HippoPress -- The Hippo -- Guide to Manchester and Nashua NH

As Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Cultural Resources, Van McLeod oversees a number of diverse organizations, including the State Council on the Arts, the New Hampshire Library, the Division of Historical Resources, the Film and Television Office and the American Canadian French Cultural Exchange Commission. He’s made it his mission to hire New Hampshire artists for big events rather than relying on Boston or New York imports, but also wants to reach out to other countries, from Canada to Europe. He spent his schooling years in Ireland, where giant paintings depicting IRA fighters as heroes inspired him to make a documentary film, which he’s close to finishing now.

Q:What would you describe as the job of Cultural Resources?
I’m really a theater and film producer or director. I was asked to do this and I didn’t think I’d be around long, but it’s been 11 years now and I enjoy it ... We work with every state agency; we provide information to every town in the state, whether it’s to libraries or cultural organizations; and yet, we’re one of the smallest [departments]. We’re something like one quarter of 1 percent of the state budget.

Tell me about a couple of the big events.
In 2008, there’s the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City ... It’s partially because of the number of people who traditionally came from Quebec — about a third of the population of New Hampshire, though it’s less than that now, has roots in Quebec. We’re close to Quebec, a lot of visitors come. I work a lot with the Quebec delegation in Boston. As we looked at this, we said, why don’t we try a celebration in New Hampshire?

For people who maybe can’t get back to Quebec?
There is a part of that ... we’re celebrating not only the founding of Quebec, but the French influence in North America, which goes all the way back to, again, 400 years ago, pre-colonial days. The French and Indian War, the American Revolution, all the way to the Second World War. In Manchester, there’s a railway car — there were 48 railway cars sent out to each of the United States after World War II full of material from France ... We are basically challenging New Hampshire’s cultural institutions to, within their own programming in 2008, to take a look at this theme and create programming, and then we as the state and the steering committee that we create will work to market that. Whether that’s a theater company doing Moliere or a French film series or an exhibit or the humanities council with their lectures ... it can be interpreted in all kinds of different ways.

What other events are coming up or in the planning stages?
The big one is the bike race right now ... The organizers in Quebec and Montreal have a bunch of work to do, but it’s an eight-stage race; it is a race that will have four stages in Canada and four stages in the United States; two of those four stages will be in New Hampshire ... If this goes the way it should go, in a couple years, this will be the largest race in North America. There’s an eight-stage race in California, that I think does not have the same license ... This is the last race, I believe, before the Olympics, so people can get points for the Olympics and for the world championship.

You certainly seem to have a more international view rather than just focusing on New Hampshire.
New Hampshire artists are individual businesspeople, even if they’re not for-profit ... how you create stability is by creating markets for those products. And markets for those products have got to be outside of New Hampshire as well as inside. Most of your painters in New Hampshire don’t sell their paintings in New Hampshire. They’ll sell them other places, in New York.

While I was looking your name up on Google, the third result was an IMDb listing and I noticed you’re in a couple films [as a “Special Thanks” credit].
All of those that are in there are films that I’ve helped with, and I’m doing my own film, which is not in there because it’s not finished yet, it’s a documentary.

What’s your documentary about, if you don’t mind?
It’s called Murals: Romanticizing of Violence. It’s a documentary I’m doing with Ron Wyman from Portsmouth ... It’s taking a look at how violence is romanticized using Northern Ireland and murals ... ... It seemed like a good idea six or seven years ago; I do it on my own time, so we haven’t finished it yet, but we’re close, very close. I’m hoping that it’ll be done by April ... It’s a very broad subject, because things are changing over there so dramatically..

— John "jaQ" Andrews