Mänttä - a small town with an ambitious dream

Industrial town hopes to become European Cultural Capital

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By Ritva Korpimo
     
      What's that?
      Yes, it's true. Pekka Sairanen, the Secretary of Cultural Affairs of Mänttä, the town's acting Mayor Pauli Eteläniemi, and Pauli Sivonen, curator of the G.A. Serlacius Museum are quite serious. Mänttä plans to examine its possibilities to get the title European cultural capital in 2011.
      A new slogan, "Mänttä, Florence of Finland", was projected onto a screen in front of the auditorium at a press conference held in Sivonen's museum in the centre of the city.
      A moment later local resident Kai Viherkoski took the floor: "Anyone who has ever been to Florence will surely remember how quickly they realised that they were in the Mänttä of Italy."
     
The city board has already discussed the matter. What do the town's trustees think about the matter?
      "They are quite calm", the Mayor responds. "In Mänttä people are rather accustomed to these kinds of ideas."
      "Mänttä - why not?"
      It is another projected slogan.
      Why not indeed? In the view of the Finnish government, Mänttä is in an economic crisis zone, but so was Glasgow when it was named European Cultural Capital in 1990. It is with culture that Mänttä would like to fill the gaps left by the decline of industry.
      As the people behind the project want to emphasise, Mänttä is already a small metropolis in terms of culture.
     
With less than 7,000 residents, Mänttä still has the Gösta Serlachius Museum of Fine Art, the G.A. Serlachius Museum, an art festival, a music festival, an organ festival, a prize for the arts, a large number of public sculptures, a very old cinema, fine architecture, Finland's most important youth circus...
      Wait a minute! Can it really be more important than the Sori Circus in Tampere?
      "Almost", says Sairanen, before the others rush to correct him. In Mänttä everything really is the biggest, oldest, or most significant.
      Only the town itself is small, but so what? "Think about London", Sairanen says.
      "It is full of boroughs, many of which have about 6,500 residents. Mänttä could serve as an example for them."
     
Through the whole press conference the Mayor sitting at the end of the bench in the auditorium giggles uncontrollably. It might be best to keep him out of sight, if Mänttä is to make the desired impression on the Ministry of Education.
      But it does not seem that the Mayor is laughing because he does not take the matter seriously.
      "This is no joke", curator Sivonen insists with a smile. "We were laughing so much simply because this is such a joyous matter. Like one of the members of the City Board said, you can hit a person from Mänttä in the head with a log, and still the smile won't go away", he says.
      However, the smiles might fade in Turku, Tampere, Jyväskylä, Savonlinna, Oulu, Rovaniemi, Vaasa, Lahti, and Hämeenlinna, all of which Mänttä plans to leave behind in the dust. The Mänttä project is to be promoted by every resident. It is not so much a question of money as it is one of ideas.
      "The Ministry of Education has said that it expects originality and inventiveness from the cultural capital candidates. We can guarantee that we have that", Sivonen and Sairanen promise.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 14.4.2005

More on this subject:
 FACTFILE: Finland's and Estonia's turn in 2011

RITVA KORPIMO / Helsingin Sanomat
ritva.korpimo@sanoma.fi