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Edinburgh International Culture Summit22 to 24 August 2018

Wednesday 22 August 2018: Opening CeremonyCol.

WELCOME TO THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT........................................................................................................1The Presiding Officer (Ken Macintosh)........................................................................................................1

WELCOME TO THE CULTURE SUMMIT................................................................................................................3Sir Ciarán Devane (British Council).............................................................................................................3The Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs (Fiona Hyslop).......................................4Rt Hon Jeremy Wright QC MP

(Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, UK Government).............................................6INTRODUCTION TO THE SUMMIT PROGRAMME....................................................................................................8

Sir Jonathan Mills (Programme Director, Edinburgh International Culture Summit)....................................8SPECIAL MESSAGES...................................................................................................................................... 11

Rt Hon Nicola Sturgeon MSP (First Minister, Scottish Government).........................................................11Sir Jerry Mateparae (High Commissioner of New Zealand to the United Kingdom)..................................14Dr Catarina Vaz Pinto (Councillor of Culture for the City of Lisbon)..........................................................17Joshua Ramo (Vice Chairman and Co-Chief Executive, Kissinger Association).......................................20

VIDEO MESSAGE............................................................................................................................................ 26Rt Hon Theresa May MP (Prime Minister, UK Government).....................................................................26

PERFORMANCES BY PU CUNXIN AND CHARLENE BOYD...................................................................................27Pu Cunxin (President, China Theatre Association)...................................................................................27

Transcript produced by the Scottish Parliament Official Report.

29 EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL CULTURE SUMMIT 201830

Opening CeremonyWednesday 22 August 2018

[The Presiding Officer opened the Summit at 16:03]

Welcome to the Scottish Parliament

The Presiding Officer (Ken Macintosh): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,

distinguished guests all. My name is Ken Macintosh and I am the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament. It is my privilege and delight to welcome you all to our Debating Chamber and to the official opening of the fourth Edinburgh International Culture Summit. It is good to see some familiar faces and old friends, but I appreciate that, for many of you, this might be your first time in the Scottish Parliament and possibly even your first time in Scotland. Therefore, on behalf of all my Scottish parliamentary colleagues, I offer you a traditional Scottish Gaelic welcome: ceud mìle fàilte—a hundred thousand welcomes.

As I am sure you are aware, the Summit is a partnership between the Scottish Parliament, Scottish and United Kingdom Governments, British Council and Edinburgh International Festival, and I am delighted to say that we will hear from each of our partners shortly. However, before we do, it is worth reflecting on why we are here.

I believe very strongly in the role that culture and the arts play in promoting international dialogue and understanding, and the Summit provides a unique forum for debate and discussion about international cultural policy. As we gather in a city that is currently hosting the world’s largest festival of the arts and culture, and in a building that was designed—in the words of its architect—to be a space for “shared conversation, not sterile confrontation”, I can think of no better venue.

The inaugural Culture Summit in 2012 brought together a range of internationally renowned speakers and artists from 33 countries around the world to discuss how arts and culture are best sustained, promoted and protected, as well as to provide new opportunities for cultural exchange. Now, in 2018, we host the fourth and largest of our Summits, with 42 official delegations representing all corners of the globe. It has been a delight to see the Culture Summit go from strength to strength.

The overarching theme of this year’s Summit—“Culture: Connecting Peoples and Places”—

weaves together three programme strands, which we will explore in detail over the coming days. Those strands will reflect on the fractured world in which we live and demonstrate how culture can make connections across perceived divisions in society. I hope you will agree that, at a time of great geopolitical and societal upheaval, exploring this diversity is of paramount importance.

In the plenary sessions in the Chamber and in the policy discussions that will take place throughout the parliamentary campus, we will discuss the following three interlinked policy strands. “Culture in a Networked World” is about how culture can build bridges of understanding across peoples, generations and societies in a fragmented world. “Culture and Investment” is about the need to strike a balance between investment in physical infrastructure—building new theatres and museums—and alternative models of investment to support our creative talent to reach new and wider audiences. “Culture and Wellbeing” will enable us to explore how participation in cultural activity can positively affect our health.

So we have plenty to do and to get on with over the next couple of days, and I hope you find the Summit interesting and enjoyable. I also strongly encourage you to take every opportunity to make the most of your time here in the Parliament and in Edinburgh to network and to exchange ideas with one another. I hope that being here in this vibrant capital of Scotland at festival time and in this wonderful Parliament building provides that extra spark of creativity.

Once again, on behalf of all my fellow members of the Scottish Parliament, I welcome you to Holyrood. I am delighted that you are here, and I wish you well in your deliberations. [Applause.]


Welcome to the Culture SummitThe Presiding Officer: I now formally begin

proceedings by inviting Sir Ciarán Devane, Chief Executive of the British Council, to welcome guests to the Edinburgh International Culture Summit.

16:08Sir Ciarán Devane (British Council): Presiding Officer, First Minister, ladies and

gentlemen, Excellencies, it is a huge privilege for me to be here again at a time when, as Ken Macintosh mentioned, culture has such a huge contribution to make to fixing the fractured world to which he referred. Those of us who know the British Council—I know that many of you do—might well know that we were established in 1940, when, as I sometimes have to remind some of my colleagues, there was something even bigger than Brexit going on. The very first document talks about the role of fostering the interchange of knowledge, ideas and discoveries, and says that that is the role of the prudent state. It says that the reason to do it is to create a basis of friendship, knowledge and understanding between people: friendship between our communities and within our countries; knowledge of one another, of the world’s heritage and of our histories and where we came from so that we know where we might be going; and understanding of our own complexities and the complexities of some of the conflicts and some of the solutions that lie ahead of us.

I first really thought about this from the point of view of my homeland. I am Irish, and we, too, suffered from community conflict. While the police and the military reduced the level of violence, they were not the people who brought peace. The people who brought peace were people reaching across the community and creating the political space that ultimately allowed the Good Friday Agreement to be signed 20 years ago this year. It was musicians who were the first people to reach across the boundaries—punk musicians, as it happened—and then the women’s movement. It was that knowledge and understanding between communities that created the process from which peace began.

What they were doing was building trust. Economists do not agree on very much, but one of the things that they do agree on is that prosperous societies with high levels of cohesion, stability and good levels of security have high levels of trust. I think that fostering that trust is a critical role of those of us who work in the sphere of culture, because what we are doing is sharing that knowledge, those ideas and that understanding.

Out of that comes trust; out of that comes prosperity; and out of that comes security.

