The Interface 2013 project has five basic strategies - with
five lines of cultural programmes:
1. Laboratory of Living Culture – presentation and
promotion of all types of contemporary culture including
innovative, alternative and experimental aspects, as well
as authors’ strategies. The investment project, which
will carry out this strategy, will focus especially on
Kasárne /Kulturpark, creating a new type of cultural city
infrastructure.
2. Open Public Space – Modelling new media space and
areas in the streets and squares via events outside
buildings, in order to provide diversity and space for
various religious and social groups, minority cultures
and sub-cultures. The aim is to support cultural diversity
and mutual dialogue. The basic principle is the creation
of new cultural policy with the inclusion of peripheral
city parts (SPOTs, City Park, parks in Moyzesova Street
and Komenského Street, and the amphitheatre).
3. Košice elements – Light, water and sound - Specific
and non-traditional events which work with the
phenomenon of light, sound and water, and use them as
the main artistic tool. Its major and most fundamental
part will take place in Kunsthalle in the reconstructed
areas of the former indoor pool.
4. Build on traditions – Build on roots – This is about
adopting the slogan of the Slovak avant-garde Fulla-
Galanda direction (“Even contemporary art must build on
traditions if it is to have long-term significance. This is a
natural development. Traditions grow from the roots of
originality and therefore it is necessary to return to
them.” Ľudovít Fulla). A wide range of approaches and
programmes will present traditional, authentic culture
and support traditional festivals and classical forms of art
at locations such as the Košice Castle, Hrnčiarska
Street/Crafts Lane and projects at the amphitheatre.
5. Travelling City - Making Košice and the eastern
Slovak region more visible and promoting contemporary
art at the local, national and international levels.
Four cultural corridors will serve to fully implement the
strategy set by the four priority axes of the Interface
Košice 2013 project:
1. European Capitals of Culture – Creating
communication channels between former, present and
future European capitals of culture (Marseilles, Graz,
Essen, Pécs, Plzeň, Mons, Wrocław, etc.).
2. Crossing borders – Defining Košice as a city at the EU
border and crossing it, the creation of a cultural
“gateway” to eastern Europe, forming dialogue between
East and West regardless of the Schengen border
(including countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Russia,
Norway, Serbia and Japan).
3. Personalities – Selecting the four main personalities of
20th century Košice culture who significantly influenced
the cultural scene at home or abroad. These are writer
Sándor Márai, visual artist Gyula Kosice, architect
Ľudovít Oelschläger and film director Juraj Jakubisko.
4. Second cities – Creating new partnerships and
cultural exchanges, forming Košice’s own intellectual
network, “INTELNET” (Barcelona, Marseilles, Brno,
Debrecen, Kharkov, St. Petersburg).
Source: ECOC Košice 2013
