Tag Archives: Music and Art

流用

  • HOME
  • タグ : Music and Art

Harmony across Cultures: A Music and Arts Festival in the Suburbs of Paris

January 26, 2026
By 33110

Pianist Florent Ling (Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, 2024–26) co-organized a festival of classical music and the arts, bringing free concerts, workshops, and community programs to a culturally diverse district of suburban Paris—proving that cultural inclusion can inspire lasting engagement and creativity.

*     *     *

I am Florent Ling, a classical pianist raised in the suburbs of Paris and trained at some of the world’s leading music universities. As a French citizen of Asian descent, born in a neighborhood where access to classical music and other art forms often considered elitist was limited, I decided early on to make their democratization and transmission a major focus of my work. My upbringing instilled in me the conviction that access to culture can profoundly shape a young person’s sense of belonging, aspiration, and self-expression.

While the neighborhoods where I grew up are known for their cultural diversity, classical music continues to be perceived as elitist, distant, or irrelevant to daily life. This perception perpetuates a cycle of exclusion in which children and families from underrepresented or working-class backgrounds have limited opportunities to encounter the arts in empowering and inclusive ways. These are the reasons why I felt a personal responsibility to address this gap by creating a festival that would bring classical and multidisciplinary artistic experiences directly to the communities that shaped me.

With this vision, the project Sido & Co: Harmonies Croisées was conceived as a multicultural, interdisciplinary festival combining high-quality performances, educational workshops, and community-rooted initiatives. The name “Sido” was inspired by the two music notes si and do, while “& Co” reflects the project’s ambition to open music to other art forms and broader audiences.

Supported by Sylff Leadership Initiatives, the project evolved over several months of preparation into a four-day festival held from November 6 to 9, connecting the 10th district of Paris with its surrounding suburban areas for this inaugural edition. In co-direction with Camille Théveneau—whose experience in local cultural policy enriched the project’s reach—we were able to bridge institutional, geographical, and symbolic distances between Paris and its suburbs, which was an essential aspect of the festival’s mission.

An evening of “Cordes en Cœur” at the 10th district city hall, November 7, 2025.

The opening event marked an important milestone in this effort. Thanks to strong support from the municipality of the 10th district, we were able to host our main concert in the prestigious city hall, offering completely free admission. The program featured six classical musicians, all from suburban and culturally diverse areas. The event was an overwhelming success, drawing over 200 attendees, including families and children from the suburbs who were personally invited through schools and community partners, such as the Conservatoire de Malakoff, where I currently teach. The atmosphere was both celebratory and intimate, demonstrating that when artistic excellence is made accessible, new audiences respond with great enthusiasm and curiosity.

Around this central event, we developed a series of socially engaged activities that embodied the festival’s multidisciplinary and inclusive philosophy. Perhaps the most meaningful was Prolégomènes Dumky, a music-theater show for children built around Dvořák’s “Dumky” Trio. Featuring three professional musicians who themselves grew up in suburban environments, the show humorously and tenderly portrayed the behind-the-scenes process of chamber music rehearsals, from negotiations and challenges to the moments of inspiration that shape artistic collaboration. Because the piece demystifies classical music while honoring the lived experiences of the performers, it resonated powerfully with schoolchildren.

A packed house of enthusiastic young listeners attended the music-theater performance of Prolégomènes Dumky.

Thanks to our close collaboration with local elementary schools, we were able to welcome four different classes to this event, totaling over 100 children across the two performances. One of the highlights of these sessions was the post-show interaction between the young audience and the musicians. Children asked perceptive, often surprising questions—not only about the instruments or the music but also about perseverance, teamwork, and what it means to be an artist. These simple exchanges created a sense of proximity that is rarely offered in traditional concert formats.

Miniconcerts featuring Duo Théveneau were presented during the festival for healthcare workers at Lariboisière and Saint-Louis Hospitals.

Another key component of the Sido & Co Festival was the project’s engagement with local hospitals, further advancing our commitment to accessibility. Inspired by the belief that artistic experiences can offer comfort and human connection in challenging environments, we organized performances in two hospitals. A pair of musicians visited Hôpital Saint-Louis and Hôpital Lariboisière to present short musical programs for patients, families, and medical staff. These moments of pause, beauty, and shared presence were warmly received by both institutions, which quickly expressed a desire to renew the collaboration in the future. Bringing music into healthcare settings reaffirmed our conviction that the arts can serve as a vital form of social care, especially for individuals who cannot easily access cultural events.

The festival also featured two multidisciplinary evening events in a contemporary art gallery: “Raices,” a concert blending folk and classical music performed by two musicians of Hispanic descent, and L’Histoire du Soldat, an epic tale combining music and theater. These events attracted a remarkably diverse audience: regular gallery visitors, artists, long-time residents from nearby neighborhoods, and new suburban participants who had learned about the festival through earlier events. These enriching encounters illustrated one of our festival’s core intentions: to create shared spaces where people from different backgrounds feel equally invited and represented.

Behind the scenes, the festival was also shaped by the long-term “Résonances Personnelles” workshop, which took place over the preceding months at the suburban Conservatoire de Malakoff. Working with local teenagers, we explored how personal histories, musical influences, and spoken narratives can intersect to create new forms of artistic expression. This workshop was essential not only for artistic reasons but also because it offered young people an opportunity to take ownership of the project and see their creativity valued. By inviting them to all festival events as part of the workshop and enabling exchange with different artists, we were able to broaden their artistic perspectives.