So when we talk about culture, we are not just talking about our history and where we came from and what we are proud of; we are talking about culture being a vehicle for economic development and, indeed, for development economics. It is one of the great levers that, as yet, is underexploited.

On my behalf and on behalf of my colleagues and our partners in this Summit, thank you for being here. I am delighted to be with you and I look forward to our conversations over the next day or two. Thank you. [Applause.]

The Presiding Officer: Thank you, Sir Ciarán. I now invite my parliamentary colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop MSP, to welcome guests on behalf of the Scottish Government.

16:11The Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism

and External Affairs (Fiona Hyslop): I am very grateful to you, Presiding Officer,

and our parliamentary colleagues for their role in organising this event. I would also like to thank the Scottish Government’s other partners and funding partners. Sir Jonathan Mills deserves special praise for helping to pull together such an innovative programme, as do the Edinburgh International Culture Summit Foundation team led by Sir Angus Grossart, who has helped lever in support from so many partners. Thank you.

On behalf of the Scottish Government, which has responsibility for culture policy in Scotland, welcome to Scotland. As the Government minister involved in establishing this global Summit back in 2012, I am delighted to see how it has grown and developed.

On the day that this great building housing the Scottish Parliament was officially opened in 2004, Liz Lochhead read a poem written by the late Edwin Morgan, our first national makar. “Makar” is an old Scots word for poet. The poem begins with these words of wisdom, which I think are a fitting welcome to the 2018 Edinburgh International Culture Summit:

“Open the doors! Light of the day, shine in; light of the mind, shine out!We have a building which is more than a building. ...We give you this great building, don’t let your work and hope be other thangreat when you enter and begin.So now begin. Open the doors and begin.”

Welcome also to Edinburgh. As our capital city, Edinburgh has forever shaped our thinking about who we are as a nation. Edinburgh is steeped in a history that is defined by the coming together of


people, cultures and ideas from around the world. It is as open to the world now as it ever was and during the festival it feels as though Edinburgh belongs to the entire world.

I hope that you all have the chance to sample some of what Scotland and Edinburgh have to offer during your stay. The Edinburgh festivals shape and promote Scotland’s identity as a confident, creative and welcoming nation. Edinburgh is hosting the largest celebration of the arts anywhere on the planet, with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe the largest arts festival in the world. At the festival’s peak, we have 25,000 artists, entertainers, thinkers and writers populating the city, with over 1,000 shows per day. The audience attendance is the equivalent of hosting a FIFA World Cup every year.

The 2018 Edinburgh International Festival programme burst into life with a very moving and spectacular programme, “Five Telegrams”, which commemorated world war one and celebrated Scotland’s year of young people through a remarkable fusion of creativity and innovation. That is a powerful example of how culture and arts can reflect the past, challenge the present and shape the future.

In addition to Edinburgh’s festivals, all year round there are hundreds of festivals and celebrations in Scotland. Just this month, Glasgow, jointly with Berlin and funded by the Scottish Government, hosted the highly successful 2018 European Championships. That was a first-ever and a bold and innovative event that brought together seven sporting championships and was watched by over a billion viewers on television. Alongside that world-class sporting offer, just as we did with the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which were hosted in Glasgow, we delivered an exceptional cultural programme, Festival 2018.

Such events are wonderful in their own right. However, festivals also speak deeply to Scotland’s sense of itself. We are a nation that cherishes culture for its empowering and transformative power, as underlined in our draft culture strategy. Also, if you read the quotations on the Canongate wall, which are part of the Scottish Parliament building, you will see that poetry is literally built into the Scottish Parliament. We are proud of the vibrancy, diversity and excellence of our traditions and contemporary cultures. Of course, that feels hugely important now, when the United Kingdom is set to leave the European Union despite Scotland’s vote to remain.

Yes, the festivals are a brilliant excuse for a party, but they also demonstrate, celebrate and strengthen a sense of internationalism that we hold very dear. That internationalism is why we established this Edinburgh International Culture

Summit in 2012. At a time when international dialogue and hearing the voices and views of everyone are increasingly important, the Summit’s theme of connecting peoples and places is very apt.

The Summit provides unique opportunities to forge new relations and rekindle old ones, for us to learn from one another and for discussions to take place on the role and value of the arts. I am particularly delighted that the Summit has a strong focus on young people, and I look forward to the telling contribution that the youth delegates will make. They will be vocal and passionate, and I expect them to challenge us all.

I believe that there is no better place or time to host the Culture Summit. It provides an unrivalled platform to debate, consider and take actions on issues that are of interest to all of us. We want to generate ideas, gain insights, discuss and, most importantly, listen and make connections. Scotland continues to be a welcoming and open society where we embrace different voices and opinions, so thank you so much for joining us. [Applause.]

The Presiding Officer: Thank you, cabinet secretary.

Turning to our other governmental partner, I invite the Rt Hon Jeremy Wright QC MP, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, to welcome guests on behalf of the Government of the United Kingdom.

16:18Rt Hon Jeremy Wright QC MP (Secretary of

State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, UK Government)

: Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. It is great to be able to join in the welcome to you all to this fourth Edinburgh International Culture Summit. There is of course no better backdrop to the event than this wonderful city during the height of the festival season. As you will already appreciate or will come to appreciate, these iconic festivals are living, breathing examples of the incredible power of culture to transform our lives and our cities. Visitors from across the world have been flocking to see some of our biggest names side by side with smaller productions and, of course, giving our economy a boost as they do so.

The Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe encapsulate the creativity and ingenuity that can be found all across the United Kingdom. As we leave the European Union, we will use that creativity to show the world that we remain an open, welcoming and outward-looking nation. This Summit provides a unique platform for ministers


and cultural leaders from across the globe to discuss the big issues that impact us all.

One of the themes of this Summit particularly struck me: the theme of “Culture in a Networked World”. As our “Culture is Digital” report identified, technology offers unprecedented opportunities for culture in the UK and beyond. Every day, we see the seismic power of technology and its ability to engage new audiences, drive new business models, and increase access to world-class archives and collections.

Some of our oldest and most prestigious sites are using technology to meet demand for new digital experiences and to reach those who are less engaged with culture. Cultural organisations also have a powerful role to play in how we interpret information in the digital age. In a world of social media echo chambers, cultural organisations are vital in challenging our views and introducing us to new perspectives.

