Speech by State Secretary Per Kristian Skulberg

Visions of Norway - event in North East England

Newcastle 19. October 1999

Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests,

Thank you very much – Brian Debnam – for your warm welcoming words and for inviting me to speak here this afternoon.

It is only a few years ago, in the perspective of a Millennium, when all goods, values, ideas, visions, traditions and people were transported by boat. They were shipped from one country to another, from one city to another, from one small community to the neighbouring community, across the sea, the North Sea. By boats and ships often through dangerous and stormy weather.

In the same way, the arts of one country were transported, brought by the waves to other countries. This very nature of transport of art in itself also points to the fact that culture and the arts are never strictly local, regional or national. The making of culture, the creative processes, have no borders, no nationally guarded frontiers, no police controls. They float freely, like water streams and currents, or like the messages in a bottle that we were always searching for en the seashore as children. New art forms, new techniques, new motifs or symbols, are spread, and then often changed or adjusted, integrated and included in existing local traditions. They take on a local flavour.

Since the arts are always ‘sailing” or ‘visiting’, to keep to my image, we have chosen to launch the Norwegian-British Partnership Programme at the Millennium here in the North East on a ship, on a cruise ferry. Because this makes us remember how and why all art forms once upon a time were sent, exchanged and communicated – and also changed – by the sailing routes. This is a part of our common geographical and cultural heritage, a part of our common art landscape, which formed and still forms the arts. Which makes the art a journey.

We all relate to – and in many ways depend on – the sea, and today the arts are dependent on them also for financial reasons, since the transport of art such as paintings, sculptures, glass works, large photographs, is expensive, often the most expensive part of a culture exchange programme budget. So, I think it is high time to thank the sponsors for this cultural events programme, for example Fjordline and Braathens, for their much-needed support in this respect.

It is a great pleasure for me, on behalf of the Norwegian Government to speak to you at this event, which we have chosen to call a launch of the one-year cultural programme Visions of Norway in the north East England. It may sound strange to launch a programme today that started with a Norwegian childrens’ film festival in Newcastle in May and carried on with many large and important art exhibitions opening in August and September.

Today, in the middle of October, the timing of this cultural programme means that there are now almost ten exhibitions and events, many of them quite sizeable too, running concurrently in this region. And this must be a ‘record’ in the history of Norwegian cultural events in the North East. Cultural events programming, however, is not about making records, or doing as much as possible.

Not at all, quantity is not what really counts in cultural life. What counts is the fact that many events at the same time make a Norwegian focal point in the North East, it makes it possible for the public to compare many Norwegian artists, to see the variety, the differences, the contrasts, and the ‘currents’ of Norwegian art through time, space and different contexts.

What is Visions of Norway? It is a programme of more than 60 events, which the Norwegian Government, in cooperation with many, many partners on the Norwegian and on the British side, is promoting for the Millennium. Our aim is to present Norway to the British: to cover Norwegian art and culture, trade and tourism, business and politics, research and education. It is designed to offer the British general public, cultural communities and business communities a wider picture, a more thorough image and a deeper experience of the modern Norwegian nation.

What is more important is that the Visions of Norway programme aims to prove, demonstrate and further develop the many, links, relationships and areas that already exist between the two countries.

Visions of Norway, although focusing mainly on the 20th Century, would never have been a living cultural programme unless roots and traditions are shown as well – like the ones you can see at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle. Moreover, these events cannot be real, future-looking visions unless they represent and present new ideas, trends and experiments – like the Artscape Nordland – a landscape and art project currently on show in Gateshead.

Geographically, Visions of Norway concentrates on areas that have traditionally had the strongest links with Norway and the north East and East of England, and Scotland. The Ørnulf Opdahl exhibition at the Hatton Gallery illustrates that the West coast of Norway has colours, and qualities that may be seen as similar to those in the North of England and Scotland. The Frans Widerberg glass work exhibition in Sunderland reflects the close relations between industries, crafts and individual artistic work, as we find them both in Norway and here.

The Visions of Norway logo has been specially designed to illustrate a two-ways cultural – as well as political and economical – relationship. It uses the symbols of blue waves, movements, waterfalls, wheels or drops. However, it is our wish that the cultural programme shall not be ‘a drop in the ocean’. This British-Norwegian project celebrates many hundred years of shared art experience and experience and exchange, and it is going to the start a new millennium of partnership and cultural exploration.

Among those many, many ‘drops’ or partners of Visions of Norway are important organizations and agencies like the Northern Arts, One North East, the Arts Council of England and Visiting Arts; many galleries, museums and art centres like the Northumbria University Gallery, the Discovery Museum, the Laing Art Gallery, Tyne & Wear Museums in Newcastle, and the National Glass Centre in Sunderland; visionary curators, experts and individuals like Director Mara-Helen Wood, Director Brian Debnam, and Consul Nigel Westwood; supporters and commercial sponsors like Fjordline, Braathens, OBC Shipping, Kavli, Labyrinth Press – to mention but a few of the many, many partners who have contributed to making this programme a two-ways relationship; who have made the ’waves’, who have represented the visions.

And with this, we celebrate the Visions of Norway – A Norwegian-British Partnership Programme!