missed opportunities in vejle kommune

here's what they ended up with as the last "kulturhus" they built.

oh, the joys of bureaucracy. and small minds. and small thinking. it's enough to make a girl want to just throw up her hands, tear her hair out and just ask, "why, why, why?" (and that last bit isn't just because i've been listening endlessly to paul simon's graceland in the car.)

we chose our falling down farmhouse at least in part because it was located in the outback of vejle municipality (more like a county in american terms), but it was still part of vejle, which made it seem less like the back of beyond and more part of the real world. vejle (population 51000) seemed like a happening place, progressive and successful and not all THAT far into jutland (the bit of denmark that's actually attached to the continent). but the more i encounter this municipality, the more i realize we really had the wrong impression of them. or perhaps vejle is changing, becoming increasingly small-minded and afraid to dare anything - i think that crisis will do that to some places and if those in charge aren't strong and full of ideas, well, things disintegrate a bit and devolve into increasingly impenetrable bureaucracy that seems to be lazily circling the drain. it's arguably true of the current national danish government as well, so vejle isn't alone in their lack of big thinking.

but let me back up a little teeny bit: as you know, denmark is proud of their welfare state, but financing it is becoming, shall we say, a little bit problematic. it's all well and good to be generous to those who are out of work, but when unemployment rises, there's suddenly quite a LOT of those people and it's a big burden on the system. so there's a whole lot of talk every day in the news about how to stimulate growth and create jobs and prop up that welfare state.  there are special "acute jobs" advertised (the government promised 12,500 of them last autumn). they are for people who have been out of work for more than 2 years and the company who provides the "acute job" will get paid a bonus if they still have the employee after a year. it's kind of like affirmative action for the long-term unemployed.

another thing the government talks about is creating jobs in the public sector by initiating infrastructure projects and building things like "culture houses" out in little towns on the far flung edges of the municipalities. so the process as the bids were let for our coming culture house was quite surprising to me in light of this.

the project was officially let on EU terms (oddly, not with the intention of applying for EU funds for it, which i would have thought would be the reason). since denmark is (to a limited extent anyway), part of the EU, it meant just following the EU bureaucracy surrounding the bid process around public projects. i also (mistakenly again) thought it would mean that the project description would be provided in other languages than danish, to truly open it up to the whole EU, so that there might be an influx of fresh ideas from abroad. wrong again. it was an EU bid, but only in danish (so good luck to anyone not happening to speak/read that minor language) and only advertised locally.

but worst of all, in view of the way that the government goes on and on about how the economy needs a kick start and people need to start businesses and create jobs, was that the requirements on the experience front were so extensive and long, that no companies but the largest, oldest, most established could possibly bid in on the project. completely excluded were the young architects who might come with fresh, amazing ideas, just out of architect school. completely excluded were new companies (and new ideas, i fear). it was, in short, a direct suppression of the entrepreneurial spirit by the very government that's purporting to want to support it.

when i dared to bring it up and point out that we were actually excluding young entrepreneurial talents, i was assured by our dear friend the tender manager (you may remember her from this post), that the big firms would engage them, so we would still benefit from their talents. no supporting evidence was provided to back up this statement. and i'll believe it when i see it.

so, out here in the sticks, we are going to have a new "culture house" and it's going to be built by some old, established firm who has built 10 others and it won't be unique, or special or give some young architect a leg up in his first job. and i think that's a shame. but apparently there's not so much action behind all of that government talk about supporting entrepreneurs and creating jobs.

* * *

meanwhile, elsewhere in the same municipality, the little museums have all been consolidated under one big bureaucratic umbrella. this has left some of the little ones, like my favorite one in randbøldal, to be run largely by volunteers, who do an absolutely splendid job. an active group of weavers and paper-makers ensure a wonderful, relaxed and welcoming atmosphere, as well as events - like a historical market and a second-hand market. it is a real haven.

but recently the big central museum decided they needed a bit more control over the place, so they began sending out a young woman (who has the curious (and slightly alarming) title of formidlingsleder - literally "leader of dissemination") to meet with the volunteers. sounds like a title that would have fit right in in nazi germany, don't you think?