I know that many of you are working on your own programmes to combine your great cultural institutions with the most cutting-edge, impressive technology. This will be the new cultural frontier over the coming years and we can only make the most of it if we are open minded and we work together, regardless of boundaries. That is why events such as this one are so important.

I thank Sir Jonathan Mills and his team for their continued passion and dedication and for their hard work in organising this event. I thank all the partners involved in making it happen—the Scottish Government, British Council, Edinburgh International Festival, and Scottish Parliament. Speaking of the Scottish Parliament, I thank the Presiding Officer for allowing us to host the Summit in this spectacular Chamber. Let us all make the most of this opportunity, because culture shows humanity at its best. It is my privilege to help to open this important Summit. The ideas and conversations that we will share over the coming days will show the world how the enduring power of culture can strengthen the bonds between our nations. Thank you very much indeed. [Applause.]

The Presiding Officer: Thank you very much, Secretary of State.

Introduction to the Summit Programme

The Presiding Officer: We will now hear from the programme director of the 2018 Edinburgh International Culture Summit, Sir Jonathan Mills, on the content of the Summit programme.

16:22Sir Jonathan Mills (Programme Director,

Edinburgh International Culture Summit): Presiding Officer, your Excellencies, ladies and

gentlemen—I add my warm welcome to those of the Presiding Officer, the Chief Executive of the British Council, the Secretary of State and the Cabinet Secretary. I am especially delighted, in this year of young people in Scotland, to greet so many youth delegates to the 2018 Edinburgh International Culture Summit.

The title of this year’s Summit, “Culture: Connecting Peoples and Places”, affirms that culture is a prism through which to perceive the equilibrium of any society and suggests that the poems and plays, songs and ceremonies, photographs and paintings that we choose to share with one another are fundamental to the vibrancy and cohesiveness of the places in the world that we seek to create. The Edinburgh International Culture Summit is hosted by a city in which, for 71 years, cultural relationships of the most varied and intense kind have been initiated and nurtured.

As much as the Summit is a Scottish initiative, it offers a genuinely international perspective and I urge you to embrace this as your Summit, in your festival—not just as our festival. Your presence here is an encouragement, as the Cabinet Secretary has said, to the 25,000 artists from all over the world, from 70 to 80 nations, who gather in this city every year. Equally, as a forum in which practitioners and politicians—this year, representing 45 countries—can come together, the 2018 Summit provides you all with a platform to discuss and promote substantial global issues of mutual interest, to network with ministerial delegations, and to engage with highly ambitious alliances of artists and cultural professionals.

As you will see and hear from actors Pu Cunxin and Charlene Boyd in their dramatic renderings of Shakespeare and Li Bai in a moment, from the choreographer Akram Khan on the forecourt of the Palace of Holyroodhouse later this evening, and from musicians Feras Charestan, Basel Rajoub and Julian Herman, and actress Bea Webster, during the course of the next few days—as well as attendances at all of the festivals that are going on in this city at the moment and, to top it all off, a


visit to Dundee for a sneak preview of the V&A, which will be opened in a couple of weeks—we place art and its practitioners at the centre of the conversation that we are about to have.

This event is supported by an independent charity, which is chaired by Sir Angus Grossart. On behalf of the founding partners, I thank Sir Angus and the trustees of the Edinburgh International Culture Summit Foundation, along with all our corporate, philanthropic and individual supporters, for their contributions.

If I have learned anything as an artist from the inspiring discussions that have emerged from these Summits since 2012, it is a greatly enhanced appreciation for the truly complex challenges that each and every minister of culture faces in advocating for culture in the processes of governments and bureaucracies. We live in a world that faces huge challenges: exploding population growth, diminishing natural resources, vanishing indigenous cultures, increasing tribalism and bitter localised feuds, human dislocation of unprecedented dimensions and large-scale suffering from preventable and treatable diseases.

In searching for words that grasp the depths of some of our dilemmas, I will share what a young, optimistic political leader had to say about a world that remains addicted to defining itself by a rather narrow set of measurements. Speaking at the University of Kansas in March 1968, a few months before his tragic assassination, Robert Kennedy said:

“Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things ... Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl ... It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

I hope that the ideals so eloquently expressed by Robert Francis Kennedy half a century ago, at a time of substantial social change equal to our own, might inspire and guide your deliberations in this city and this Parliament during our short time together. Please enjoy this Summit and, most especially, this city and its festival.

The Presiding Officer: Thank you very much, Jonathan. In case delegates were wondering, we will hear from the last of our partners—Fergus

Linehan from the Edinburgh International Festival—during the Closing Ceremony.


Special MessagesThe Presiding Officer: We will now hear the

first of our presentations, which will lead into the plenaries, the private policy discussions and the informal dialogue that we hope that you will have with one another and which will mark a successful Summit.

I am delighted to say that the first speaker is Scotland’s First Minister, the Rt Hon Nicola Sturgeon MSP.

16:29Rt Hon Nicola Sturgeon MSP (First Minister,

Scottish Government): Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Your

excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Scottish Government, I warmly welcome you all to Scotland, to Edinburgh—our capital city and, right now, the cultural capital of the world—and, in particular, to our beautiful Scottish Parliament. You are all very welcome, particularly those who are visiting for the very first time. As the hosts of the Culture Summit, it is a pleasure for me and my colleagues in the Scottish Government to welcome you here.

It is appropriate that I echo the thanks that have been articulated by previous speakers to the Scottish Government’s partners in delivering this Summit, which include the British Council, Edinburgh International Festival and UK Government. I thank Sir Angus Grossart and the Summit Foundation and, in particular, Sir Jonathan Mills, the programme director, for putting together such an exciting and vibrant programme for the Summit.

The Edinburgh International Culture Summit is, without a shadow of a doubt—in my unbiased opinion—the world’s leading forum for the discussion of arts and culture policy. I am absolutely delighted that, this year, more than 150 artists, policy makers, producers and thinkers from over 40 countries across the world are taking part. Your presence here speaks to our shared belief that culture is of central importance to any society. It also demonstrates our shared commitment to improve the way we support, develop and promote our culture sectors.

The Summit programme focuses on how we can do that by looking at three central themes: the importance of Government investment in culture; the relationship between culture and wellbeing; and the role of culture in an increasingly networked world. All those themes have particular relevance to Scotland.

