Leeuwarden asked their cultural sector to estimate their losses, in terms of activities and funds, and concluded that these will amount to over one million euros. So they came up with some measures to reduce this number.

The city has thought about:

an option to partly anticipate the pay of annual subsidies;adapting performance agreements and obligations associated with grants;paying activities that receive co-financing;temporarily postponing rent payment (for cultural spaces that have a lease with the municipality);an option to defer payment of municipal taxes;measures to support independent artists;specific measures for activities, such as festivals, that were cancelled due to the crisis.

The city has also been busy with creative ways of emotionally and psychologically support its people. In a week, the City of Literature developed about 6000 postcards with Frisian poems to be delivered to seniors in nursing homes. Artist Cote Create also wrote kind messages on the streets to keep up morale. Artist Karina Kroft and technician Remko Smids started the #leeuwardenprojections to help with job loss due to cancelled festivals and to support the community. With the tagline “Let an otherwise bare wall become a work of art for a while”, the project matches every day a location to a text and, when darkness comes, projects it for 45 minutes. Read more here and here (in Dutch)

Contact: Jantine Verver
Source: eurocities