Sparrows of the recession

“Innovation has no large-scale production capacity, it happens in the small-scale initiatives”. Bo Öhrström, developer and cultural planner in Göteborg, describes his work finding the “white spots”, initiatives not visible at first sight, in a local milieu. What significance do they have for an area? In 2006 the project Faktor X started, run by Bo Öhrström and Annika Ottosson at the Region Västra Götaland to look into what the X factor in a local context was; what was the factors making some milieus flourish while others didn’t? The “white spots” were of significance, the study showed.  “It’s like looking for the sparrows of the recession”, Bo Öhrström said, and made a comparison when he as a young student were looking for small-scale entrepreneurial initiatives within culture in a time of financial difficulties in Sweden. People around him wondered what on earth he was doing and why he didn’t but his effort into something more lucrative.

Yesterday (Nov 11) the Region Västra Götaland held their first conference with the 49 municipalities of the region invited. 450 people, politicians, civil servants and cultural practitioners, were gathered to discuss and listen to the capacity of culture in the local municipalities and on regional level. The winners of the day were the artists and project managers running projects against all odds, like meeting-places for youngsters in the suburbs that had been put down by politicians, and artistic processes in small cities (around 3600 inhabitants) like Bengtsfors. They were the white spots finally get the spotlight they deserved. Let’s hope it also means some money, so they can continue their work. As the project manager Merima Muharemovic put it on the question of what do politicians need, in form of character or to be good decision makers? “The question is not what they need, the question is: What need politicians do to win my confidence back”.
Read the report from the project Faktor X (In Swedish) here: fyrbodal-faktor-x-slutrapport.pdf.