Subject: Application for programme manager Culture & Social Domain

Dear Library South-Kennemerland, I would like to apply for the position 'Culture & Social Domain Programme Manager' which you published on the website 'Cultural Vacancies'. In fact, I am a huge supporter of the idea that a library should associate itself with books as little as possible. After all, the clouds of dust are already wafting towards you. Of course, you also already knew that a bookcase in the living room can save you many thousands of euros (in negative terms) when selling your house. So a whole building full of bookcases, like a library used to be, we don't want that anymore. Rightly so!

What excites me even more about the position of Culture&Social Domain programme maker are your ambitions. I read: 'The Library has traditionally been a place for stories. In the past two years, we have learnt that stories are told in different ways; through visual art forms, dance, cooking and martial arts.‘

That you, after centuries of literature, have learned in just two years that in karate class you can not only chop bricks in half with a well-directed fist stroke, but that a little nice hardcover by Ronald Giphart is just as suitable for that, I think is a discovery of historical importance. And the fact that cookbooks are read more often than The Seven Sisters is only helpful in that regard. Cooking is fun and good for you! Just like theatre!

And under what rock did you live until two years ago? What happened two years ago that made you suddenly wake up? Googled something? Did your own research?

That you, in the games department, also have a few editions of the immensely popular Bullshitbingo lying around, speaks so wonderfully from these sentences: 'Everyone is welcome at the Library and people not only come to get knowledge, but also bring knowledge. In doing so, we work in an increasingly demand-oriented way and retrieve needs and wants through Design Thinking, for example.'

Almost my entire card full in one paragraph!

However, most compelling in your vacancy is the aspect of task separation. I understand that 'connecting with society' is something your existing workforce obviously has no time for at all. Or feel like doing. That is why it is better to assign that whole business with diversity and inclusion to a separate official, whom you can also fire again as soon as those themes have disappeared from the news. So the fact that I can work completely independently, and think of everything myself, and carry it out myself, and administer and budget myself, I really don't see that as a form of shuffling off on your part, but as something with which you could let a self-employed person burn themselves out in the past. So nice that I get to come and burn up for a year (because that's how long the contract is, right?) in solitude in your undoubtedly beautiful building. In paid employment!

I do have one area of concern, and that is remuneration. Connecting with the population has become a separate function in more places, as organisations in the cultural corner have less and less of an idea of what they are, the people who live in the city and never walk in. That you want to reward that with paltry 3,500 euros a month is a travesty.

In Rotterdam, they have done better. There, after the freshly established 'Artistic Bureau' apparently failed to layer in getting a city resident to speak in two months, a grant of half a million real euros was secured (from Fund 21) for 'anchoring Theatre Rotterdam in the city'.

The theatre, which has been based in the Maas city for a couple of centuries, has also lost its way, like you, and had first appointed an agency To connect 'makers' and 'residents' through dramaturges, but that didn't work out. So the half million is now especially for that, because imagine that those makers have to do that themselves. They mainly have to make things, and then working with an audience, or let's say 'what's going on in the city', is not your thing. Logical. In the evening, you're on the train back to Amsterdam. As a maker.

So I would love it if, after my undoubtedly successful application, you would also give me the title of Social Architect. It sounds good, gives status, is as English as Martial Arts and pays better.

I would be happy to explain this application in more detail in an interview (then we'll turn it into a podcast right away).

20220126091518_Half million for anchoring Theatre Rotterdam in the city

Good to know

(Donating a monthly salary is also allowed)