I hope that the link between culture and wellbeing seems very obvious in Edinburgh all

year round, but particularly in the month of August. Like thousands of others, I have the experience of enjoying the incredible atmosphere created by the Edinburgh festivals during this period. The ability of culture to inspire, excite and bring joy is obvious everywhere in Edinburgh at this time. Also apparent is its ability to make us think. I had the pleasure a couple of days ago of interviewing one of our greatest writers, Ali Smith, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. She reminded us then of the words of another of our great writers, Muriel Spark, whose centenary we are celebrating this year, who said that culture should make us feel but it should also make us think. That is evident everywhere in Edinburgh right now.

Of course, culture affects wellbeing in many ways and in many contexts. As part of this Summit programme, a number of contributors will speak about the different ways in which cultural activity can improve our health and wellbeing. For example, we will hear about the way that dance has been used to help people deal with the trauma of the Rwandan genocide, and we will hear about the use of music to treat chronic illness in the Netherlands.

Obviously, not every specific example is directly transferable to all other countries, but the basic principle that culture has an impact on wellbeing is an important one. In fact, it is a principle that is now directly and very firmly recognised by the Scottish Government in our policy making. Earlier this summer, we published a refreshed version of our national performance framework—a document that sets out the Scottish Government’s overall purpose. It includes different indicators that show whether or not we are achieving our aims.

In the new version of the framework, we have, for the first time, included the concept of national wellbeing and we have identified the vibrancy of our cultural life as one of the key indicators of our national wellbeing. That means that, for the first time ever, our efforts to improve wellbeing will be measured and we will pay as much attention to those efforts as we pay to our efforts to grow our economy. It also means that the importance of culture is reflected in the very purpose of the Scottish Government and in how we judge our success as a country. I suggest that it starts to live up to the sentiments of Robert Kennedy that were so recently articulated by Jonathan Mills. I am particularly proud that on the day that we launched our new national framework, I quoted the very passage by Robert Kennedy that we just heard from Jonathan Mills. That is a way in which we are showing—and leading by example—the importance of culture to our wellbeing as a country.

Of course, that is one reason among many why we continue to invest in culture. As Jonathan Mills


alluded to, in recent years, countries and Governments right across our globe have faced difficult times and in particular, difficult financial times, and the Scottish Government is certainly no exception. However, we have throughout maintained our support for Scotland’s culture sector. For example, our budget this year includes a funding increase for culture of almost 10 per cent. We have protected funding for our five national performing companies and we are investing in major capital projects, such as the creation of a new museum in Stornoway in our western islands and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s new home in Glasgow.

Possibly, though, the most obvious example this year is the V&A museum of design in Dundee, which will open in just three weeks’ time. The Scottish Government has been a strong supporter of the museum, with an investment of £38 million towards its construction. The building itself is a showcase of design, thanks to world-renowned Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, and it is also the focal point of the regeneration of Dundee’s waterfront. On the basis of that project, The Wall Street Journal has already listed Dundee as one of its top 10 hot destinations in the world, and Lonely Planet, the producers of the guidebooks, have named Dundee among their 10 best European places to visit in 2018.

That kind of international attention will help to bring jobs, investment and business to Dundee. Our hope is that, by highlighting the city’s design heritage, the museum will also inspire Dundee’s next generation of designers and artists, and we firmly believe that, in doing so, it will enrich the lives of people locally and across the country. The V&A Dundee will showcase Scottish design to visitors from around the world, but it will also, through its exhibition programme, bring the best of international design to Scotland.

The museum will therefore be a great example of how culture can widen our horizons, which is a really important benefit of engaging in culture and something that I commented on earlier this week at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. In my view, reading or consuming other forms of art and culture deepen our understanding of and our empathy with people, cultures and countries of which we may have no direct personal experience. Of course, the recognition that culture can promote international understanding motivated the creation of the Edinburgh International Festival in 1947, shortly after the end of the second world war. During that first festival, the then Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir John Falconer, summed up its founding philosophy. He said:

“The cultivation of the arts, the increase of prosperity and the development of universal friendship are matters which outreach our boundaries, and the rebirth of joy and

enthusiasm in life makes for a people’s strength and happiness and health.”

Those ideals of co-operation, friendship and working towards the common good underpinned much of the post-war settlement and they are at the very heart of international institutions such as the European Union and the United Nations—institutions that were designed to bring countries back together, repair life and provide peace and security. Those ideals, values and principles are still fundamental to the Edinburgh festivals today.

That is something that we should never undervalue. It is one of the reasons why it is so wonderful to be here in the city in August, at the height of the festival season, when that spirit of creativity, internationalism and solidarity is so much in evidence. Of course, it is one of the reasons why it is so wonderful to be here with all of you at this Summit.

A little earlier, the Scottish culture secretary, Fiona Hyslop, opened her remarks with a quote from Scotland’s first makar—our first national poet—Edwin Morgan. I want to close with the words of Scotland’s current makar, Jackie Kay. In 2016, in this very chamber, standing up there in the gallery, Jackie Kay marked a new session of the Scottish Parliament by reciting a specially written poem. Near the end of that poem, she reflects thus:

“It takes more than one language to tell a story ...Welcome ...One language is never enough ...C’mon ben the living room.Come join our brilliant gathering.”

I am delighted that you are adding your experiences, expertise and languages to this brilliant gathering. As a result, I hope that we can all find new ways of bringing the benefits of culture to more people in our own countries and around our world.

Welcome. Thank you so much for being here. I hope that you find this summit informative and, perhaps above all else, enjoyable. [Applause.]

The Presiding Officer: Thank you very much, First Minister. I invite His Excellency the Rt Hon Sir Jerry Mateparae, High Commissioner of New Zealand to the United Kingdom, to join us at the lectern.

16:40Sir Jerry Mateparae (High Commissioner of

New Zealand to the United Kingdom): Rau rangatira mā, e kui mā, e koro mā, e

huihui nei, tēnei aku mihi māhana kia koutou.

Distinguished leaders and ladies and gentlemen, I extend to you my warm greetings. I also join with those who have preceded me in acknowledging the Presiding Officer and thanking


him and Sir Jonathan Mills for the opportunity to be here.

The theme of my comments is, first, the example of Scots over time, secondly, the example of New Zealand as it is, and thirdly, the example of the Edinburgh International Festival and this Summit.

One thing that distinguishes Scotland and all meanings of that word—its substance, opinions, purposes and how it feels—is its culture. Scots men and women have taken their culture around the globe, and the Scottish diaspora are renowned for celebrating that culture spiritedly—in both senses of that word.

At the heart of a culture is a language—spoken and written—stories, music and poems. There is a Māori whakatauki, or proverb, which, when translated, says:

“My language is my awakening, my language is the window to my soul.”

