Cork's year in the cultural limelight

The taxi driver isn't letting Mary McCarthy, deputy director of Cork's impending reign as the European Capital of Culture 2005, away with a thing. "Would you ever get something done about these quays?" he says as the car crawls through traffic alongside the glinting waters of the Lee, writes Belinda McKeon

In the back McCarthy smiles the patient smile of someone who has heard it all before. Then she changes the subject, to point out the low horizon of the buildings, a new piece of architecture, the elegant sweep of the rejuvenated Patrick Street, a family name writ tall on the top of an imposing old mill; to heap praises on the enormously changed face of Cork as it gears up for its year in the cultural limelight.

The people of Cork expect much from 2005, much more than the independent company set up to run the year's activities can provide on its €13.5 million budget. Luckily, Cork City Council has taken charge of the capital-investment side of things, devoting almost €200 million to the development and rejuvenation of streets, buildings and quays. But, says McCarthy later, as she sits around a table in the Cork 2005 headquarters with the director, John Kennedy, and assistant director, Tom McCarthy (also on the team, but absent today, is Tony Sheehan, who is responsible for community-based programming), Cork will never be ready. And that's a good thing, they all agree. "Because if it's a success," she says, "it will just keep growing."

The directors talk brightly, fluently and often passionately about next year, about the 220-plus projects they have brought together. They are fiercely, energetically optimistic, giving the sense that no problem, however serious, can trip them up. At moments, indeed, they will cut across one another in their determination to emphasise this.

Kennedy, a note of gloom in his voice, relates how the list of potential venues handed to him by the city council at the beginning of the year shrank rapidly, from 20 to just two or three, as the end-of-year deadline for the tax break offered to property developers drew in. "But people are flexible about the buildings they'll use," interjects McCarthy, and Kennedy quickly agrees, pointing out that all but two projects have been housed.

Similarly, when the McCarthys begin to sound regretful that Blackrock Castle will not be ready, as had been hoped, as a base for some of the more spectacular celebrations, Kennedy points out that it had never really been a concrete part of the plans; within seconds they're all on the same wavelength again, talking about the shifting cultural landscape that Cork has proved to be.

Yet, talking their way through the landscape of their plans, the directors hint, despite themselves, that the way has not always been so smooth. Grumbles about the traffic are one thing, but the displeasure of the people and the business sector of Cork at a perceived delay in yesterday's announcement of the programme has required more delicate handling.

The directors admit that there has been tension - Kennedy speaks of frustration, McCarthy of pressure - but say it came as no surprise; it's an inevitable part, they say, of the waiting game, and programme announcements in other capitals of culture have come no sooner. "People want it to work," says McCarthy. "They really want it to be successful, but until the programme announcement they're not sure what they want to be successful. But that period of silence, while we assess the ideas and develop the programme, was necessary."

At first glance the most serious problem seeming to face the directors is the economic reality of the funding available to them. Cork's €13.5 million in Government, local-authority and EU support looks paltry beside the €73.7 million available to the current European capital of culture, Lille, which includes €10 million in business sponsorship. If a significant amount has been raised through sponsorship to boost this, Kennedy isn't saying, but neither are he and the other directors putting on the poor mouth about their resources.

"It's very important that each city look at its own cultural context, economic context, its historic context, and that you interrogate what you have and what you need," says McCarthy. "And that it doesn't matter that Graz [in Austria, the 2003 capital\] and Lille have a different opera house. We have what we have here in an Irish context."

It's like a wedding reception, interrupts Tom McCarthy, unwinding his analogy with the lyricism that he has learned as a poet and that infects even his everyday speech. "A capital of culture is a moving definition. Everybody would do their wedding differently: this is how we must do it. You respond to a wedding with the nature that's in you; it's so individual. With a city you respond to your own designation."

All but McCarthy himself agree that it was the eloquence and simplicity of his written submission that secured the designation for Cork; he wrote it as a creative rather than a bureaucratic document, and, when the time came to travel to Brussels and make a presentation, he called to the artists in his area and collected a bagful of creations that he felt represented Cork more vividly than any speech could ever do.

"I felt if they could just see this city, and see how strong it was, underneath this layer of hard-nosed trading which is the life of Cork, that they really would be impressed by it. And I think they were."

And, certainly, the programme for next year is built around the spaces of the city, moulded to its shape; it is marked by an admirable innovation with the physical infrastructure of Cork. Some of this is down to the directors, who were faced with the task of matching project to place, and consulting with the city council to free up as many new and unusual venues as possible. But much of it is down to the artists themselves, who developed ideas that asked to be realised on unconventional sites.

Unsurprisingly, the Cork-based theatre company Corcadorca, famous for its large-scale, site-specific work, has come up with one of the most adventurous: Relocation is a series of three major off-site works created with companies from Poland and France, including a world première from the renowned Compagnie Jo Bithume. In another corner of the city next summer the artist Dorothy Cross and the actor Fiona Shaw will produce a new work together, while the artist Danny McCarthy and the musician David Topp will curate an exhibition of outdoor sound art. A work in St Fin Barre's Cathedral will focus on a composition made from the fragments of sound that occupy its spaces; a barrel-top wagon designed and built by Cork Traveller Women's Network will move through the city before coming to rest in a permanent exhibition space in the city museum.