The “Raíces” concert for voice and clavichord.

By the end of the four days, the festival had welcomed nearly 400 participants across all events, including more than 100 children. Beyond the numbers, the most meaningful outcomes lay in the strengthened relationships among artists, cultural institutions, municipal partners, and schools that collaborated in this first edition. Teachers reported that their students continued discussing the performances days after attending; hospital staff shared that the musical sessions had lifted the spirits of patients and medical staff alike; and many first-time audience members expressed their desire to return for future programs.

Perhaps the most encouraging sign of the project’s long-term impact is this clear demand we received for continuity. Multiple partners, including schools, hospitals, gallery spaces, and municipalities, have already requested opportunities to collaborate again. The festival demonstrated that when artistic experiences are brought directly to communities and shaped with their realities in mind, they generate lasting enthusiasm and engagement.

Ultimately, Sido & Co: Harmonies Croisées has established a replicable model for community-based artistic events that can be strengthened and expanded in future editions across both urban and suburban contexts. The project reaffirmed the transformative potential of culturally inclusive artistic practices and reminded us of our responsibility as artists and educators to make the arts accessible, empowering, and reflective of the diversity of the communities we serve.

  • HOME
  • タグ : Music and Art

World War I Initiative to Advance France’s Diplomatic Interests through Music

November 1, 2024
By 29373

French musicians toured the United States during World War I as part of an effort to strengthen diplomatic ties through the universal language of art. This initiative, writes Gabriele Slizyte (Conservatoire de Paris, 2019), was led by the French government but was also aided by American philanthropists, helping lay the groundwork for ongoing cultural exchange between the nations.

*     *     *

During World War I, French musicians travelled to the United States under the auspices of the French government as representatives of their country to promote classical music. These “concert tours” were part of a detailed and well-organized government plan to persuade the United States to join the war as an ally. With these diplomatic and cultural initiatives, the French government was able to not only bolster its military position but also keep the “French spirit” intact. Following the war in 1922, the Association française d’action artistique (AFAA) was created by the Ministry of Fine Arts and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to maintain and develop these cultural actions through concert tours.

I am currently conducting research on the AFAA and French musicians in the United States as part of my PhD thesis. Because this topic involves a transatlantic relationship, I needed to visit both French and American archives to conduct an impartial analysis of this cultural and diplomatic initiative encompassing such various disciplines as music, history, sociology, and politics. With the help of an SRG award, I was able to conduct a three-part research project between April 1 and September 11, 2024.

Personal, Rather Than an Institutional, Approach

The first phase of this project was decrypting the daily work of the AFAA as an administrative agency. I wished to go beyond a surface understanding based essentially on an investigation of the institutional archives located near Paris. I thus conducted domestic fieldwork at the Institut Mémoires de l’édition contemporaine, situated in the Ardenne Abbey near Caen, France, to study the personal records of the AFAA’s founding director Robert Brussel (1874–1940). During a four-day archival residency, I became immersed in his correspondences with sponsored artists and also learned about his daily work routine as director through his drafts and written reports of the association’s activities. This personal approach led to a better understanding of the work-based relationship between AFAA staff, government workers, and artists.

The second phase was conducting international fieldwork, visiting notable archival collections of libraries,[1] universities, and symphonic orchestras in the Northeastern United States:

  • Philadelphia Orchestra Association records, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania
    • Otto H. Kahn Papers; Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
    • Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, New York
    • Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Boston
    • Yale University, Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, The Virgil Thomson Papers
    • New York University Archives, Records of Town Hall
    • New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division, James Hazen Hyde Papers
    • New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Gabriel Astruc Papers

At the Rockefeller Archive Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

The data I collected included correspondences, oral histories, business and institutional documents, memorabilia, printed materials, photos, and personal files. In addition to using this information to ascertain the frequency of concerts featuring French musicians, their repertoire, and what they earned, I was also interested to learn how, once financed by the government, they assimilated themselves in a foreign country and became ambassadors of French culture. In this endeavor, the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives was the most interesting source of information. Since the orchestra’s founding, many French musicians have joined its ranks with the help of the French government. Their oral archives and memorabilia gave me fuller insights into their American careers and helped me to better understand the implications of the AFAA.

Even though the methodology of this project was aimed at obtaining quantitative data of French artists’ performances and spatial data of their tour circuits in the United States, I realized that this would not be complete without a third component. While studying the archives of prominent American financial figures who supported the AFAA’s actions, such as the Rockefeller family, Otto H. Kahn, and James Hazen Hyde, I discovered that philanthropic work represented a key component of defending cosmopolitan ideals during times of conflict. In that regard, the AFAA was not alone in defending and promoting French culture; there was a group of important figures that included artists, sponsors, politicians, and many others.

Cosmopolitan Attempt at Universalizing the Arts

Before starting my project, I hoped to advance the hypothesis that the AFAA, through the dispatch of artists and musicians to the United States, enhanced Americans’ appreciation of French culture and improved France’s image after World War I and World War II. As a result of my international fieldwork, I came to realize that the creation of AFAA in 1922 was not the start of such an endeavor but the consequence and institutionalization of the work initiated by French and American figures prior to World War I. As such, the war represented not the beginning but an acceleration of the process of universalizing the arts. Rather than attempting to impose French culture on a different country as a form of nationalism, the AFAA was a cosmopolitan attempt to make it a universal language and a tool of communication.

