Image courtesy of mons2015.eu
When the New Year comes we will bid farewell to our current European Cultural Capitals (ECC), Riga and Umea, and greet 2015's ECCs, Plzen and Mons. The ECC designation is used to recognize, profile, direct a development, and in some cases to lift and transform that city. Since the European Union began awarding the distinction in 1985, there have been 50 ECCs (nine in 2000 alone) and the distinctions had various degrees of success. Certainly Glasgow and Liverpool leveraged it to their advantage. In 2015, a lifting of Plzen (pun fully intended) could possibly add a third major Czech attraction to Prague and Czesky Krumlov, but the stakes are somewhat higher for Mons and its region.
Mons 2015 will play the platform for more than 300 events that leverage the talents of 5,000 artists, 400 organizations, 22 partner institutions, and17 other participating towns and cities, which will also help Mons' meager hotel capacity of about 600 rooms in 10 hotels. Mons, the center of an area once known mostly for mining, already went through a major metamorphosis with the closing of its coal mines about 15 years ago. Now it hopes to become the Belgian region of Wallonia's most prominent city and gateway. A successful ECC year for Mons will give Wallonia, the French speaking part of Belgium, something it lacks now: An important tourism magnet. As of now, Belgium's premier attractions after Brussels are all in Flanders and they are Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent.
Mons received the ECC go-ahead five years ago. "For us, ECC status is more about transformation than about anyshort-term earnings we'll make from the various events," said Natacha Vandenberghe, the director of the Mons Office of Tourism. That transformation is already apparent with two new concert halls, an across-the-board renovation program that's brushed up such structures as the Art Nouveau jewel La Maison Losseau, five new museums, a new Conference Center designed by the architect responsible (Libeskind) for Ground Zero in New York, and a rail station currently under construction. Mons has three UNESCO recognized heritage touchstones, which include a Neolithic slate mine, Europe's only baroque belfry, and the Doudou, a religious feast that dates back to the 14th century and includes a re-enactment of St George's fight with the dragon, everyyear on Trinity Sunday.
The celebrations beginning on January 24 are too numerous and wide-ranging to fully list here, but you'll find the full story at mons2015.eu. Mons 2015 will divide 19 former municipalities of the greater Mons area into eight different regions. A long-term creative project brought together 12 municipalities of the Borinage area to attract creative businesses. The intent here is not only to stimulate tourism, but to attract a more creative economy and the sort of talented people that are attracted to such economies.
"The plan is to transform the Mons hinterland into a Creative Valley. It's part and parcel of the new Walloon socio-economic development program, Creative Wallonia," says the ECC brochure.The Initialis Science Park has attracted more than 30 young businesses, specializing in such ripening fields as biochemistry, telecommunications, civil engineering,and information technologies.
The cultural future of Mons and its coal mining past found a fusion when Vincent Van Gogh came to the city in 1878 in the hopes of becoming a pastor. While in Mons he began to sketch the figures that would later be realized in his first series of major paintings of the coal miners, the most famous being the Potato Eaters. The Grand Place in Mons will pay homage to Van Gogh this summer with the planting of a maze of 7,500 sunflowers in its center.
It's now 60 years since the film Lust for Life, starring Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh, was filmed in Wasmes, Hornu and Saint Ghislain, the Wallonian places where the painter had lived 75 years before. Another Mons 2015 event will bring together the survivingextras and people from that film.The BAM (Beaux-Arts Mons) will present "Van Gogh in the Borinage: The Birth of an Artist" (January 25 to May 17). The show will exhibitsome 70 paintings and drawings as well several of his letters. The house where he lived has become apopular attraction and the region has created a few Van GoghRoutes.
