Interview with Minister Bussemaker: Culture is the Bridge

The Dutch Embassy in Beijing was honoured to be able to interview the Dutch Minister of Culture Jet Bussemaker during her visit to Beijing, which took place from 24 until 26 March. An important part of her visit was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on Cultural Cooperation with China.

What was the highlight of your visit with regard to the culture programme?

The signing of the MoU last Monday was definitely the highlight. It focussed on Creative Industry, cooperation for museums and on the film sector. I think the Chinese and the Dutch have a lot in common especially related to the Creative Industry, at the same time we can also learn a lot from each other. The Chinese can learn from certain museum management experience we have developed in the Netherlands and I think we can learn a whole lot from their film industry.

In light of this, why do you think it is important to sign a MoU?

Well because an MoU forms a frame for all the cooperation that takes place - what we do is between governments but underneath that there are a lot of other institutions, bodies and individuals - there are museums, there are art academies, there are organisations and galleries, there are professionals - it is a frame for two governments to cooperate but within that framework a lot is possible on a multitude of levels. For example, the cooperation with regard to film has been prepared by the Dutch Film Fund together with their Chinese counterpart. Also, the Netherlands Film and Television Academy has started cooperation last year with the Beijing Film Academy. So they did all the preparation and now you see that they are very glad that we signed this MoU because now it's real - so it's partly a result of existing cooperation in the last period but also appointments for new ways of learning from one another, for new ways of collaboration in the future.

In a general sense what do you think the Netherlands can learn from China and what can China gain from the Netherlands in the field of culture?

I think what we can learn from the Chinese is discipline, and also a way of working with natural materials in the field of art. I think the Chinese can learn from the Dutch the way of using the creative mind and to combine ideas and materials etc. I think a very good example is Daan Roosegaarde who gave a lecture at Tsinghua University yesterday, because he is really a creative thinker, he really can think 'out of the box' and he is making cross-overs, I think his idea about how to battle the smog in Beijing is genius. But it's not only about the idea, it's also about the way you put it in practice - that by selling rings with smog in them you work towards realising the idea, it's then not only about an abstract idea but you channel the money, from where it needs to come from - from the users, so it's also a business case so to say and about involving public participation, so it's all in one, it's difficult to give it a name... is it art? is it industry? is it Smart City development? - It’s all in one, so to say, and I discovered that this type of creativity is less developed in China than in the Netherlands. But on the other hand as I said we can also really learn from the Chinese in their approach to and the use of natural materials, in the arts and in ceramics for example, but also not to give up, not to be lazy and to find your own public and your own audience.

With regard to the three focus areas you mentioned – with regard to museums – what in your eyes do museums mean for society? And how do you think China and the Netherlands could cooperate in this field?

Museums mean a lot for society, it is the place of your cultural heritage, and it’s the place where you can see your own history and where you come from. It’s also the place where you can see the beauty of life or the beauty of the world - I can feel really happy when I see a beautiful painting or a sculpture. Museums are also very important to develop your creativity, to develop your creative mind, to think about forms and colours and combinations and past and future. I think the Chinese museums can learn from the Dutch in especially the realm of museum management and how to collect and how to present a collection. An example is the Dutch Rijksmuseum, which is a very old museum, that has undergone a massive transformation with a new approach to make the collection more attractive for young people and also for people who are not used to going to a museum, not only art specialists – museums should be for everyone. In China there are now hundreds of new museums every year, I understood – of course in the Netherlands we do not have so many new museums but we renew our old museums, we have renewed museums. And so there is a lot of expertise, in management, in collection care, in preservation, digital archiving, and that’s very important not only to preserve your collection but also to attract a new public.

Then, within the Creative Industries, in urban planning there are often references to the ‘Dutch Approach’ – what does this approach mean to you and what are your own working experiences with this type of approach? How do you think it could be used elsewhere in the world?

I think we in the Netherlands are used to working with dense cities, with compact cities, and I was told that a couple of years ago Chinese architects were especially looking at the USA, there the cities often have streets with a grid structure like Manhattan – in the Netherlands it’s much more old environments, for example Amsterdam, which are very compactly built with a pragmatic attitude. Before I became a minister I was director of the University of Applied Science in Amsterdam and I saw a lot of students working on issues of urban planning, how to create urban farming for example but also how to create safe streets and decrease the level of noise in streets – so I think it’s a way of pragmatic thinking, not necessarily a special style.

What kind of effect do you think that Sino-Dutch co-productions will have on the Chinese and Dutch film markets and on Chinese and Dutch audiences?

That’s difficult to say, as I am not a film specialist, but I know that we in the Netherlands are doing very well in the documentary sector and I heard that CCTV now has various channels that are obliged to show an x amount of hours of documentaries per day so I hope we can contribute there. We also have a good name within films for young people and small children. I think it is very important if you want to create a creative generation and you want to stimulate cultural education then you have to start very early, so to have films that stimulate imagination and creativity is very important. And last year I was at the Film Festival Rotterdam and I saw a film by David Verbeek, he’s a Dutch guy but he made his film in China with Chinese actors, so it was really a form of co-production and it was a very exciting film.

Why is it so important that we expand cultural cooperation between our countries? In what way do you think cultural cooperation contributes to our political and economic agenda?

Last Sunday I was at a meeting in the Netherlands with the president of China, Xi Jinping, and we talked a lot about industry, and agriculture, mostly from an economic perspective, but only the economy itself is loose if there is not a fundament, if it’s not rooted in ideas and history and beauty - and that’s what the arts and culture can do, culture can bridge people and if we want to cooperate between the Chinese and the Dutch we really need a bridge and culture can be that bridge.