Even though the primary focus of my research was on musicians, some of the consulted archives, such as the James Hazen Hyde Papers at the New York Public Library, pointed to the importance that theater and language can also play as vehicles of cultural dialogue. I hope to explore and analyze these documents in an upcoming article on the international tours of theater companies.

 

The New York Public Library.

During both my domestic and international fieldwork, I wished to go beyond an examination of the roles played by institutions. Thus it was crucial to gain a better understanding of the work of key figures in Franco-American relations. The philanthropic work of the Rockefellers, the participation in the Red Cross and collaboration with the Alliance Française by James Hazen Hyde, and the support extended to artists by Otto Kahn and Gabriel Astruc were given structure and augmented multifold by the creation of the AFAA.

The Sylff Research Grant has also enabled me to start a series of language translations of my work from French to English, which will allow me to communicate my findings to a broader audience.

The documents in the archives that I examined during this project testified to and reaffirmed the important role that artistic and cultural exchange played during wartime. Over the past century—and even now in our increasingly conflict-ridden world—musical, artistic, and cultural expressions can become powerful tools of personal identification and resistance, which are among the most significant and meaningful of human expressions.

I am very grateful to Mr. Yohei Sasakawa and all members of the Sylff Association secretariat for the Sylff fellowship and the SRG award. With your help since 2019 and later during the COVID lockdown, I was able to finish my studies at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris and to start my PhD degree at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. Your support and encouragement have allowed me to pursue my academic project. Thank you for letting me be a part of the Sylff community.

[1] As part of the project, I intended to visit the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library of the New-York Historical Society, but it was temporarily closed to researchers while it was preparing for the groundbreaking and construction of its new wing. However, I was able to obtain a limited number of reference scans from the James Hazen Hyde Papers.

  • HOME
  • タグ : Music and Art

Blazing a Trail for Female Orchestra Conductors in Leadership Positions

July 29, 2024
By 31775

On April 13 and 14, 2024, Sinfonietta Passau—a symphony orchestra founded and led by Eleni Papakyriakou (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, 2012)—performed highly acclaimed concerts supported by an SLI grant. She outlines the significance of the orchestra not only in promoting gender equality but also in enriching the cultural life of the community and achieving musical and social harmony.

*     *     *

Sinfonietta Passau is a newly founded symphony orchestra in the Bavarian city of Passau, on the German-Austrian border. The orchestra consists of 64 musicians, mainly freelance professional musicians from the wider region and advanced students from the nearby music universities in Linz, Munich, and Salzburg—a well-balanced mixture that combines quality, passion, vitality, and youthful energy. The 33 female and 31 male orchestra members came to Passau over three weekends in March and April 2024 for intensive rehearsals and two concerts in Passau and nearby Deggendorf. The program consisted of:

  • Philipp Ortmeier (Passau-born composer): “Tree of Life” for soprano and orchestra, German premiere (first prize at the March 2023 “Orient/Occident” international competition in Ukraine). Soloist: Sarah Romberger
  • Gustav Mahler: Orchestral songs from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn.” Soloist: Sarah Romberger
  • Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 (Bruckner Year 2024)

 

Sinfonietta Passau, April 2024. ©Florian Stelzer

The concerts were highly successful—the press reviews and the feedback of the audience were very enthusiastic:

“A great evening: standing ovations for Sinfonietta Passau with Bruckner’s Seventh and Philipp Ortmeier’s “Tree of Life.” You can feel the trust between the orchestra and the conductor. The orchestra is highly motivated. The conductor masters the large orchestra with clear gestures and great calm. She takes the pauses seriously and makes them wonderfully fitting in the room.”
—Passauer Neue Presse

“Great musical sensitivity: The conductor succeeds in making the sound layers in this monumental work [Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony] audible in a finely nuanced way. The Bruckner interpretation receives standing ovations and many “Brava” calls for the conductor.”
—Rabenstein Kultur Blog

 

Sinfonietta Passau performing at the Church St. Peter in Passau, April 13, 2024. ©Florian Stelzer

Back in my teenager years, the beauty and power of Anton Bruckner’s music awakened in me a love for the orchestral sound and a strong will to become a conductor. I wanted to understand the masterpieces of the symphonic repertoire and the message of the composers in depth and then share it with the audience. I already had a vision of the social impact music can make—as the legendary conductor Leonard Bernstein said: “Art never stopped a war. But it can change people. It can affect people, so that they are changed—enriched, ennobled, encouraged—they then act in a way that can affect the course of events . . . by the way they vote, they behave, the way they think.”

Several years later, my dream came true. After studying orchestral conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and my professional experience with various orchestras in Europe, I decided to create my own symphony orchestra. Together with other supporters we founded the nonprofit association Sinfonietta Passau e.V. in October 2022. My vision was not only to share with the public the beauty and the message of orchestral masterpieces, which are so rarely heard around Passau, but also to have a major social impact. As it turned out, the social benefits were much more than I had thought at the beginning. 

Like many other female conductors, I faced discrimination and unfair treatment in my professional career up to that point. A study by the German Cultural Council in 2021 showed that currently only 8% of conductors in leadership positions in Germany are female, and the same percentage applies worldwide (study commissioned by the conducting competition, La Maestra Paris, in 2022). As the founder and music and artistic director of Sinfonietta Passau, I wanted to send a powerful message to the world of classical music: musicality and leadership skills have nothing to do with gender. Female conductors are equally capable of effectively leading an orchestra as their male colleagues, so they should be given more chances and should be treated with the same respect. This applies also for women in leadership and managerial positions in general.