the volunteers have, for ten years, had a big array of projects which they have done, finding money for them themselves by applying for various grants and to various charitable foundations. for example, they've just released a book featuring ten years of their tea towel designs and they have created an absolutely lovely little museum shop that is filled with handmade goods, artfully displayed.

the replica of egtved pige's dress (one of those well-preserved danish mummies) used to come to randbøldal for the winter, when the little building at her gravesite is closed. i say used to, because as you recall, her dress was stolen late last summer. so these fearless and conscientious and ambitious volunteers in the weaving group decided to get in touch with the textile artist who had created the replica (the real one is safe in the national museum in copenhagen) and work with her to weave a new one to display at the grave and in randøldal in the winter. they did extensive research and were even working with someone who had special, traditional sheep for the fibers, so they could spin wool that would be as close as possible to the original.

i'm using the past tense, because the leader of dissemination put a stop to it (and they weren't even being asked for funding) - in a very confusing and not direct way (it's typically danish to be afraid of conflict and pretty much a national disease among danish women) that left the weaving group feeling very bad indeed. she later sent a mail wherein she explained that it had been decided that an expert with a degree in reconstruction of ancient textiles would be engaged to make a new dress (because those are a dime a dozen in denmark and surely won't cost anything). remember, the real dress is safe and sound in the national museum, so they are being denied the opportunity to make a well-researched replica (which is precisely what the one that was stolen was). and the woman who made the original replica was a dancer who did dance performances as egtved pigen, so not an ancient textile expert. what a silly decision, don't you think?

* * *

so where is it all going wrong? i think that both are instances of very limited thinking. there's no room for imagination and ideas and creativity and solutions and definitely no room for initiative. and i think our world is going to become a sadder and poorer place for it. we need open minds and open hearts and open thinking. but how on earth can we have those things today?

still not danish enough

the interesting part of living in another country is that you can almost constantly play anthropologist. of course, the danger of playing anthropologist is that you never really fully let yourself be part of things. and when you forget to play anthropologist and you try to belong, you can get burned. but  the good news is that you can return to playing anthropologist. (and by you i mean me.) last evening, i managed to strike a good balance - being involved and then retreating to observing (and trying unsuccessfully to understand) the natives in their natural habitat.

i've come to realize that like any little town, this one is a real peyton place. it just takes awhile to work out all of the characters. and so far, really, the only real vices i've encountered are petty power struggles and conflicts of interest, not all that other peyton place stuff (tho' after some real painted piece of work cows women showed up at the concert a couple weeks back, i do suspect the other stuff exists as well, just not in my crowd).

so, last evening at a meeting i questioned the sequence of some emails regarding public funding of our little group's efforts, with some board members being copied in and asked for feedback earlier than others. in response, instead of an explanation,  i was given a rather pedagogic, fist pounding on the table, shrill lecture about how danes trust their democracy and i'd better start doing so as well. but not really a very satisfactory explanation of why some were involved and asked for feedback and some were not, despite all board members being equally board members. forgive me if that makes me a bit suspicious as to what's going on. especially as the minutes from the previous meeting (which i did not attend due to other commitments) didn't contain any reference to an agreement to seek such funding, tho' there was a reference to speak to a politician (none of the mails i eventually saw involved said politician). and while i respect initiative, it would seem to me that not only a select few should be involved, especially on questions of money. so i will continue to question these things until it's proven that i can trust.

i just did a little google search for articles and statistics on different cultures' trust in the public sector.  a norwegian report i came across suggested that traditionalists tend to have higher trust than modernists, who have more suspicion of the public sector. my own situation would seem to prove that to be true. the one fist-poundingly and pedagogically telling me that now she'd had enough of my lack of trust and that i'd better dane-up in my trust levels would definitely be a traditionalist. (she also happens to be the one who frequently "forgets" to include me.) (hmm, do i begin to smell the faint aroma of xenophobia?)

it's interesting that it came down to an argument of my not being danish enough in my thinking, rather than a question of the way in which our board functions as a group. i'd say that if you can't come up with a good argument for why you've done something, and on top of it, when questioned, you look sheepish and guilty about it, maybe you shouldn't have done it. and if you want me to trust you, you'd better start demonstrating trustworthy, inclusive, open, transparent behavior.  especially where public monies are concerned.