Meanwhile, Cork Opera House will be holding its own against other European capitals of culture with, among other things, a production of Figaro's Wedding and a concert from Michael Nyman.

On paper it seems a triumph. But funding all of this on €13.5 million would never have been possible, and from the start Cork 2005 had to put itself at pains to emphasise that, not being a funding agency, it could invest significantly in only a number of projects; others would be managed, supported and guided towards alternative sources of funding.

Just half of the 180 projects are receiving direct financial support from Cork 2005. But Mary McCarthy denies the speculation that this resulted in crossed wires and tense relations between the company and those who submitted ideas for the programme. "People were very unselfish," she says as Kennedy nods in agreement.

Many of those who responded - more than 2,000 in all - to the public call for ideas in 2002 could avail of Arts Council funding for their proposed projects, and they asked for little more from Cork.

"I think we demonstrated from an early stage that we were willing to take a risk," says Kennedy. That willingness manifested itself in an openness to the plans of companies such as Corcadorca, which wanted research funding to meet European companies doing work similar to its own.

McCarthy and her colleagues are having what she describes as "very exciting conversations" with the Arts Council about the policy surrounding this area. McCarthy speaks of the importance of funding process, of not forcing artists into a linear way of thinking.

But, she hastens to explain, they are not seeking to influence the Arts Council's thinking in any way. "Really, we're in partnership in terms of the legacy onwards. The Arts Council are fantastically positioned to take on board some of the things that we've encountered, like the short-term research funding."

Now the programme has been launched the directors are concentrating on the permanent footprint of Cork 2005: the lasting meaning it can have for the city and for artists all over the country. The talks with the Arts Council could, with luck, change the way short-term arts funding is accessed. Beyond 2005 McCarthy speaks of the possibility of a bienniale for Cork. And that Cork's new school of music will not be completed for 2005 is talked of not as an inconvenience but as the reality of a long-term process.

Speaking of reality, here it bites. That the school of music is not even a building site yet is widely regarded as a failure by the Government and a major disappointment for 2005. The discretion of the directors on these matters is nothing new, but relationships behind the scenes at Cork 2005 have been whispered to be anything but diplomatic.

What do the directors make of the rumours that their dealings are peppered with tension? Have the pressures they have had to face, from the public and the press, about the viability of their plans for 2005 put a strain on their dealings with one another?

"I don't know where those rumours came from," says Kennedy. "I haven't thought about them, because they aren't true. But we are quite a small organisation, and that produces its own stresses and strains.

"Each department works in connection with the other one, and when things don't happen in a straight line, of course there's ructions and of course there's discussion. Frank discussion."

And maybe, offers Tom McCarthy, "we have been frank in public, discussing things in pubs or whatever". But all agree that the greatest pressure the company faces has come from within.

"We knew we had high standards," says Mary McCarthy. "And when you have nothing, that's terrifying, when you have a short period to develop something finite. And it was stressful. But we put the pressure on ourselves."

Kennedy agrees. "This team is only part of so many other teams," he says. "In a way we're just the car-park attendants. This is not about us. This is not about me, about anybody in this organisation. This is about the city and what's possible in it."

More details from www.cork2005.com

In tomorrow's Irish Times Weekend Review: Artscape from Cork 2005

Ones to watch at Cork 2005

Eighteen Turns

Daniel Libeskind's pavilion, commissioned in 2001 by the Serpentine Gallery, in London, will stand in Fitzgerald Park, hosting several of the year's activities. Spring through autumn, with a lecture from Libeskind in May.

John Berger & Marisa Camino

The novelist, critic and thinker and the Spanish artist collaborate on a series of drawings at the Vangard Gallery. Late summer.

Fête de la Danse

International festival at a number of venues, featuring a residency from the Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula and performances from Mathilde Monnier, Christian Rizzo, Michèle Noiret and others. February.

Cork on Film

Archive screenings showcasing footage of the city dating back to 1900. The 1929 silent film Irish Destiny, with footage of the Black and Tans and the burning of Cork, will be screened in October. All year.

Translation series

Thirteen poets from European countries, 13 translators, 13 Cork poets; a collection will be published each month by Munster Literature Centre, with two in June.

Rory Gallagher exhibition

Celebrating Gallagher, Fender guitars and rock music through an extensive exhibition and young-guitarist competition. Summer.

The Knitting Map

Half/angel's fabric art and technology project, to be created over the year with local communities and a knitting group (left). All year.

Exodus: Sebastião Salgado

Photographs of displaced peoples by the acclaimed Brazilian photographer. Triskel Arts Centre. All year.

Ocean to City race

Ireland's largest and most open rowing race, from Crosshaven to Custom House Quay. All welcome - just bring a boat. June.

Wrecks

Première of a play written and directed by Neil LaBute for the Everyman Palace. Late summer/autumn.

Iris Daghdha Dance Company will distribute 8,500 stainless-steel rings around the city, each with a set of five written instructions. The emphasis is on getting everyone involved. All year.