 

Eleni Papakyriakou conducting Sinfonietta Passau in the Church Mariä Himmelfahrt in Deggendorf, April 14, 2024. ©Florian Stelzer

During the post-pandemic revival of the cultural scene, another goal was to provide greater opportunities for freelance professional musicians. According to a survey by the Berlin State Music Council, a third of freelance musicians no longer see any future in the music profession, and many have already given up or are in the process of reorienting themselves. In addition, I wanted to offer advanced music students the chance of working with professionals, which is of great educational value. The music students can also supplement their CV with professional experience, which gives them a higher chance of being invited to audition for permanent orchestra positions.

An important part of the social action of the orchestra is the inclusion of musicians who come from disadvantaged or war regions, thus promoting mutual understanding and helping create a more open society that is free of prejudices. The peaceful coexistence of people from different origins and social backgrounds is one of the most important purposes of an institution like an orchestra, as well as of music in general. For the April 2024 concerts, professional musicians who fled Ukraine because of the war were invited to participate.

In the small but culturally vibrant city of Passau, a large part of the modern orchestral repertoire—symphonic music by composers such as Bruckner, Mahler, and Sibelius, as well as contemporary music—was almost never heard. But the region has some exceptional local composers, whose works are worth listening to. This combination of old masterpieces with contemporary music, along with rarely performed works, proved to be very successful in enriching the city’s musical life. At Sinfonietta Passau’s founding concerts in 2023, we performed the world premiere of a work by Bavarian composer Cornelius Hirsch. And in the recent concerts in April 2024, the “Tree of Life” by Passau-born composer Philipp Ortmeier impressed the audience and the critics and ensured the composer the recognition he deserves.

Sinfonietta Passau also aims to act as a springboard for young, talented soloists, who are at the beginning of their careers, in addition to collaborating with internationally acclaimed soloists. In the founding concerts, the award-winning young Greek flutist Stathis Karapanos and the internationally renowned flutist and professor at the Paris Conservatory Philippe Bernold performed the rarely played flute concerto by Carl Nielsen. In April 2024, we had the honor to perform with mezzo-soprano Sarah Romberger, who has already started a brilliant career in Germany. The public was moved and excited with her powerful interpretation of Philipp Ortmeier’s “Tree of Life” and Gustav Mahler’s songs.

 

Mezzo-soprano Sarah Romberger and Sinfonietta Passau, April 14, 2024. ©Florian Stelzer

All in all, the two concerts in April 2024 were a huge success and resonated widely in the local community. The objectives of the orchestra were achieved, and everyone is looking forward to future activities. Sinfonietta Passau aspires to become an important cultural institution in the region, making the city of Passau a radiant artistic center on the German-Austrian border that is worthily represented in international festivals in Germany, Austria and neighboring countries.

 

Sinfonietta Passau performing on April 14 at the Church Mariä Himmelfahrt, Deggendorf. ©Florian Stelzer

  • HOME
  • タグ : Music and Art

The Changing Landscape of Shenzhen: Displacing the Urban Village from the City’s Memory

August 19, 2022
By 29645

Mengtai Zhang, a 2018 Sylff fellow, utilized an SRA without Overseas Travel grant in 2021–22 to explore the fate of Hubei and other urban villages in Shenzhen, China, which are on the brink of demolition—and oblivion. Faced with COVID-19 travel restrictions, Zhang enlisted a research assistant to conduct fieldwork and interviews on his behalf. What emerges is the dilemma between economic development and such considerations as social justice and preservation of culture.

* * *

Due to China’s rapid rural urbanization in the last forty years, urban villages have become a common phenomenon, where the expansion of urban areas physically enclose rural lands operating under different land tenure. What makes urban villages unique in Shenzhen is that they are a product of segregated policies but have been restructuring the segregation from within over the last few decades. This segregation manifests in a rural-urban division and the resulting unequal allocation of institutional resources.

This division is embedded in the evolution of Shenzhen’s urban villages. With Shenzhen’s rapid economic development as a Special Economic Zone since China’s Reform and Opening Up in 1979, urban villages evolved with a level of self-organization to accommodate the large influx of migrant workers, providing them with access to superior urban resources in an affordable way, while bringing wealth to local rural collectives that own the land. This dynamics shifted from the mid-2000s, when many urban villages began to be demolished and rebuilt by mega real estate developers, often into skyscrapers and large shopping malls, under government planning. By the 2010s, more and more people in Shenzhen had started advocating for the protection of urban villages. Many wanted to preserve the urban villages for migrants and working families who were still suffering from unequal resource distribution. They also believed the urban villages bore historical significance to the rise of Shenzhen.

 

Collective Memory and the Case of Hubei

In July 2016 Hubei 120, a leaderless movement of artists, scholars, and architects, initiated a series of activities against the demolition of Hubei, an urban village in the Luohu district in central Shenzhen. As Hubei has existed for hundreds of years, participants of Hubei 120 argued that destroying Hubei would destroy Shenzhen’s shared memories and cultural assets. At the end of 2017, Hubei 120 curated a prominent art exhibition at the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture. I participated in the exhibition and presented two works, a soundscape composition of Hubei and a performance, both of which began during my 2016 art residency in Shenzhen. Both works used sound to create contexts about the impact of urbanization on people’s living conditions. Having captured the soundscape of Hubei when the place was facing demolition, I utilized the SRA without Overseas Travel grant to continue the research on Hubei at the end of 2021, now that demolition and reconstruction were well under way. 