there's a new troglodyte in town

never underestimate the bitterness of the losers of small-time local politics. nor frankly, the bitterness of the big-time national sort. i've read things in the past week that would make your toes curl. but this is about the local sort.

the local group that i became part of back in june, has a website that's in its baby, infant stages. i say baby, infant stages, because websites take time. you can't have everything there all at once. for one thing, that would be dumb in terms of google searches (we're already dumb enough in that area, as our website name contains both the word "give" and the word "live" - just imagine how the google algorithms down-prioritize those common words) and for another, it takes time to build up content. stories take time to tell. it's the nature of stories. and projects. and life. and websites.

one of the few things we can put there, because we know it at this stage, is a little mini-bio of the board members. since in denmark, like most of the world, one is where one works, my profile includes a reference to my company. sans link, i might add.

this evening, a few members of the group received a series of mails from one of the bitter folks who wasn't elected that evening back in june, complaining about the "advertisement" for my company on the site. the mention in my profile is no more an ad than the two who work for the local schools mentioning them by name are advertisements for the schools. or the treasurer who mentions the business she works for (her husband's business) or the chairman, who mentions having his own architect firm. we are where we work, so i can see nothing wrong with mentioning that. and i have to say that it pretty much pisses me off to be accused of advertising for doing so. it seems you're damned if you don't say where you work and damned if you do.

what do you think? is it an advertisement to include your work information in your profile on an association website? or when i answer an email question about the site and my automatic signature includes my phone and workplace, is that out of line? these are my contact details, so i'm easy to reach. is that really out of line?

danish has a great way of describing a guy like this...his shoes are too small. way too small. 

welcome to denmark, now shut up and eat your smørrebrød

there are a lot of things i don't understand.

like how if slightly older men present something and you ask questions about it, they try, almost immediately, to write you off as a.) a woman, b.) a foreigner and if those don't work, c.) a bitch. you are present at the meeting on the same footing as they are and should therefore have the same rights they do to be part of the process and ask questions. in fact, that's the whole idea. the idea is to have a well thought-through decision made, based on good information and good arguments. and not just hand the design of the building to the chairman of the group. (or have i somehow misunderstood?)

i also have trouble understanding how someone can go on and on about the fabulous design of a new library/culture house in copenhagen and then when it's discussed that the group go to look at such buildings in other towns, and you suggest the much-praised building, the whole room recoils in horror. because it's in...(gasp) copenhagen. and that's (gasp) on the devil's island, which may as well be the moon, or possibly the very inner circle of hell.

and further, i utterly fail to grasp how someone can say, when you are in fact, an immigrant, that the aforementioned building (which he brought up in the first place) isn't relevant because it has to serve (gasp) immigrants. and i should note that the word "immigrant" - invanderer - in danish has taken on an extremely negative connotation in the past decade.

one more thing i fail to grasp is how you can fail to bring enough copies of a really important document to the meeting, when you know ahead of time precisely how many people will be attending the meeting. and how when you, in fact, are ONE copy short, you are entirely unapologetic about it and when asked, at the end of the meeting, if you're going to send a copy to the person who didn't get one, you refer to her as an "old witch" to her face. 

so let's review - i'm an old witch of a damn foreigner.

welcome to denmark.

but to get serious for a moment, why on earth is it even still possible more than a decade into the 21st century, for men to be able to write off the intelligent questions of an intelligent woman and brand her a bitch for asking them? and what can we (and by we i mean me) do about it?

edited:  this makes me feel so much better. thank odin for the new york times.

democracy is ugly

as an american, it shouldn't surprise me that democracy is ugly, i have but to harken back to the 2000 election and the hanging chads and the wrong guy ending up sitting in the oval office, book held upside down, reading to small florida children on september 11. but aside from eating pickled eggs in a dingy bar in wagner, south dakota while my dad campaigned for the state legislature as a child, i've not really been that involved in democracy first hand (other than as a chicago voter, where it's a tradition to vote as many times as you want). by which i'm trying to say that i've never run for office.