In the context of my being at this cultural summit in Edinburgh, I thought that it would be appropriate for me—as others have done—to quote a poet. The lyrics are by Scotland’s most famous poet, Rabbie Burns:

“My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer; Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe, My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.”

Burns’s song reminds us that the Scottish people have always been intrepid explorers—travelling far from home, yet holding an affinity to Scotland and things Scottish. The lyrics help to explain why Scottish culture has reached and taken hold across continents, including on completely the opposite side of the world in Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Few other countries have been as successful as Scotland in exporting its culture—from bagpipes and tartan to haggis, Highland dancing, shortbread and whisky. Scottish culture permeates every corner of New Zealand; Caledonian societies help to ensure that. Highland games attract competitors from all over the world to places such as Waipu, Hororata, Turakina and Paeroa. Many at our schools wear tartan kilts as part of their uniform. Dunedin is one of our oldest and most prominent cities. Its name, which is derived from the Scots Gaelic name for Edinburgh, is known as the Edinburgh of the south.

It is as a people where the impact of our Scottish heritage is most keenly felt. Our strong Scottish roots mean that we share many traits with the people of Scotland. We share a friendliness, a dry sense of humour and seriousness in approach that comes from living in dramatic and unforgiving terrain. We share a canniness, a determination

and a can-do attitude, where innovation is a cornerstone in our business dealings, and, like many Scots, we know how to have a good time, and we—I certainly do—enjoy a wee dram.

As a country, we value our culture immensely. Our culture—New Zealand’s culture—is no longer only on display through the haka at an All Blacks rugby game, and, for me, that is exciting to see. We have seized the opportunity to promote things New Zealand, and nothing is more New Zealand than our language—our reo. We can draw inspiration from how successful Scotland has been at showcasing its culture, to which this Summit is testament.

The other thing that the Burns poem reminds us of is the sentiment that Scottish people and culture have an affinity with the land, and that fondness travels with them wherever they go. That strikes a resounding chord with me, and I am sure that it would do with most New Zealanders.

There is another Māori proverb that goes:

“Toi tu te kupu, toi tu te mana, toi tu te whenua”,

which means, “Your word, your status, your land.” These things have an affinity with culture, and it seems to me that the resurgence of our language—Te Reo Māori—points to the notion that these things start at home.

This festival sets a powerful example in showcasing culture, and through the various events and by exploring different styles, we see how interconnected we are. I firmly believe that, through sharing our cultures, we have become less foreign to one another. In Edinburgh, we have found an audience that is incredibly receptive to our culture. New Zealand Māori and Pasifika-inspired shows have been hugely popular. From the powerfully provocative to the light-hearted, numerous and diverse New Zealand artists have participated in the Edinburgh festivals through support from our Creative New Zealand—Toi Aotearoa.

Creative New Zealand works with Scottish institutions to develop meaningful exchanges between our artists and our cultures. Relationships that are established here and in Scotland more widely are about something much more profound than simply flying over here to tell our stories. For example, the playwright Arthur Meek is presenting his work “Erewhon” at this year’s Edinburgh fringe festival. The play is a result of his participation in the New Zealand/Scotland playwright residency and exchange programme in 2016. Another example is Shannon Te Ao with his multimedia installation, “With the sun aglow, I have my pensive moods, 2017”, which was the first production that New Zealand co-commissioned with the Edinburgh Art Festival.


Aotearoa-New Zealand has had a presence at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, particularly in 2014, when two leading Māori cultural or kapa haka groups—Te Waka Huia and Te Whānau ā Apanui—and leading New Zealand Highland dancers performed in the show highlighted as a celebration of “Our Home, Friends and Family”. I am convinced that, as we learn more about one another and our differences, we can see and celebrate our commonalities and shared aspirations.

Ladies and gentlemen, the events that happen here every year bring together many cultural ideas and art forms, and the sentiment in which the Scots have done that in this wonderful city by championing culture is truly extraordinary.

At this point, in New Zealand’s culture, I would be required to sing. I have been told, “Don’t lose your day job,” so what I thought I would do, in terms of that connectedness, is conclude my comments with a poem written by a Scotsman, John Liddell Kelly, who emigrated to New Zealand in 1880. Kelly wrote a book of poems called, “Heather and Fern: Songs of Scotland and Maoriland”. I will read from one of the poems, which is entitled “Heather and Fern”:

“Though dear to my heart is Zealandia,For the home of my boyhood I yearn;I dream, amid sunshine and grandeur,Of a land that is misty and stern;From the Land of the Moa and the MaoriMy thoughts to old Scotia will turn;Thus the Heather is blent with the KauriAnd the Thistle entwined with the Fern.”

As I said at the start:

“My language is my awakening, my language is the window to my soul.”

Thank you very much.

The Presiding Officer: Thank you very much to Sir Jerry—I could not tell whether people were relieved or disappointed not to hear you sing then. The Edinburgh festival and fringe is all about participation; I should warn you that it is occasionally about humiliation.

Our next presentation is from Dr Catarina Vaz Pinto, Councillor of Culture for the City of Lisbon. She will give her thoughts on investing in the locality—on how to invest in buildings while investing in people.

16:51Dr Catarina Vaz Pinto (Councillor of Culture

for the City of Lisbon): Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, thank you

for the honour of being here at this prestigious Summit and for allowing me to share with you some views on the role of culture and the role of

cities and the need for human scale—I have changed the content of my presentation a little bit, but I will come on to investment.

As we well know and can attest to in our daily lives, our world is becoming increasingly complex, confused and unintelligible. As a result of the deep and sudden changes brought about by globalisation and a digital paradigm that has invaded our daily lives at work, in our personal lives, and in our free time, it is a paradigm incepted with the creation of immense expectation regarding the ability to foster wealth exchange and sharing, and the ability to recognise the other.

Today, however, we live in a divided, fractured world. It confronts us with a broad range of phenomena of exclusion, conflict and even refusal of the other. On the one hand, we are immediately and constantly connected, we are more efficient and swift in our work, and we have access to an unparalleled amount of information and goods; on the other hand, we often feel insecure and unsatisfied with the uncertainty of present life, and our sense of time, distance, place, and human relationships has been challenged by technology, which has accelerated or modified what we were accustomed to.

We are permanently connected with the world, yet we can feel as though we are completely alone in our homes. The commodity-based ideology of economic success—of technological progress and the accumulation of assets, exacerbated by financial crisis, climate change, wars and forced migration—has led to the adoption of production and consumption lifestyle patterns that have generated levels of inequality, stress, the loss of a relationship with nature and a sense of alienation in a less cohesive world.