 

Landscape view of Hubei, demolition in progress, Shenzhen, December 2021. (Photo courtesy of Lemon Guo)

 

During the research period in 2021 and 2022, I explored how collective memories were impacted by other systems in the process of migration. I was interested in what urban villages meant to different groups of people in Shenzhen and what we could hear from the diverging voices on what should happen to Hubei. With the support of an SRA without Overseas Travel award from the Sylff Association, I hired research assistant Lemon Guo to conduct fieldwork and interviews in Shenzhen, since I was unable to travel to China due to COVID-19 restrictions. 

Guo visited urban villages in Shenzhen, including Shangwei, Baishizhou, Shuiwei, Caiwuwei, and Hubei, and took field recordings and photographs. She mainly interviewed anthropologist Mary Ann O’Donnell, who is an expert on the urban villages in Shenzhen, and theater maker Yang Qian and filmmaker Shi Jie, both of whom were significant contributors to Hubei 120. We asked questions regarding the demolition process of Hubei, the characteristics of urban villages, and their memories of Shenzhen’s reform.

O’Donnell told us about the history of evolution of urban villages from spontaneous communities to planned communities and her memories of this process, having lived in several urban villages for most of her two-decades-plus of life in Shenzhen, since before they were even known as “urban villages.” She left us with a heavy comment—that the era of urban villages had reached its end. Yang Qian believed that urban villages such as Hubei symbolized the collective memories of Shenzhen people, which is what they are losing as a city. This was part of his motivation to join Hubei 120 and advocate for Hubei’s preservation. He told us about his role in Hubei 120 and how it operated as a leaderless movement. He also made an interesting observation about the shifting image of rural people in China’s popular culture, from farmers to migrant workers, gradually losing a concrete face and identity.

Shi Jie told us about how he became involved in Hubei 120, the growing number of artists creating socially engaged art in the urban villages, and their tensions and strategies in coping with the economic and political realities. As the conversations went on, we noticed that questions about shared memories and belonging often drew answers about loss and segregation. 

 

The Shifting Value of Urban Villages in Shenzhen

When viewed from the perspective of Shenzhen’s development, it seems the city struggles to remember, prone to forgetfulness. Shenzhen issued the Urban Renewal Method for revamping its image as a world-class metropolis in 2009 by calling on real estate developers to bid on original proposals for remodeling urban villages, which over the years have led to their large-scale demolition (Liu et al. 2017, 7). On the one hand, the large-scale project drew from urban villages the “useful” aspects, that which is solid and lasting, while the other aspects were considered redundant and disposable, destined for oblivion. In Hubei, what has been deemed useful are the shrines and ancient landscape, which could be transformed into consumable sites of spectacle, while , appear to be defined as something transitional and thus not worth keeping, despite their vital role in the residents’ livelihoods and historical significance in Shenzhen’s development.

On the other hand, what is considered useful by the city could also be volatile and ephemeral when viewed from a longer, historical perspective. As recently as the 1990s, urban villages—still known as “new villages” at the time—were praised as the essential, useful parts of the city. The transformation from “old villages” to “new villages” and the construction of large numbers of handshake buildings were a self-organized innovative solution that helped address a city-wide housing shortage as well as other issues brought about by the city’s reform. Ironically, although new villages had been recognized as valuable resources and celebrated as a huge success of Shenzhen’s development, their title of “new” was shortly downgraded in the mid-2000s (O’Donnell 2021, 58). The name “urban village” replaced “new village,” and what followed were demolition, renovation, and the social stigmas of filth, disorder, and substandardness. At the end of the day, the new, the solid, and the useful in Shenzhen tend to have transient qualities, sometimes decaying quickly from the city’s collective memory. 

 

Zhang’s shrine, on the outskirts of Hubei, 2021. (Photo courtesy of Shi Jie)

 

Alongside disappearing memories of the villages are unfulfilled dreams of belonging. In recent years, Shenzhen had been advertising its dedication to social inclusion by promoting the slogan, “If you come, you are a Shenzhener” (Shenzhen Government Online 2022). But the demolition and renovation of urban villages and the resulting massive displacement of their residents make this slogan ring increasingly hollow. Urban villages had provided affordable living conditions to most rural migrants to Shenzhen from the 1980s (Hao 2011, 217–18). Due to hukou, a household registration system intended to keep people in place by dividing them into rural and urban categories based on their place of origin, migrants who held rural hukou had for decades faced segregation in the city, including limitations on job opportunities, restrictions in the housing market, and exclusion from many social welfare programs (Cheng 1994, 644–45). Inexpensive and convenient urban villages were essentially shelters for rural migrants, providing access to urban-level resources such as economic opportunities, educational institutions, hospitals, and cultural institutions. 

Ironically, in a promotional video in 2020 by China Central Television, the largest state-owned broadcaster in China, the authorities presented the renovation of Nantou Gucheng, an ancient village in Shenzhen, as a successful materialization of the slogan (China Central Television 2020). The city created discourse portraying the construction of a symbolic identity, which supposedly can be achieved by refurbishing old neighborhoods and ancient landscapes. As the refurbishment continues, countless urban villages in central Shenzhen have been transformed into high-end residential areas, glossy consumer destinations, and grandiose landmarks, displacing vast numbers of lower-income communities in the meantime. This identity-building process redefines who is actually treated as Shenzheners, leaving many migrants who have contributed significantly to the city’s economic development out of the picture. 

