Re: Creating Europe

What is the value of arts and culture for Europe? Over the course of three days visionary artists and thinkers come together in Amsterdam to rethink the future of Europe through debates, lectures, film screenings, performances and expositions. What are the cultural values that unite us? How can arts and culture offer creative solutions for problems that seem to be splitting us apart? With, among others, Benjamin Barber, Johan Simons, Julia Kristeva, Tom Lanoye, Chantal Mouffe and György Konrád. Forum on European Culture is an initiative of De Balie and Dutch Culture.

Edges of Europe

During the first six months of this year the Netherlands holds the Presidency of the European Union. But what is left of the dream of European unity? At the Holland Festival international artists present a series of performances focusing on current European issues and exploring this changing continent. The festival’s opening performance by Estonian directors Ene-Liis Semper and Tiit Ojasoo Die Stunde da wir nichts voneinander wußten shows the diversity and tensions of modern Europe. And in their film Ash and Money they focus on the phenomenon of political populism. Directors Milo Rau (The Dark Ages), Joël Pommerat (Ça ira (1) Fin de Louis), Wael Shawky (Cabaret Crusades: The Secrets of Karbala) and Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha delve into Europe’s past, exploring the effect of some of its history’s darkest chapters. From the heart of Europe, the collective God’s Entertainment stages a test about chauvinism, which is causing the European dream of unity to falter. The Dutch theatre company Wunderbaum responds to European issues in its project The New Forest. A large Syrian orchestra for Arabic music will reunite for a special concert in Africa Express Presents… The Orchestra of Syrian Musicians with Damon Albarn and Guests. Artists may not be able to change the world, but they can change the way we look at it.