so it was a bit of an experience last week when i presented myself as a candidate for a new board that will create a new "culture house" here in the little town where i live. the new board was created at a public meeting, where the by-laws that are to govern it were read and approved by those assembled. after the by-laws were approved by the assembly of interested local citizens, paper was handed around and everyone could nominate the candidates they wished to be on the board. then, all of the names were put up in a powerpoint and the people who were present got the chance to say whether they wanted to be on the board or not. a good 30+ names were on the list and after people had had their say, it was whittled down to ten. with a board consisting of 7 people and 2 alternates, this meant that nearly everyone who wanted to be on the board would be, in fact, only one person would be left out.

everyone who remained got a chance to stand up, introduce themselves to the assembled 75 people and give a little campaign speech. i went 3rd to last and will admit my heart was pounding by the time it was my turn. not only did i have to suddenly speak in front of 74 people, only a handful of which i knew, but i had to do so in a language not my own. i probably made some small mistakes (those et/en are impossible in danish), but i felt i conveyed what i wanted to say with a sufficient level of charm. and i must have, because i was elected - in fact, when they announced the results, they read my name first, which was nice, because then there was no waiting on pins and needles to see if i had been chosen. (oh, the horror of rejection!)

but throughout the evening, as points were debated during the reading (and adjusting) of the by-laws, i observed that when it comes down to it, people are actually pretty pissy about democracy. those in the majority are impatient with the petty concerns of the minority and the minority are grumbling aloud that they're not really being heard.

as you all know, earlier this year, i joined the local group that plans the activities and events that are going on in the local culture house. i did so because i want there to be stuff going on in my local community. no less than 5 members of this group presented themselves for election (including myself) that evening. two of them had been part of the planning all along and had been part of writing the preliminary by-laws. i had been asked by several different parties before the meeting to present myself as a candidate and the other two just volunteered that evening, out of interest.

as it happened, myself and the two who had been involved were elected. one of the other two became an alternate and the last one was the lone person not elected that evening. this leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those who were ostensibly the losers. they feel that democracy failed them - they're looking for ways in which the election wasn't fair. there were even tears. and one decided to pack his toys and go home - leaving the activity-planning group as well after not being selected for the new group.

which leaves me feeling that people ultimately don't trust the democratic system. it was in place, it functioned, people ran,  people won and people lost. and the losers looked for some way in which it wasn't fair and the cards were stacked against them. they didn't use the opportunity to reflect, they just cried and quit (respectively). they didn't at all let the light of democracy shine on them and say, "hmm, why was it that i wasn't chosen?" which leads me back to the notion that democracy is basically an ugly thing.

how can you house culture?

i took these photos ages ago, with my iPhone in the henie-onstad museum in norway. i neglected to note whose work they are, but i vaguely recall it was a scandinavian poet of some renown. i've been thinking a bit about culture the past few days and they seem to fit my thoughts.

it strikes me that the word culture has, like socialism, become a bit of a swear word. it provokes people with visions of snobby opera-goers or hipsters attending avante garde theatre performances or gallery openings. and of course opera and theatre and art are cultural artifacts, but isn't culture more than those things? culture is the whole of a society - the customs, the norms, the traditions, the language, the food. it's words, art, images, music, lamps, chairs.  it's also sports and concerts and films and yes, even television. it's such a broad word. but i think that sometimes we forget that.

our community is going to build a new "culture house" (or renovate the old one, that's not yet decided) and it's bringing out the community's emotions. some are provoked at the thought of latte-sipping fashionistas on the square with their little boutique doggies (an unlikely sight in the countryside, but apparently a fear, just the same). those who are provoked that art and theatre might have a place in our town want the money to go to a sports facility instead.

but it's all a matter of categorization and prioritization, isn't it? and both exhibition space and a place to play handball have their place in a community. they give us different aspects of culture. because culture is multi-faceted. and multi-fascinating. and although i'm now involved in this, i'm also an observer, an anthropologist, amazed at the breathtaking speed at which committees are formed and factions delineated. and people provoked at the notion that there might be a space for the local ladies to quilt or for the big mess of a ceramics workshop. instead of space for a bunch of sweaty people to chase a ball around.

hmm, i guess you can see which aspect of culture i prefer...

stay tuned, this isn't over yet. not by a long shot.