 

Buildings over People

This renovation method reflects a fixation on buildings over people who live in them. Both the local government and the real estate developers claimed to be protectors of the ancient village in Hubei, notwithstanding their plans to displace entire communities and demolish two-thirds of the ancient village. Even the strategies of Hubei 120 ended up prioritizing preserving the old architecture of Hubei over protecting the communities, despite conflicting voices within the group. It fought with the government and real estate developers over the precise square meter of ancient villages that would be preserved (Yang 2017).

As I went through the footage and interviews of this research trip, I caught a glimpse of how the city might remember itself in the future. It would consist of a solidified past that is over hundreds or thousands of years old, symbolized by renovated ancient villages like Nantou and Hubei, as well as a forever-new present, encapsulated in the skyscrapers that grow taller and taller—yet nothing in between. 

 

References

Cheng, Tiejun, and Mark Selden. “The Origins and Social Consequences of China’s Hukou System.” The China Quarterly 139 (1994): 644–68. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741000043083.

China Central Television. “Xianxing: Episode Five [先行 第五集].” Accessed May 10, 2022. https://tv.cctv.com/2020/10/19/VIDEQx2rjSiFM0zzlTT4yehU201019.shtml?spm=C55924871139.PT8hUEEDkoTi.0.0.

Hao, Pu, Richard Sliuzas, and Stan Geertman. “The Development and Redevelopment of Urban Villages in Shenzhen.” Habitat International 35, no. 2 (2011): 214–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2010.09.001.

Liu, Guiwen, Zhiyong Yi, Xiaoling Zhang, Asheem Shrestha, Igor Martek, and Lizhen Wei. “An Evaluation of Urban Renewal Policies of Shenzhen, China.” Sustainability 9, no. 6 (2017): 1001. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9061001.

O’Donnell, Mary Ann. “The End of an Era?: Two Decades of Shenzhen Urban Villages.” Made in China Journal 6, no. 2 (2021): 56–65. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.287948270260541.

Shenzhen Government Online. “You Are a Shenzhener Once You Come to Shenzhen.” Accessed May 10, 2022. http://www.sz.gov.cn/en_szgov/news/infocus/visa/expat/content/post_7900720.html.

Yang, Qian. “Hubei Observation 3 [湖贝观察 3].” The Paper, August 17, 2017. https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1762649_1.

 

  • HOME
  • タグ : Music and Art

  • HOME
  • タグ : Music and Art

  • HOME
  • タグ : Music and Art

  • HOME
  • タグ : Music and Art

  • HOME
  • タグ : Music and Art

Some Thoughts about the Future of Culture in “Nonessential” Times

September 14, 2021
By 29373

Violinist Gabriele Slizyte, a 2019 Sylff fellow, discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted professionals and students in culture, including herself, and poses existential questions that the pandemic has raised for her. In the latter half of the essay, Slizyte contemplates the future of culture, referencing an article by Leon Botstein that offers answers to some of her questions.

*　*　*

Gabriele Slizyte

As a violinist, student in musicology at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, and Sylff fellow since 2020, I would like to share some thoughts about the future of culture in our post-COVID society. Conceived in two parts, this essay first poses some personal questions I have been asking myself during this pandemic and then turns to an article by Leon Botstein titled “The Future of Music in America: The Challenge of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” which shares some hypotheses about the future of culture.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Cultural Workers and Students

How does it feel to work in a field that has been considered “nonessential” for more than a year now? For students and young adults, this pandemic made it difficult to visualize a professional integration someday, somehow. After we had lost all our landmarks and convictions about what our daily life should be like, it became clear that culture will still play a role in the “new normal” post-COVID world. However, as we reemerged from this forced break, we found that we have changed. Cultural events, as they might return someday, will gather a public that is already slightly different from the one we have known. How can we prepare ourselves for these changes, and how can we create a safe and interactive environment for cultural gatherings between total strangers who lived confined and in the fear of getting infected for more than a year now?

By its primary conception, culture never was an essential activity, firstly by virtue of its nonmaterial value. It is something we seek only when all the other things—stable and basic things—are assured. However, during the lockdown, we all consumed cultural products in order to stay motivated. So how do we save this nonessential activity? And wait, since when did sense and sensibility become nonessential?

After a great shock and cancellation of everything that was ongoing, cultural workers adapted themselves. Some strayed to Internet broadcast systems, rarely advantageous for classical musicians, some of whom even went viral. Some could not pay their rent, and some took forced vacations from everything to meditate on some big project they never had time to do before. And then there were students who got caught in the middle of a system they did not create. I am thinking about young professionals who just graduated, those who are still looking for jobs in a field where a long-term contract has already expired as a concept.

In France, the voice of depressed and impoverished students took almost a year to be heard. From the beginning of the pandemic, students became one of the most economically vulnerable groups of persons, directly touched by this pandemic. The social impact is here to stay, as well as an existential crisis, the one that no one is talking about because of its nonessential, more personal character. Even if we put aside the economic impact, some questions must be answered. How do we build a network since everything has gone online? How do we stay efficient and take action if you cannot practice your activity? How do we reinvent the way we work and have an impact while still sitting at home, knowing nothing about what the future folds?

On a personal level, this pandemic made me think from a more philosophical and less self-centered point of view. After so many years spent thinking about the big picture of life, we were forced to focus on details, to look after our near future more than just expecting something to happen. While deeply frustrating, this situation can also be perceived as an invitation to think about new ways of making things. Can culture be less international and more local? Could cultural workers also have an ecological impact in the era of the new green deal? Can we create more social impact for our communities?

