A new digital portal in Hippodrome Square lets Brummies talk to people in Frankfurt face to face, in real time, as the two sister cities mark 60 years of friendship.
Walk into Hippodrome Square this week and you’ll find a freight crate with a big screen inside. On the other side of it is Frankfurt. The portal opened on Friday 23 October, with a launch event from 3.30pm at which the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Councillor Zaker Choudhry, officially opened it.
Nobody needs to book or sign up. You step in, and there are people to talk to.
Four cities, one conversation
The portal belongs to Sister Cities Dialogue, a project run by Frankfurt that connects the city with three of its twins: Birmingham, Krakow in Poland and Lviv in Ukraine. Each city has its own portal, so people in all four can see and speak to one another. The thinking behind it is simple. Listening to someone in another place is often the quickest way to find out what you have in common.
Sixty years on
Birmingham and Frankfurt have been twinned since 1966, so this is the anniversary year. The link has been built mostly through school and university exchanges and cultural visits. Many people in Birmingham will know it best through the Frankfurt Christmas Market, which has been part of the city’s winter for 26 years.
Councillor Deborah Harries, Cabinet Member for Culture, said: “The Sister Cities Dialogue project will help bring citizens in both cities closer through conversation, engagement and understanding – enabling us all to discover common ground.”
What’s on
The portal is open Monday to Friday, 10am to 8pm, until 4 November, and every session is free. The programme is a mix. There’s street art and music history, coffee and cake, wine tasting, and conversations between the cities’ different communities. Some sessions are planned, but the idea is also that people can simply drop in.
Eileen O’Sullivan, Deputy Mayor for International Affairs of Frankfurt am Main, said the partnership “has never depended on official agreements alone, but on people”. She added: “It is cities and their citizens who hold Europe together and Sister Cities Dialogue does exactly that, by linking Frankfurt with Birmingham, it gives our citizens a direct way to talk and listen to each other.”
The portal stays in Hippodrome Square until 4 November, so there are still plenty of sessions to come. Anyone passing through Southside can step inside, say hello to Frankfurt and see where the conversation goes.
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