A view of City of Culture 2013 from an outsider’s perspective

Maria Ramos is a Year 13 student at the British School of Barcelona. She wants to become an English Language journalist, and has written her first article about the impact of the City of Culture year beyond these shores.

As she readily admits her tutor, ex-pat Brendan Henderson might have had some influence on the subject material...

Maria writes: “It’s fascinating how information travels across people and countries, how for example, a town like Derry changed from being a meaningless place to me, to being the main feature of the first article I will ever write.

“But what led to that change? Probably it has to do with my history teacher’s nostalgic feeling towards his hometown, that definitely influenced it! But mainly it was due to a shared passion for art.

“So, the Turner Prize was celebrated in the UK City of Culture this year, being held outside of England for the first time. Even as an art fan, I did not know much about the prize, and I knew even less about this small town in the North West of Ireland.

“It was during an afternoon detention, when Mr Henderson interviewed me about my future, where and what I would like to study, my passions etc. I told him I wanted to become a journalist and had an ‘artistic vein.’

“He briefly explained to me about the prize, since I already knew a little bit about Derry, after some ‘instructive breaks’ during the history lessons, where he promised to take us next year to teach us the history of the Siege of Derry….but I think he only wants a trip home for some of the town´s famous sausage roll baps!

“For a few moments I even actually started daydreaming about entering the competition itself, as one more artist. Of course that was not going to happen and I needed to focus as soon as possible on my article.

“I definitely stopped daydreaming and took a month to actually start writing the first draft. I had no inspiration, I didn’t know what to write about. I thought I could write about the competition and the artists, or the impact it had on the town.

“But those were themes which hundreds of qualified journalists had already written about, so I had to do something different that was actually beyond the qualified journalists’ reach; the impact of the prize and the town on me; how the event was the catalyst for my first article, which will hopefully help this Spanish student on her way to becoming an English Language journalist

“I must say, it is the first time I am grateful for an afternoon detention. Since then, Derry has become an important place to me; it is the starting point to my first journalistic piece. I must admit though, I haven’t been there...yet.”