Digital portal to link Birmingham and Frankfurt for 60th anniversary

People in Birmingham will be able to talk face to face with people in Frankfurt through a "digital portal" opening in the city centre this week, to mark 60 years since the two cities were twinned.

The portal is a large screen inside a freight crate in Hippodrome Square, in Southside. It goes live on Friday 23 October and will host a programme of sessions until 4 November.

Sixty years of friendship

Birmingham and Frankfurt have been twinned since 1966. The portal is part of Sister Cities Dialogue, a digital project linking Frankfurt with three of its twin cities: Birmingham, Krakow in Poland and Lviv in Ukraine. Visitors can walk in and see, speak and listen to people in the other city in real time.

The organisers say the idea is that every encounter is a chance to step into someone else's world and find common ground by listening to one another.

Councillor Deborah Harries, the city council's cabinet member for culture, said: "Birmingham's friendship with Frankfurt has grown over 60 years through educational exchanges and cultural encounters, such as the Frankfurt Christmas Market, which has been a festive fixture for 26 years."

"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."

Eileen O'Sullivan, Frankfurt's deputy mayor for international affairs, said: "Our partnership with Birmingham has been part of Frankfurt's international identity for six decades, and it has never depended on official agreements alone, but on people. 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."

Launch on Friday

The Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Councillor Zaker Choudhry, will officially open the portal at a launch event in Hippodrome Square from 3.30pm on Friday.

After that, the portal will be open Monday to Friday from 10am to 8pm. The free sessions range from street art and music history to coffee and cake, wine tasting and conversations between communities in the two cities.

Full details of the sessions from 23 October to 4 November are published on the City of Frankfurt's website, which can be translated into English by clicking the UK flag.

A familiar partnership

For most people in Birmingham the best-known sign of the twinning is the Frankfurt Christmas Market, which fills New Street and Victoria Square every winter and has become one of the largest German markets outside Germany and Austria. This year's market opens on 5 November.

The link has also been kept alive by school exchanges, sporting and cultural visits and civic delegations over six decades. Hippodrome Square, at the heart of Southside, is a short walk from New Street station and the Chinese Quarter.