Big Opening of Ruhr Residency Rotterdam

Ecce – european centre for creative economy(a foundation of Essen for the RUHR.2010 – European Capital of Culture) opens the first Ruhr Residency in the Creative Factory Rotterdam on April 1st 2010. The Residency offers creative entrepreneurs from the Ruhr Area two office rooms and one apartment in Rotterdam for a flexible period of time on a rental or sponsored basis– always connected to the local Creative Industries.

How to use the Residency

Interested persons can apply for this residency themselves or they can be proposed by third parties. The allocation and the duration of the stay as well as the grant of scholarships will be handled by an international jury.

The offices are located in the same unit as the management team of the Creative Factory. This secures short lines for coaching and matching. Entrepreneurs will be next to the latest info about business events and parties. This unit is also the base for the Creative Factory coach, who coaches and matches the different companies inside the Creative Factory. He also matches the Creative Factory companies with outside networks and individual companies. That way, ecce can guarantee the exchange with the Dutch Creative Industry in the Creative Factory and offers creative enterprises the opportunity to enlarge their operating range, develop foreign markets and establish international contacts.

Perspective

Within 2010, ecce wants to finalize cooperation with at least one more city abroad. The Ruhr Residency Rotterdam may be the first step on the way to a European Creative Residencies Network. It would give entrepreneurs the opportunity to connect themselves to other entrepreneurs on a European level. Exchanges between the members of the network would be guaranteed.

Prof. Dieter Gorny, Director ecce: “The cooperation which is achieved through the Ruhr Residency Rotterdam transcends national boundaries and makes the European idea visible, at the same time as drawing from the creative potential of the relevant actors. Thus, the Ruhr Residency Rotterdam provides an economic impulse for the Ruhr region as well as for Rotterdam.”

Ruhr and the Netherlands

The Ruhr Area is European Capital of Culture 2010 and the Netherlands are celebrating with Ruhr under the motto “NL – Ruhr”. Dutch artists and creative entrepreneurs are involved in more than 150 activities in the Ruhr. The Netherlands are the neighbour with the strongest connection to the Ruhr Metropolis. Many of this years’ projects are built on long-term and cross-border relations. They shall not be just a showroom of the Dutch culture- and creative scene, but establish long-term exchanges of knowledge and know-how.

Background

RUHR.2010 is the first European Capital of Culture to see the various industries in the Creative Economy as driving forces behind cultural and social change and to consequently accord them – from film through games to music and from literature through design and the performing arts to the free cultural scenes – a central role and equal status to publicly financed culture. For the first time independent players and originators who (must) refinance their cultural productions on the market are being seen as model industries for change through culture.

Insodoing, RUHR.2010 has already successfully placed the Ruhr Metropolis on the European political scene and on the European market of the Cultural and Creative Industries. For example, the project Creative.Quarters will be presented in the German Pavilion at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

This shows that the Creative.Quarters have already become a model for the renewal impulse triggered by RUHR.2010: the creative people, artists and players from the creative economy who stay in or move to the region are strong motors and pioneers for the process of renewal in and the future viability of the Ruhr Metropolis. It is worth noting that this process is increasingly becoming a central component of innovative urban planning concepts throughout Europe. The integrative urban development policy of the Creative.Quarters is therefore an example and model for Europe: it brings players with often heterogeneous interests – from off-culture to high culture, from private investor to the public sector – together at a round table both conceptually and as far as cultural content is concerned. This deliberate moderation process is giving rise to new possibilities of use and cultural identification in cities and to free urban spaces for artists and other creative people.

Related blogs: 

• Scope on the Creative Factory: Crealistic
• Scope on the Creative Factory: SonicPicnic
• Scope on the Creative Factory: Airrebels
• How about a mail-box in Rotterdam? Ruhr Residency - the new creative think tank in the Netherlands

Related videos: 

• Ruhr Residency in the Creative Factory Rotterdam

Channels:

• Creative City Rotterdam
• Creative Quarters