Cuba

Method: From «sister-cities» agreements to projects deeply rooted in the artistic content and exchange.

The experience with Hong Kong was originally planned as a «one of a kind» event. The success of this project posed us with a question: Would it be possible to do a similar project in a more structured fashion, to use artistic exchange as a way to increase our knowledge about other cultures and to share with them the elements of our own culture? What if we created a «Highway of Culture» where the «traffic» of cultural events acted as stimuli for the development of economical and political exchange between countries?
To start this completely from scratch, we decided to exploit the already existing «sister-cities» formula and use existing political agreements for cultural exchange between the city of Fredrikstad and other «sister-cities» around the world. A little bit by chance, but also because the agreement was due to expire, we choose revive the agreement between Fredrikstad and the city of Bayamo in Cuba. Mostly due to luck, we got in direct contact with a prominent artist from the area and decided to develop a project with him and other fellow artists from the county of Granma, where Bayamo is capital.
The local authorities where thrilled to finally have a new direction in the practical cultural exchange between the two cities and therefore suggested that the 500-year celebration of Bayamo’s existence would be a perfect occasion to do so. We replied that celebrating the 150-year anniversary of Edvard Munch’s birth was the perfect inspiration for this occasion. The ball started to roll so that Studium Actoris, together with local artists and cultural institutions, set ut an outside performance the artwork of the Norwegian painter, but for the Cuban audience on an outdoor-stage on the main square of the Cuban town.
At that moment the «Highway of Culture» was officially born.