Mediterranean Cultural Parliament
Euronews, July 11th 2008 (Italian only) |
The Mediterranean Cultural Parliament, established in June 2008 in Strasbourg (France), was founded with the goal of promoting an active role of art and culture in the definition of new Mediterranean policies.
It is based on the ten years experience of Love Difference - working for the dialogue between cultures, and of its partners, since years engaged in artistic and cultural projects linked with civil society in the Mediterranean area.
The Mediterranean Cultural Parliament coordinates study groups and organizes operational meetings involving those who intend to join cultural engagement with political action in search for the "common good" and working for an activation of individual and collective responsibility.
The Parliament bases its action on the principles of inclusion, listening, cooperation and sharing.
Meetings are characterized by interventions of cultural agents, politicians and artists, with the aim of responding to the current challenges of cross-cultural relation between the shores of the Mediterranean basin, in order to issuepolitical - cultural projects and to create new prospects for cooperation between communities and peoples.
The Mediterranean Cultural Parliament gathers around the work by Michelangelo Pistoletto "Love Difference Table", the mirroring table in the shape of the Mediterranean Sea.
Statement of the Mediterranean Cultural Parliament
Art in all its forms is the highest expression of humanity and creativity as it is inherent to every individual. In today’s world torn by conflicts, unsettled by unprecedented social and ecological crises, fundamental values are getting lost becoming sometimes fundamentalisms.
Reacting against this we try to return the nearest possible to mankind and its natural capacities to create. We affirm that art is the source of a new humanism, which generates responsible attitudes and leads to a form of experimental commitment we call ARTIVISM.
We have the ambition to apply this process of research to this mythical, geographic and imaginary space which is the Mediterranean.
The Mediterranean is due to its history, its contradictions and its potential, worldwide the region where today’s problems are acutely concentrated. But it is also the place where the foundations of a shared future based on dialogue and collective new voices can be cast.
The Mediterranean today is branded by a deep environmental crisis, conflicts, wars and the effects economical models which have predacious consequences for mankind. This vivid sea is interpreted and essentially lived as a border and not as it should, like the place where intercultural spreading takes place. By our ARTIVISM we propose to renovate its intrinsic values: the Mediterranean as a place of cultural diversity, where the incontrovertible presupposition of founding a Citizen’s Parliament is embodied.
This new citizen’s entity is inspired by human and Mediterranean values able to transform present practices. For, it has become urgent to develop a common language that relies on responsible choices, which are ethical, cultural, social, economical or political.
Such an experimental proposition is the sense of the Mediterranean Cultural Parliament. A process which is engaged in connecting in partnership different personalities, cultural organisations and institutions thus all other actors who put a lot of effort in committing to reality by art and creativity – fundamental tools for a social responsible transformation.
By multiplying the connections between mutual efforts and experiences – within a network which is respectful about the differences between the partners and the autonomous of the political world – a critical mass will be generated in preparation to promote the new priorities art and culture will have within the actual political discourse.
Thus the Mediterranean Cultural Parliament wishes to gather all those who understand political actions as the search for a common good and who are working towards a mobilisation broadened by individual and collectives responsibilities. The Parliament will base its action on the principals of inclusion and hearing, withdrawing its inspiration and constructing its activities based on the experiences carried out within the sector of arts and culture.
With the Mediterranean Cultural Parliament it will be possible to reappropriate a common space. It will be possible to construct a perpetual dynamic based on the flexible and progressive network whose principal objectives will be to facilitate the diversity of experiences, to favour the emergence of initiatives, to produce and to share the pieces. Certain meeting and exchange places already work, thus they already point up the recognition of intercultural and inter-religious dialogue.
This necessity today is amplified with the demand what role different artistic expressions could play. Contemporary art pieces hold the unique capacity of connecting the real and the symbolic. When artists produce them according to participative models, relating to the context and the people, they concretely support the realization of everyone’s fundamental rights.
The first act of ARTIVISIM is contributing to this process of founding of the Mediterranean Cultural Parliament by:
Olivier Agid, artist (Marseille); Vincenzo Antonucci, scientist, CNR (Messina); ArtBox, Creative Arts Management (Thessalonica); Artos Foundation, cultural and research foundation (Nicosia); Carlo Bocci, Ravello Lab Commitee (Ravello) Maurizio Bortolotti, art critic and curator (Milan); Giuliana Carusi Setari, President of Dena Foundation for contemporaty art (Paris); Miriam Castelnuovo, journalist and art critic (Rome); Geraldina Cipolla, architect (Rome); Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto (Biella – Turin); J.F. Costopoulos Foundation (Athens); Dar Bellarj, foundation pour la culture au Morocco (Marrakech); DRAC Alsace (Strasbourg); Giorgio de Finis, filmmaker (Rome); Alessandra Drioli, Città della Scienza (Naples); Emira (Brussels); Thierry Fabre, essayist (Marseille); Gasteraea, not for profit cultural organization (Cyprus); Domenico Giorgi, Ministero degli Esteri (Rome); Gudran for Art and Development (Alexandria of Egypt); Rosa Jijon, artist, (Rome – Quito); KunstDoel, Doel Arts Village (Doel – Antwerp); Le Bureau des compétences et désirs, structure de production en art contemporain (Marseille); Love Difference, Artistic Movement for an Intermediterranean Politics (Biella – Turin); Beral Madra, art critic (Istanbul); David Mardell, freelance (Paris); Debora Malaponti, blogger (Rome); Francesco Martone, Senator of the Italian Republic (Rome); Anna Mattirolo, MAXXI Arte director (Rome); Apollonia, European ArtExchanges (Strasbourg); Paola Melli, journalist (Rome); Alberto Michelini, journalist, writer and President of Fabula in Art (Rome); Gennaro Migliore, national coordinator of Sinistra Ecologia Libertà (Rome); Carlotta Vittoria Mismetti Capua, journalist (Rome); Alessia Montani, Vice – president of Fabula in Art (Rome); Musée d’Art Moderne Saint Etienne – Metropole (Saint Etienne); Francesco Napolitano, photographer (Naples); Ivan Novelli, Greenpeace Italia (Roma); Francois Nowakowski, architect (Strasbourg); Hervé Paraponaris, artist (Marseille); Gabriella Pasca, architect (Naples); Roberto Pasca Di Magliano, Professor of economics at La Sapienza University (Rome); Mario Perillo, entrepreneur, associazione Genti in Viaggio (Lecco – Milan); Michelangelo Pistoletto, artist (Biella – Turin); Claudia Moratti, historical (Marseille); Dora Regla Stiefelmeier, RAM radioartemobile (Rome); Angelo Riva, CRAMS coordinator, associazione Genti in Viaggio (Lecco – Milano); Silvia Rossi, Federculture (Rome); Cinzia Russo, architect (Rome); Christine Thecites, artist (Rome); Marco Trulli, cultural operator (Rome); Stefania Vannini, Education department responsible MAXXI (Rome).
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download the statement (PDF format) |
| Meetings of the Mediterranean Cultural Parliament: | |
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Rome 2011 |
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Marseille 2011 |
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Strasbourg 2008 |
