"Lighthouse" Project

Cities play major role in organising cultural life. What are the criteria to form a successful local cultural policy? What are the most effective models for contemporary cultural management? these and many other related questions are very important to Klaipëda. Cultural development is among the priorities of the municipal policy. Contacts within the UBC Culture Commission enable us to exchange the very best practices.

We simply could not help but grasp the opportunity to learn from Bergen, one of the nine European Capitals of Culture' 2000. Together with a famous cultural centre in the Baltic region, the municipality of Visby, Gotland, we initiated an exchange project for civil servants working in the field of culture , which was financed by the cities and the Nordic Council of Ministers and titled "Lighthouse". Bergen hosted four participants from Klaipëda and Gotland during their one-week study tour. Numerous visits to cultural institutions and seminars portrayed a picture of the way the city Bergen had to go from political decision to become the international centre of culture.

What we brought back home is valuable information, new good ideas, numerous contacts for Klaipëda artistic society, but also the beauty of the fjords, the sensation of the eternal spirit of E. Grieg's and H. Ibsen's land.