Culture as model in Gullspång

If you take highway E20 from Göteborg towards Stockholm you will, after around two and a half hours, drive through the Municipality of Gullspång and the small city of Hova. If you happen to sneeze right there, look down, or don’t pay attention, you will have passed the turn into Hova and also the significant sign of the city: The small tourist office looking like a knightly castle on the left hand side.

Hova has quite a few things they are very proud of. It’s well known for the medieval week, with the largest knight parade and tournaments in the Nordic Countries celebrated in July in memory of the Battle in Hova in 1275. It was also the town where the songwriter, manager, composer, and the launcher of Abba, Stikkan Andersson, spent his youth, and where famous Swedish soccer player Andreas Andersson was born.

The Municipality of Gullspång has a total of 5300 inhabitants and one of Sweden’s smallest municipalities. When the present Mayor, Hans Andrén, took over a few years ago the municipality was completely bankrupt. With thirty years of experience working as a Mayor in different municipalities, this was the first time he could not pay salaries to people in his staff. Other struggles are a changing base for employment from agriculture and industry to more self-employment and small-scale entrepreneurs, inhabitants of a high middle age (in Hova we find two undertakers, but only one pub), and a daytime life without young people as youngsters from around 14 years spend there days in the larger city of Mariestad where school is.

The challenges were many and the question was: What could be done to change negative trends and again make inhabitants feel proud of being part of the municipality? Reports of the role of culture as a factor for growth had reached the office and in 2006 they started Gullspångs-modellen (The Model of Gullspång) led by the Artist Staffan Hjalmarsson. The idea has since start been to use culture as part of the strategic plan in developing Gullspång as an attractive place to live in. Different projects and events have taken place, both on a strategic level and events like when the mobile exhibition hall from Riksutställningar visited Hova. Artists have been involved regulary, like poet Linn Hansén and now Artist Johan Malmström, working with concrete projects involving people living in the area.

When telling this story, the Mayor and also Staffan Hjalmarsson talk about other values, not measurable, more intrinsic values. But how do you make people understand the value of something so abstract? Staffan Hjalmarsson puts it in relation to life; you can’t describe life, it’s bigger than all we know, it’s immeasurable. Culture is part of this; Gullspångsmodellen is just a small part of everyone’s life. But hopefully it makes a difference. A change that can be measured is that the Municipality now has a plus on their account. And the discussion of what culture is has never before been so debated and discussed.

The visit to Gullspång and Hova was part of a study visit done by the group Art&Politics, set up by the Region of Västra Götaland and led by the Artist Jörgen Svensson. The group is a creative arena and working group of politicians and Artists in the region.