I believe that culture can make connections across those divisions in our society as well as being able to create the conditions for mutual understanding. Ultimately, it can work as a way of fostering social cohesion and co-operation across borders. That is why I believe that change can be achieved only through the appreciation of the cultural dimension in global development.

Culture is the vital ability for expression and symbolic constructions. It allows us to affirm identity, to build a sense of belonging and of public space, to think about defining options and values to establish the links between the past, present and future, to fulfil desires, and to find an individual and collective purpose for the time that we live in.

Culture is what makes us different; culture is what makes us human. In order to address the negative effects of today’s reality, it is paramount to put culture at the centre of public policies by protecting heritage, by supporting creativity, by


promoting diversity, by granting access to knowledge, and by taking advantage of the technological evolution and the comfort provided by economic vitality while seeking to create a counterbalance and new ways of connecting the analogue and the digital worlds.

The territory within a specific physical living space is where we can try to reinstate balance, making our cities more human and more sustainable—cities that are more close-knit, where everybody has the same rights and access to the same opportunities; cities that seek to activate, mobilise and accommodate the creative energies of all, bringing forward the conditions to build bonds, ties of belonging and solidarity and a spirit of active citizenship; cities that seek the appropriate scale for each project or activity by taking into account the target or prospective audience, the level of funding or other available resources and the actual needs; cities that promote and welcome human diversity, respecting the uniqueness of each and every group, ethnic, religious, gender, artistic or cultural; cities able to function as an ecosystem, seeking to articulate the varied public policies, combining public and private resources and realising the role of each actor in their specific niche and their contribution to the big plan.

Lisbon is now experiencing a moment of great and unquestioned vitality. Unlike what we have seen in recent years, even here in Europe, in Lisbon we want to be on the side of those who are open to the world. In fact, this is an ancient identity trait of our city. The geo-strategic position of the country and of Lisbon at the westernmost point of the European continent dictates its everlasting condition as an intersection between Europe, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, a point of arrivals and departures and a place of exchanges and gatherings of culture. The Phoenicians, the Romans and the Arabs inhabited Lisbon throughout the ages. As early as the 12th century, an English crusader travelling through Lisbon was astonished to see so many peoples in the city. In a letter signed just “R”, he wrote that the reason for such a huge agglomeration of people was that among them there was no obligatory religion and that, since anyone could have the religion that they wanted, from all over the world men would gather there.

If geography favours us, it is true that we also learn from history. In all the periods in which we repressed and rejected diversity, we lost economic, political and cultural relevance. Whenever we respected and valued cultural and spiritual diversity, we progressed and became wealthier as a people and more sympathetic and tolerant, and we upheld Lisbon as a great cosmopolitan metropolis.

Therefore, geography does not weave the permanent construction and reinvention of an identity. We wish to be open, hospitable, happy and sad, authentic to the contemporary world—a city that is capable of creating a public space, a common square, a community in every neighbourhood on every corner and in every park; a city capable of responding to the anxieties that afflict us all, women and men of our time, those who live and work in Lisbon and those who are in transit, all of them in search of meaning, happiness and peace.

As far as culture is concerned, we went through a first stage of diagnosis and strategic redefinition and reorganisation, creating and rehabilitating infrastructures, so that we can now go into a stage of consolidation, where local public authorities in the area of culture act as a facilitating and capacity building agent and work to bring culture closer to the people and vice versa in order to combine the attraction of culture with the need for culture.

Following said purpose, the public space has been one of the priority areas of our intervention—open to all, present in all parts, without social or economic barriers. The street art of one of our most prominent artists, Alexandre Farto also known as Vhils, is captured throughout the city of Lisbon and currently all over the world. In his oversized scratched murals that invariably show anonymous faces sculpted in the stones of buildings we look at the common and anonymous citizen. He or she is the protagonist and agent of change in today’s world. It is with these citizens in mind that we want to design our policies and demonstrate the transformative power of culture. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

The Presiding Officer: Thank you very much indeed, Dr Vaz Pinto.

Our final speaker in the chamber in this section is the Vice Chairman and Co-chief Executive of the Kissinger Association, Mr Joshua Ramo.

17:00Joshua Ramo (Vice Chairman and Co-Chief

Executive, Kissinger Association): Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be

here with you. It was great to hear the greetings from the many political figures here. Sir Jonathan, thank you very much for your hospitality.

There are many places where I could begin the story that I want to tell today, but I thought that I would start on another summer’s afternoon—a hot, humid, muggy summer afternoon in 1506 in the middle of rural Germany, when a young German student was making his way home from Mansfeld to Erfurt, where he was in school studying law. It was a summer afternoon like any


other, but a thunderstorm was brewing up. If you were in central Germany today, there might be a similar thunderstorm brewing up, but what made this particular storm different was that it descended somewhat by surprise on the young student. Martin Luther was 21 years old that day. He is walking through the woods and suddenly it begins to rain and hail and there is lightning. A tremendous storm is upon him. He cowers under the assault and he makes a promise: if he gets out of it alive, he will enter a monastery.

Luther’s progress from that afternoon—the theological journey that produced the Reformation—is well known to us. He would later say that the essence of what he experienced in that thunderstorm—the raw power of nature—evoked for him a powerful idea of St Paul: the notion that faith is passed from faith to faith, so there was no need for an intermediary, and every individual could have their own direct access to God. At the time, this was a revolutionary idea. As I will describe, it unlocked everything we know today about being modern, but I mention it now because that moment in the Stotternheim forest marked the start of a fundamental pivot in the human experience, and I believe that we are now on the edge of another fundamental change in human experience and, as we will see, the role of culture in that is vital.

My idea is that all of the noises we hear around us today—the political breakage, the uncertainty, the miracle sounds of hopes of new ideas—mark the first measures of a new era, one that may surpass the Enlightenment in its impact. This new era is still only dimly apparent to us in its ideas, rules and habits, but it is one that will fundamentally change the nature of the human experience, and it is the role of culture during this transition that I wish to discuss today.

Paul’s idea—the one that was so appealing to Luther—that faith could be transmitted from faith to faith is fundamentally a line about directness. The great break of the Reformation was the idea that individuals could have their own access to God—they did not need a church or anybody standing in the way and they did not need to pay money. Every individual themselves could have access to God. This idea of Luther’s was in harmony with a whole series of ideas that were breaking out around him. People such as Galileo and Copernicus had the idea that individuals have their own access to knowledge and science, bringing the ideas of Aristotle to real life.

