre-face: 5 fields of recirculation through culture
Time
Matter
Space
Work/Bodies
Out of Market
and...
Swap
Give away
Co-produce
Buy, invest, share
New models
Participating
Knowledge
Etc..

3. Resilience in CPH – climate threat
Violent material
Flows = possible
collapse
But CPH =
city of good life
Collapse? Not here!
Inertia + good life
beats deep changes
Money for building, roads, canals, metros.. culture?
Man watches Lyngbyvejen after rain, Copenhagen, July 2013

4. Sharing Copenhagen 2014
Macro (top-down): investments, sales,
branding, marketing, clients,
stakeholders..
Micro (bottom-?): experiments,
connecting, citizens, spaces, places..
(..and cultural agents struggling to survive while doing this of course)
Bike bridge over Copenhagen Canal, near Islands Brygge – Sharing Copenhagen '14

5. An Open City?
core values in CPH
Growth: population,
entreprises,
economy ← Attraction!
Sustainable city: CPH 2025
+ CO2 neutral by 2050
(possible clash with 1)
Livability: democracy,
culture, green&blue,
clean
Active citizenship and
citizen-driven innovation
(or inclusion)
About 42 % of Copenhageners ride bikes to work – beware of traffic jams!

6. Policy agendas in CPH
Promoting success of Copenhagen → growth by green
Branding the city → attraction by consumption
Enabling citizen choices for sustainability: Agenda21
Paradox 1: established status vs difference through innovation?
Paradox 2: enabling cultural and innovative agents – service / seduction?
Paradox 3: public servants serve their decision makers, rather than citizens?
Copenhagen hosted a fashion summit for sustainability this year in April.

7. Relations of macro and micro
Power – core values, policies, instruments
Institutional – departments, companies, micro-agents,
networks
Instruments – economic, political, social, natural, cultural
Discrepancies between strategy, policy, and instruments?
Copenhagen municipality at Islands Brygge – technical and environmental dept.

8. Intermezzo: the adaptive cycle
Resilience is about avoiding or handling release!
Gunderson et al, 2002
– read more here

9. The power of Cultural interventions
Culture is a field of big investments
Culture increases intimacy
High complexity makes it difficult to calculate
cultural effects
Blurred trajectories A-B-C-D?
The Eurovision contest ended up wit a deficit of app 15 mio Euro. - who will pay, and why?

10. The creatives in Copenhagen
Rise of maker class
Everyone's an instrument!
Highly adaptive
The temporary – neither
nor
Optimism and efficacy
Advocates of the good life?
- or of Community building?
Relaxing on Paper Island / Copenhagen Street Fodd

11. Resilience and culture
Resilience = capacity to turn threats
into resources + absorbing change
Cultural intervention can INCREASE or INHIBIT this (?)
“World's longest lunchtable”, Odsherred Kulturefestival 2013

12. World view of an average Dane:
resilience?
“Together we stand”
D C
“The new life”
GROWTH RELEASE
CONSERVATION
REORGANIZATION
“The good life” “Beyond the tipping point”
A B
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF CULTURE? WHAT DO YOU DO?

13. Micro-innovations: Vild Festival
– a taste of urban nature
Wild food in the commons – hedonism + hip + education
http://www.resalliance.org/index.php/adaptive_cycle
Partnership + support + pay for food = viable
We are having fun – but where are the masses?
What is culture? What is its role? Its effect?
Vild Festival, Sharing Copenhagen 2014

14. Micro-innovations: Innosite/Into the
Wild – tamed innovations
Lack of intimacy // lack of challenge // blurred aim // sympathetic but shallow
Entry for Innosite competition “Into the Wild”,2014

15. Micro-innovations: Eco Island
Amager – slow innovation
Linking to places and people
Results can take years
Transmission of Eco Island Amager, Cultura21 agency and identity
& Sharing Copenhagen, 2014

16. Sustainable Cultural Policy / Culture
of Sustainability
Makers and other creative agents.. how much do they care?
Workers.. solutions.. brands like match.com..
Precarious labour – of course!
Bridging interest gaps between short-term economy, cold-headed
arch/planing, sust demands and cultural intervention-intensity
Interest from e.g. Nordic Council → next step?
Or should we forget about culture and just do it?
Too many questions and not enough answers..

17. Instrument or movement?
No one floats freely – we are all instruments
Intimacy makes a difference
..and everything else is business-as-usual
Wind power off the beach on Amager, Copenhagen July 2014