Working for the bid

Matera started to work for the bid in 2008. There were at first 21 Italian cities competing for the title, of which six made into the short list. Matera had then between October 2013 and mid 2014 time to upgrade its bid.

Working for the bid became working for the future

"To speak of the the future may appear to be a rhetorical exercise. We are all obsessed
by the eternal present in which we are engulfed, as if it were far beyond our abilities to
consider the fate of future generations. However, a timeless city such as Matera is ideally
placed to consider the future without fear; so many times has this city reinvented
itself and conquered the challenges of time in the past. For many years, Matera shared
the fate of countless small- and medium-sized European cities whose role was as
consumers of centralised culture originating in the great centres of cultural production.
In recent years, however, a sea change has taken place. A movement is emerging that
has systematically stripped away the barriers to culture: it wields new technologies
and adopts open licensing strategies to forge a model in which cultural production is
participatory, horizontal, democratised."

and

"This opportunity is vital for the future of a great many European cities like Matera
which, throughout the twentieth century, found themselves on the margins of cultural
production. If cultural events of great value can be initiated by the nascent cooperation
of a large number of connected citizens, then smaller cities are able to survive and thrive
on the markets of culture without being squashed by major cultural capitals. The future
will not be won by concentrating major institutions in a handful of cities, but by leveraging
existing institutions to mobilise the greatest possible number of people and motivate
them to generate culture."

The bid reads like picking up the theme 'in from the margin' or rather Matera shows that it is possible to engage in cultural activities even if living at the margin.

Documents available in the archive of Matera 2019

http://www.matera-basilicata2019.it/en/archives/documents.html

Dossier Matera 2019 - Open Future - english version

Matera 2019 bid book

Dossier Matera 2019 - Open Future

Il secondo e definitivo dossier di candidatura di Matera 2019

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