That triggered other processes that were part of the Enlightenment: the idea that individuals should have their own access to political power and to commercial power, to decide what they wanted to do with their lives—that what was for so many years a prison for people of where they were born

and who their parents were could be replaced by people living the lives that they wanted to lead. In short, it was the essence of being modern.

The explosive force of that summer thunderstorm unlocked a furious energy of freedom that had been held back in people for so many years until it was released suddenly. The power to learn, to read, to vote, to think—all of those represented a tremendous change. However, it was not a peaceful process. It involved the destruction of almost every institution in Europe over the 400-year period and it produced war after war after war. For instance, Luther’s insights directly produced the wars of the Reformation, which were the most violent wars that Europe had seen until that point.

You get a sense of this if you read Luther. We know him for his 95 theses, but he had a feeling that the Reformation was unleashing an accelerating process of violence and, later in his life, he turned to writing pamphlets such as “Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants”. Those peasants were simply following the advice that he had given: find your own way forward, have your own access to God and live the life that you yourself dreamed. No pamphlet was going to stop that, because what those murderous, thieving peasants were trying to steal was their own freedom and their own liberty.

About halfway into the four-century string of change that began with the Reformation and moved on through the Enlightenment, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution and the modern revolution of the 20th century, a great debate broke out not so very far from here. On one side was David Hume, who needs no introduction here. He was born about 50 miles from here, in Berwickshire, in 1711 and went on to become one of the great minds and thinkers of the Enlightenment. On the other side was a less well-known but equally formidable Scottish clergyman named George Campbell, who was born in 1719 in Aberdeen and who considered himself to be a student of Hume’s. The debate between them had to do with a problem that we do not pay much attention to today but which was essential in the era of the Enlightenment: do miracles exist? That might seem like a silly, outdated debate—whether someone believed in miracles could be seen as a sort of Rorschach test on their own faith—but it was the kind of debate that was at the front lines of the Enlightenment, because it was a debate about whether problems could be cracked by human reason. Was there any part of the world that could not be understood by the use of the human mind? That was really another way of asking whether there was any source of power or any place in the world that had access to ideas, powers and tools of freedom that humans should not have access to.


Before the Reformation, power was incredibly concentrated in the hands of a few kings, feudal lords and priests, who had all the knowledge and all the information. Then, one day, that began to break down, which triggered a massive wave of change. Today, we are at the beginning of an equivalent wave of change. It is one that will be marked by miracles for sure, and by the sorts of tragedies that came along with the Reformation and everything that came after it. It is in understanding the nature of that change that we can begin to address the importance of culture.

The nature of the revolution that is emerging around us today has to do with the fact that we are entering an era of networks. By “networks”, I do not just mean the internet; I mean any set of connected points. People who sit in this Parliament building are a network; people who speak Mandarin are a network; people who use bitcoin are a network. The fundamental insight is that connection changes the nature of every object—a connected voter, a connected library, a connected actor and a connected performance are all different from ones that are not connected. That represents a shift in the nature of power. If the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution were all about liberating individuals and freeing them from the tyranny of history and where they were born, the current revolution is about connecting people.

Connecting introduces fundamentally new dynamics of power. We are in the earliest stages of understanding that; we are in the position that Locke might have been in—he had a hint that something was changing dramatically. All of us who spend time working on and thinking about network theory realise how early we are in the process, but I thought that I would give you one example of the nature of the shift.

We said that the nature of the Enlightenment was about distributing power more widely than ever—pulling it out of the hands of kings and feudal lords and giving it to individuals—and, to some degree, the technological revolution that we are undergoing at the moment is very much about distributing power. We all have in our hands and our pockets and on our laptops, our computers and our phones more computing power than existed on the entire planet 250 years ago. We are connected to great sources of information, and we can get knowledge instantly. It is true that power is radically distributed by technology.

However, something else is going on: power is becoming incredibly concentrated. Today, there are about a dozen platform companies, as we call them, in the world, which have more than a billion users each. The more people who use their services, the more powerful they become. The more people who use a mapping service or a

social network, the smarter that system gets, so more people need to use it. The balance of power is moving away from the habit of distribution that we had in the past. Two things are happening simultaneously: there is an incredible distribution of power and an incredible concentration of power. It is like the model of the atom, which is another great fruit of the Enlightenment, where the neutrons and protons are concentrated in the centre, with the electrons on the outside. Just as the more electrons there are, the stronger the central core needs to be, the more people who use a mapping program, for instance, the stronger that mapping software becomes and the better it knows the world around it. As a result, more people use it, so it gets even smarter. The same is true of the future artificial intelligence systems that we will have. The more people who are diagnosed on a medical database, the better that medical database gets, so more people want to use it.

So power is moved from being incredibly concentrated to being incredibly distributed to this new model—this tense Pauling skein of power on which we live now. This process is what is tearing apart many of the institutions that we once relied on. Think about the family doctor that you might go to for medical treatment. He used to be your last word in care. Today, the minute you are diagnosed with something, you try to find the answer on some sort of internet search engine. You look at different internet newsfeeds, web pages and tweets to get information. That is the distribution of power. At the same time, in four or five years, an artificially intelligent database will be able to outdiagnose your doctor, because of the concentration of information, so the role of the doctor in the middle is just being pulled apart.

Or think about the traditional media. It used to be that you had the BBC or newspapers sitting in the middle. Today, we have this massive distribution of people tweeting and putting their ideas out there as well as this massive concentration, and the traditional structures are being torn apart by that. This is what it means to live in a revolutionary age. In my country, the United States, we have never had a period when the legitimacy of every public institution—the press, the presidency, Congress, science—has been as low as it is right now. The reason for that is the revolutionary pressures that are falling on institutions that are not built for this new age.

The same thing happened during the Enlightenment. The kings, feudal lords and popes were all built for a different fundamental structure of power. The idea to keep in your minds as we move into this new period is that so many of the things around us today that look strange, unusual or unnerving are not one-off things; they are expressions of the underlying shift in power, which will be as dramatic and significant as the


Enlightenment, and bigger than world war one or world war two; it will be a fundamental change in the human condition.