Botstein’s Action Plan for Music in the Post-COVID World

Leon Botstein, Conducting the American Symphony Orchestra - photo by Matt Dine.

In the second part of this short essay, I would like to review an article titled “The Future of Music in America: The Challenge of the COVID-19 Pandemic”1 by Leon Botstein, which, in my opinion, is worthy of our attention. The discourse of this paper inspires comments because it puts into words things that are sometimes difficult to formulate. More than an action plan, it makes us rethink our conception of culture and can actually be transposed to any field.

Swiss-American conductor, academic administrator, and president of Bard College, Leon Botstein is an editor of the Musical Quarterly. This scholarly musical journal is one of the most important and renowned publications, offering brilliant, neat, and critical papers that are shaping the musical domain.

Naturally enough, Mr. Botstein does not limit himself to just offering an immersion into a dramatic situation that has been shaking American cultural workers. He proposes a seven-point action plan that could help “to prevent the 2020 pandemic from devastating, for future generations, the practice and place of music in American life.”[1] Let us just extend this geographical approach to any country in the world that has a tradition of art music.

“Music must become intensely local,”[2] begins Botstein, proposing a conception opposite of worldwide concert tours that could be applied to any popular band or singer. And why not, because an artist has the power to create a dynamic community where a collaboration and exchange between listeners and music makers could replace a wall syndrome in which both are separated as in the traditional conception of a scene. Music should be “perform[ed] in public spaces” and more often leave traditional concert halls.[3] We should encourage a “direct interaction between performer, composer, and the audience, before, between, and after performances.”[4] Culture needs the public because, by its definition, it is a social activity where reception plays a final role. However, our public must be encouraged to take a real place in music making.

After reading Botstein’s article, I felt as if I was being invited to take more concrete action besides my activities as a musicologist, researcher, and performer—to conceive a project, to create a new learning tool, to dynamize our old conception of culture. I am not sure whether it could prevent us from devastating the practice and place of music, but it could, I hope, help us to be more ready and more awake the next time a dark cloud comes over our path.

Written in Paris in February 2021.

1 Leon Botstein, “The Future of Music in America: The Challenge of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” The Musical Quarterly 102, no. 4 (Winter 2019): 351–360.

[1] Botstein, “The Future of Music in America,” 357.

[2] Botstein, “The Future of Music in America,” 357.

[3] Botstein, “The Future of Music in America,” 358.

[4] Botstein, “The Future of Music in America,” 359.

  • HOME
  • タグ : Music and Art

Potters’ Locality: The Socioeconomics of Bankura’s Terracotta

August 26, 2019
By 21711

This report is based on the master’s research by Soumya Bhowmick, a Sylff fellow at Jadavpur University, India, in 2014—15. It originally appeared in FIRSTPOST. a web-based leading media in India. Bhowmick, currently research assistant at Observer Research Foundation’s Kolkata Chapter, continues  writing on the changing socioeconomics of the potters’ community known for the terracotta Bankura Horse, which  is historically valued in Indian society, especially West Bengal.

*　*　*

The norwesters in the potters’ village of Panchmura is magnificent in ways more than one. The extremely dry atmosphere during the summer months of April–May make one compare the place to a hot desert with red dust smeared all over your clothes. This period is marked by the holy time of Baisakh, when the potter’s wheel is stopped as it is believed that during this time Lord Shiva appears from the wheel. Many justify it with a scientific reason: that the terrible heat easily exhausts the artisans and causes cracks to develop in the pottery items. After a heavy rainfall, the sweet petrichor is one of the strongest in this part of the town owing to the large amounts of terracotta clay all over the place. The potters are relatively free during these months and are very eager to have a chat with you over tea in their workshops.

An artisan uses the potter’s wheel in Panchmura village.

Mahadeb Kumbhakar, 56, proudly proclaims, “The trademark Bankura Horse [uniquely styled terracotta horse made in Bankura] came into existence because people would offer them as a mark of devotion to different deities and even on the tombs of Muslim saints. It is used as the official crest motif of the All India Handicrafts Board.” He woefully adds that a large number of youngsters in the area, including his own son, have moved to Kolkata not only because of the money but also because of their inability to commit to the labor required for this kind of artistry. Mahadeb justifies that there is no harm in working in an office while at the same time being a marginal potter. That way, the skill is never wiped out from the family.

Unfinished Bankura Horses at Panchmura village.

Panchmura village near Bishnupur, Bankura District, is one of the main hubs of terracotta in West Bengal. Historically, the politically stable Malla Kingdom indulged in a lot of cultural activity and invited high caste Brahmins, expert craftsmen, and masons to Bishnupur, and through the amalgamation of religion and culture, these people contributed largely to the trade and commerce of the region. The Bankura artisans gradually scattered to different parts of the country, but today only the few remaining in Panchmura are still striving to keep this art form alive.

A usual day in Bishnupur.

The origin of terracotta in India can be traced back to the Indus Valley Civilization. Terracotta came into existence in Bengal due to the unavailability of stones and large endowments of alluvial soil left by the main rivers in the Bankura District: Damodar, Dwarakeshwar, and the Kangsabati. The soil thus gets a perfect blend and density for it to be crafted intricately and fired in order to produce the required terracotta products. A Panchmura artisan says that a Durga idol made in Bankura is at least three times as heavy as an idol of the same size made in Kolkata because the soil found in Bankura is much more dense and mineral rich, making the crafting process extremely laborious.

