“I am a believer,” says UN chief as Creative Cities Network lights up Braga

For believers in the power of culture, the initiative of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) It may be the most exciting thing you’ve never heard of.

It seems like a simple idea: connecting cities through mutual interests in culture. Dialogue is encouraged. Artists share ideas beyond borders. The success of one city can inspire that of another. That is, broadly speaking, the mission. But it’s complicated.

The network was created in 2004 to promote International cooperation and use culture and creativity as a driver of sustainable urban development. Since Edinburgh launched the program in 2004 as City of Literature, the UCCN has grown enormously to reach 350 cities in more than 100 countries. Cities that identify a form of creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development are invited to apply. But once inside, what transformation really occurs?

Take advantage of UNESCO recognition

Crucially, cities that become part of this expanding network can access best practices and even leverage their UN recognition status to increase their lobbying power. In the best case, this could translate into financing for the cultural pillar they represent.

The areas are: crafts and popular art, design, cinema, gastronomy, literature, media arts and music. The application of policy in the area of ​​local administration falls to the very important mayor of the city, and this is where the UCCN has focused its efforts.

“Mayors around the world are the responsible for the application of public policies at the local level“, says the Deputy Secretary General of UNESCO, Ernesto Ottone, after inaugurating the work of the XVI Annual Conference in Braga.

Ottone further clarifies the structure: “First we have to count on all the communities, then on the local authorities that are in charge of promotion and, finally, on all the high representatives of the Member States of each country who are part of the UNESCO so that support and fight for it. We need stakeholders to fight for cultural integration on the agenda“.

Essentially, a global lobbying team with culture at its core.

Culture for everyone?

This is far from “art for art“(art for art’s sake), and takes advantage of culture for its ability to become the intersection, the springboard for action in much broader areas.

“People understand that Culture is not synonymous with art, nor with representation, nor just with enjoyment.. It also has to do with the way we want societies to integrate,” explains Ottone. “We don’t talk about culture for culture’s sake. We talk about what culture also enables other aspects of society. We talk about poverty, emigration -which is a huge problem today in the city-, the cultural rightsand how you have access but at the same time guarantee the right to what we call the status of artists to have a livelihood.

Ottone knows the old maxim of ‘leading the horse to water’: “In the end, it is up to the cities to see how the big national policy can be brought to the communities,” he explains to ‘Euronews Culture‘. And that is why hundreds of delegates have gathered in Braga. Creatives and facilitators at the heart of local government and cultural management They are here in droves.

Financing is difficult in all sectors, but UNESCO and the other organizations in orbit have realized that change can occur more quickly and effectively at the municipal leveland the many mayors and representatives affirm that what makes the difference is both the designation and access to the network’s hive mind.

Creative connections

Networked brainstorms are often horrifying, but the session held on Thursday in the medieval town of Santa Maria da Feira, an hour from Braga, was surprisingly fruitful and highlighted how collective imagination can find solutions beyond borderswith special attention to the youth initiatives.

A representative of the French city of Metz (Music) explained how their cultural initiative funds artists to connect with schoolchildren at the earliest age possibleinspiring creative expression from the age of 3.

Iaşi, in Romania (Literature), brings successful writers to school to talk about their works. The program quickly spread to ten local institutes, which began to create reading clubs in which students can present their own works in a friendly forum.

Albane Vangheluwe (Ghent: Music) and Łukasz Kałebasiak (Katowice: Music) are fans of the initiative of the media cities. They believe the designation is powerful and inspires continuity. “In politics, sometimes it changes every five or six years,” says Vangheluwe. “But if you have a title, it is protected. It is a comforting instrument. There is a continuity guarantee“.

“Especially in countries like ours,” adds Kałebasiak, “like Poland, where changes can be radical. Even if we have a new mayor or a completely new party with a different ideology, there is a good chance that some projects or some kind of cultural policy will be maintained.” “It opens doors,” Vangheluwe continues. “The network itself is stronger than the initiative at the level of a single city“.

For some, the added presence of a city-appointed representative allows much more communication than there was before.

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“The incorporation of the UNESCO coordinator for the City of Music to the cultural office of the city council facilitated dialogue between the city council and the world of musicbut it also facilitated direct access to a global network of many other large creative music cities” explains Alice Moser from Hannover (Music).

These are positive examples, but what about cities that do not meet the requirements or in which the initiative meets resistance?

“What we have seen in the past – we celebrate 20 years of this network – is that, in some way, the exchange of good practices has allowed some cities, although at the national level they have not yet achieved it, understand how wonderful it is to have diversity“, says Ottone.

“Those cities that try to standardize the way of thinking, the way of living, the way of relating, and we have examples, such as… Afghanistan right now. All those cities in Afghanistan that cannot allow gender participation today, Well, I don’t know if the network wants to have them because they don’t represent the feeling.. Now, that does not mean that tomorrow, if there is a new government, a democratic government, it cannot be incorporated.”

Ottone’s training is steeped in culture. He has a master’s degree in Institutional Management and Cultural Policies and was an actor.

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With this level of sensitivity, we ask if it is the fact that the cultural expression provokes an emotional response which makes it such a powerful agent of transformation.

“I cannot imagine a world in which culture not be at the center of all decision making. And today we see a world in crisis with armed conflicts everywhere, if you see what is behind it, it is not just territorial disagreement, it is because there is a question about identity, the history and memory that one culture wants to erase from the other. And that doesn’t make sense. What makes the world we should all live in wonderful is that you share values ​​that are not the same,” he says.

“But when you sit with another, when you are in a place of culture, when you see artists on the street, in the worst moment of your life, it gives you hope of something you want to transfer to the new generation. And I think in the end, what we all think about, those of us who have children, is what kind of world we want to give to our future generation. When the climate crisis It is a problem everywhere; when the racist hate speech They are all over the media every day. So yes, Culture is essential, but it is essential to breathe in the world. So yes, I am a believer.”

UNESCO knows that It is not a perfect system. To measure success or even failure, the organization’s own reporting mechanism provides a detailed assessment of what has worked and what has not.

Its latest analysis, from February 2024, revealed that connections between cities show a bias towards the Global Northa Eurocentric focus and limited engagement with Africa and Asian subregions.

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Besides, Information about this initiative has been scarce. Especially for something so big and potentially transformative. Sara Vuletic, from Novi Sad (Media Arts), is no stranger to urban cultural designations after having been director of the Program for her city as European City of Culture 2022. She believes that It would be great if more people knew about it..

“There is a bit of a lack of visibility and transparency of what we are really doing,” he admits. “The project is very good, it just needs more push“.

It is very possible that there is a marketing/branding deficitbut when Tamara Zelenovic, Sara’s colleague in Novi Sad, begins to tell us about the 18 authentic collaborations with other media cities that have seen their genesis at this week’s conference, It’s hard not to admire the potential..