In such an era, culture is really the thing that allows human society to progress through the massive step changes in what it fundamentally means to be alive and be on this earth. There are many examples of that, but one that I often return to is that of what happened in Vienna in 1900. Think about Vienna in 1900. You have the seeds of the worst political fever that is about to break over the continent, which will kill millions of people—fascism. You have communism also taking root, and the beginnings of an ideological struggle that will dominate the 20th century and subject the entire planet to incredible risk. At the same time, you have Mahler, Freud and Shostakovich—you have the incredible sounds of new ideas and new music, and the images of Klimt coming alive.

As we look back on that today, 120 years later, we see that the power of the ideas of fascism and communism has faded away. They come back from time to time, but their impact on our daily life is nothing like it was 100 years ago. However, to go hear a Mahler symphony or see a Klimt painting is to take you right to the essence of the human condition. We are living in a rare age that is the beginning of a period of total revolution, just like that summer’s day that Martin Luther encountered in 1506, and the best possible reaction to it—the reaction that defines us and makes us the most human—is the reaction that comes from culture.

Thank you very much.

The Presiding Officer: Thank you very much, Joshua.

Video MessageThe Presiding Officer: She has sent her

apologies for not being able to join us, but I am delighted to introduce a video message from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Rt Hon Theresa May.

17:13Rt Hon Theresa May MP (Prime Minister, UK

Government): Every August, tens of thousands of artists and

millions of visitors descend on Edinburgh in the world’s biggest celebration of art and culture, so it is fitting that this city also plays host to the world’s largest gathering of culture ministers, and it is a pleasure to welcome you all here today for the fourth Edinburgh International Culture Summit. The theme for this year’s event is connecting peoples and places, which is a reflection of culture’s unique ability to bring together people from different nations and different backgrounds. It truly is an international language, as we can see in the huge range of nations represented by delegates and speakers this year, from Switzerland to Singapore via the USA, Palestine, Rwanda and many more.

From art and music to theatre and film making, the UK has long been a world leader in all aspects of culture, but there is no monopoly on turning creative sparks into global success. This Summit is an incredible opportunity for everyone here to share their experiences, to look at policy ideas and interventions and to discuss what works and, just as importantly, what to avoid.

Just as culture connects people and places, so this conference connects those who have the power to make a difference for artists and performers around the world. I thank everyone who has helped to make this event happen, including the Scottish Government, British Council, and Edinburgh International Festival, and our hosts here at the Scottish Parliament. Thanks to all of you for coming and I wish everyone here every success for the rest of the Summit.


Performances by Pu Cunxin and Charlene Boyd

17:15The Presiding Officer: Thank you. Sir Jerry

tantalised us with the suggestion of a song earlier and there will be opportunities to participate in the coming days. However, no session of the Culture Summit would be complete without an artistic performance to complement our discussions.

To conclude our session, it is my pleasure to introduce Pu Cunxin, President of the China Theatre Association, and noted actor Charlene Boyd, to perform two spoken pieces—“To be or not to be” and a passage from “Li Bai”, a play about the noted Tang dynasty poet Li Bai.

Pu Cunxin and Charlene Boyd performed spoken pieces from “Hamlet” and “Li Bai”.

Pu Cunxin gave a speech in Mandarin and Charlene Boyd read out a translation.

17:27Pu Cunxin (President, China Theatre

Association): This is a speech about the power of theatre, of

poetry and literature and of intercultural exchange and integration.

Humans did not create the natural world, but they have created human society, science and technology, as well as an amazing store of material and spiritual wealth. Where did this great creative power come from? It came from resting energy in nature. It also stemmed from wisdom, which was derived from knowledge of the natural world and the history of human society.

Within the 30-something plays created by Shakespeare, he included in the theatrical plots, as well as the lines and behaviours of the characters, subject matter ranging from celestial bodies and the earth to natural wonders and the transformation of human society, from the good and evil of morality to the cultivation of familial ethics, from kings and aristocracy to every Tom, Dick and Harry, as well as from supernatural worlds filled with fantastical spirits to imaginary versions of the future world. The ability of William Shakespeare to understand the world and to create artistic and literary works is simply peerless.

I have delivered several lectures to university students with the title “Theatre enlightenment and artistic education”. As a form of art, theatre helps the audience to understand the world they are living in. Theatre is not unlike a classroom or

church in which compulsory courses are taught regarding the cultivation of virtues. A theatre-goer’s perception of the world and his or her imagination, expression and sense of humour will all be enriched by the plays that he or she sees.

As a mode of civilised life that is derived from literature, theatre is at the same time a form of figurative, audiovisual literature that involves the live performance of actors and actresses on the stage. A literary text must come first, and theatre often refers to the process and result of recreation based on that text. According to Mr Yu Shizhi, the late artistic director of Beijing People’s Art Theatre, at its best, theatre must be able to evoke similar senses of beauty as great poetry and paintings do, with comparable philosophical and literary connotations that are both simple and plentiful.

Cultures and civilisations are the shared spiritual wealth of all human beings. People from different regions and of different ethnicities are born with similar impulses and wishes to perceive the world and understand human civilisation, and have similar psychological needs based on curiosity, admiration, caution and inspiration.

We all love and respect the cultural heritage of William Shakespeare and wish to keep staging his plays in the years to come, because we enjoy reading his plots and stories, witnessing the struggles and fates of his characters on the stage and getting inspired by his 400-year-old insights regarding the world and the future. In that sense, his works are always contemporary.

As modern-day artists and audiences, our encounter with Shakespeare usually starts with enjoyment, proceeds with studies and culminates in acting and seeing more of his plays. In that way, we continue the tradition of Shakespeare; in that way, we will still be staging his plays 500 years later.

In 2013, I was invited to perform “Coriolanus” at the Edinburgh International Festival. From 9 August to 15 August this year, I played the part of Prospero in “The Tempest”. It was the first time that the play has been staged in China; it is also the fourth Shakespearian play that I have acted in. Moreover, another new version of “Hamlet” will be premiered in November, in which I will play the part of the king.

Last but not least, I consider myself a Chinese actor cultivated within the tradition of Shakespeare. I hope that, in the days to come, I can perform more in the bard’s plays and enjoy the process as much as I can.

Thank you. [Applause.]

The Presiding Officer: Thank you very much indeed for that performance.


That concludes today’s session. I remind delegates that we will be back here tomorrow morning at 9.30. However, it is not the end of the day for you. We will adjourn shortly to go across to the Palace of Holyroodhouse for a performance of Akram Khan’s “Kadamati”, which will be followed by a reception.

Just before that, we want to take a photograph of everybody.

Session closed at 17:36.

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