The cultural transformation in the community is well captured through the terracotta craft embossed on the walls of various temples, towers, and smaller objects in the region. Many scholars have interpreted this as a translation of the primitive Sanskrit literature into mainstream Bengali narratives that allowed the emergence of such popular cults in Hinduism as Durga, Krishna, and Kali. The terracotta temples in Bankura are mostly Radha-Krishna temples, which drew inspiration from Vaishnavism.

The Munshiganj District in Bangladesh, which is close to the confluence of the Padma and Brahmaputra rivers, is a storehouse of terracotta work on the other side of Bengal. Almost all the temples are dedicated to Shiva, and the temple roofs are distinctly different from the ones found in Bankura, as the ones in Munshiganj are more longitudinally conical.

A terracotta temple in Munshiganj District in Bangladesh.

Narratives on terracotta were sources of both information and entertainment for the people, depicting stories from the mythological texts of Ramayana, Mahabharata, Hitopodesha, Jataka, and Panchatantra. There has been emphasis on scenes indicating rural life, farming techniques, male and female dancers, musicians, and village gardens. Bengal architecture is uniquely different from the architecture that coincided with the Muslim rule in India, and by the end of the sixteenth century a new Bengali style of temple art became prominent and established itself as an artistic Hindu expression.

The exquisite Rash Mancha in Bishnupur.

Unlike most of the other art forms that emerged with the purpose of aesthetic value in creativity, terracotta was made to serve practical purposes, such as food and water storage, weapons, and utensils. From being necessary commodities of daily use, these artifacts evolved into something more creative imbued with a high level of craft, making terracotta a cultural commodity with great marketing potential.

A shop in Bankura.

The Bankura District is known for its popular handicrafts in the form of terracotta, the Dokra handicrafts of Bigna, the stone craft of Susunia, and the Baluchari silk of Bishnupur. The global interest in Indian terracotta can also be found in a letter by Swami Vivekananda regarding the time when Okakura Kakuzo, the famous Japanese scholar, visited India in 1901–1902. Okakura was extremely impressed by the craftsmanship of a common terracotta vessel used by the servants and, owing to the fragility of these handicrafts, he requested Swami Vivekananda to replicate the piece in brass for him to carry it back to Japan.

Terracotta is still of high interest in the global market, and Panchmura, Surul, Chaltaberia, and Shetpur-Palpara are the major villages in West Bengal that export terracotta to international markets. However, the artisans face a number of key problems that are crippling the market for this kind of artwork, including the issues of equipment, transportation, and other logistical problems; the lack of interaction between the artisans and the urban consumers in Kolkata; and the high dependence of terracotta artisans on local patronage. Moreover, the inadequate capital, sluggish marketing, and falling demand are causing these marginalized artisans to become extinct, and the lack of interest from the new generation along with insufficient government schemes further add to the woes.

Terracotta craftwork in progress at Bishnupur.

Toton Kumbhakar, 30, says, “We get some idea of consumer preferences in the handicrafts fair in Kolkata every year, where people mostly demand the Bankura Horse, since it has a certain traditional value as a regular showpiece in the Kolkata households.” The potters admit that they charge much more for the handicrafts in Kolkata and are also financially dependent on the various regional festivals, for which they make large idols for relatively hefty prices.

The terracotta temples in Bishnupur show a much better quality and precision than the artifacts being produced today. For example, the details on the terracotta tiles used in the temples are much more intricate and portray a more complex network of lines, curves, and dots. How is this possible despite improvements in technology and intruments? The extinction of skill-specific labor is the answer to this. According to the locals, the process of terracotta production in Bankura previously included three major classes of workers: the clay collectors and sievers, who would give a fine texture to the clay; the artisans, who would add the intricate details; and finally the market traders. There is no specific class of labor anymore for each of these three roles.

Ancient temple architecture in Bishnupur.

“Bankura is my native place, and so terracotta has a special place in the lives of my family members,” says an urban consumer in Kolkata. “Apart from items to decorate the house, we use terracotta items for daily use. For example, in summer we do not drink cold water from the refrigerator but instead use an earthen terracotta vessel. My mother makes it a point to do a certain fish preparation in spite of it being time consuming, so that she can use the particular terracotta utensil.”

In the urban milieu, the demand for terracotta goods in Kolkata households has reached a saturation point. As the central government actively pushes for the promotion of various handicrafts from different states, art forms of other regions, particularly Madhubani paintings and Rajasthani handicrafts, are certainly very popular. Bankura’s terracotta seems to be lagging behind in this regard.

Bankura’s terracotta is a classic case of a dying cultural heritage. Sustaining the art is a social responsibility. Unlike the rest of West Bengal, the parliamentary constituency of Bankura has voted against incumbent leaders and political parties twice in the last decade, which is a major indication of people’s awareness and urgency of development in the region.

Culture is a matter of recognition, and aesthetics is more about perception than materiality. Very recently, the West Bengal state government has reportedly nominated Bishnupur’s terracotta temples for the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This should be considered as a massive step toward drawing attention to this part of Bengal’s history and culture. However, only time will tell how efficiently such measures could facilitate the socioeconomic advancement of the potters’ community in Bankura.

(Note: All the pictures used in this article were taken by the author in Bankura District, India, and Munshiganj District in Bangladesh during the surveys.)

 Reprinted, with editing, from FIRSTPOST, https://www.firstpost.com/living/bankuras-terracotta-can-timely-measures-facilitate-socio-economic-revival-of-potters-community-7001001.html.