PICNIC 08 – Paint the World Orange
Picnic 08 friday 26 sept 14:30
Marcel Wanders (our very famous dutch designer) has been appointed as chairman of a committee that is going to decide which one of us (all creatives) can promote the dutch identity across the border. If you can make it to a pitch round you will get 10.000 euro and when you win the competition you will get 500.000 euro to realise your proposal.
Marcel Wanders stresses the importance of ‘living up to the ambition of a small country’.
Marcel is engaged in a videodialogue with Frank Heemskerk (minister of Foreign Trade within the department of Economic Affairs) who is standing in front of the parliament building in The Hague.
MW: Why nation branding? FH: It’s helpful in attracting foreign investors and we want to attract also top PhD’s and creatives from all over the world.
MW: What can we offer? FH: The Netherlands are still a gateway to Europe, also the electronic gateway. Plus the quality of live is very good here.
MW: What do you expect from the contestants? FH: Frankly I don’t know, I expect it to be a surprise. So: surprise us! I hope that you can come up with something that creates a positive idea about Holland.
Marcel concludes with the launch of the website of the contest: http://www.orangecontest.nl and then orange garlands fall from the ceiling and a sort of ‘gaypride’ performance with people in orange catsuits and balloons fill the stage. The impression we’re left with must be that of Holland being one big party (I think the gaypride and DJ Tiesto are already very busy promoting us abroad anyway…)
The following speakers are still covered in orange garlands (at least on the livestreams) for a long while. Maybe this is the best pitch on Picnic since it intrudes on all the lectures with it’s orange framework, it literally painted the afternoon orange. Marcel Wanders was sorry he couldn’t join the competition since he is the chairman but in the end with this performance he could easily have made it to the finals.
Ok, ok, this was meant by Marcel Wanders and Frank Heemskerk to be a little promotion talk and I shouldn’t dig in to deep but since Princess Máxima has stated that there is no such thing as A dutch identity, I miss a clear understanding of what it is that Frank Heemskerk exactly wants to promote.(http://www.nrc.nl/binnenland/article1846825.ece/Maxima__Nederlandse_identiteit_nog_niet_ontdekt)
Since our identity is open for discussion I would say: feel free to send in every possible idea so that out of our collective creativity we could maybe shed some light on the matter of our dutch identity for our dutch politicians who are having an identity crisis.
