On the 29th March 2012, Diane Dodd from ARTidea accompanied Valentí Sallas, Head of International Relations and Cristina Sanchis, from the Department for Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Autonomous Government of Catalonia), on a visit to the Fundació Alícia.
Fundacío Alícia (Ali-mentació i cièn-cia / Alimentation and Science), is a research centre devoted to technological innovation in cuisine, to the improvement of eating habits and to the evaluation of food and gastronomic heritage. For more information see the Alicia Foundation website. The delegation was met by Eva Garcia Duran and Toni Massanés, Director of the Foundation. The aim of the meeting was to explore the work that the foundation is doing and discover areas for collaboration in light of the work ARTidea is currently undertaking on gastronomy and tourism. See, the newly published OECD report.
The meeting will be followed up in the near future with another visit, accompanied by tourism expert, Prof. Greg Richards, editor of Tourism and Gastronomy (recently published in paperback).
Diane Dodd recently completed editing a volume of collected papers on food and tourism experiences for the OECD. The volume looks that the ways in which food and gastronomy are becoming more closely linked with tourism, and how regions throughout the world are using food as a means of introducing their culture and creativity to others. Contributors to the volume include Greg Richards and Michael Hall and the geographic coverage of the contributions extends from Europe (Spain, France, Italy, Austria, the Nordic countries) to Asia (Korea and Japan) and Latin America.
The volume reveals that tourists are increasingly seeking local, authentic and novel food experiences linked to the places they visit. Foods can become distinctive elements of the brand image of places and help to create distinctiveness. However, as food becomes ever more globalised the authenticity of experiences is threatened. The book presents examples of strategies that can increase tourist knowledge of a country’s culinary offerings, such as collaborations between different stakeholders in “foodscapes” which unite local culture, creativity and food. The important linkages between novelty, authenticity and locality in food experiences mean that small-scale food production is not an artifact of the past; it arguably represents a route to the future.
Valletta has passed the first selection phase, as a prospective European Capital of Culture for 2018. The chairman of the evaluation panel, Manfred Gaulhofer, announced that the jury was "pleased with Valletta’s bid and was confident the city would live up to its obligations."
If Valletta makes it through the final phase in nine months’ time, it will share the year with a Dutch city to be chosen next year. ARTidea is currently working on an exciting ICT project to be developed with Malta in the second phase of the bid.
The independent jury has issued a number of recommendations and in nine months’ time, a delegation of four people, made up of two Maltese and two international experts, will pay a one-day visit to Valletta to see how things are progressing. The final selection will be made after that.
An evaluation of The Viking Route was delivered to the European Institute of Cultural Routes today. The evaluation considered if the Route met the criteria of selection necessary to carry the prestigious title. Diane Dodd from ARTidea was chosen by a jury last December, as one of fifteen independent experts that will assist in evaluating the Council of Europe's Cultural Routes.
Prof. Greg Richards from Tilburg University and Dr. Diane Dodd from ARTidea carried out an intensive skype, meeting with the team preparing Valletta's bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2018. The one day meeting was an opportunity to take a critical look at the city's bid book and prepare the team for possible jury questions.
Valletta's bid to serve as the European Capital of Culture in 2018 was formally submitted in October 2011. In January, Malta will receive a visit from the European Commission's evaluation panel who will scrutinise the bid and the team! ARTidea is confident that they will make it through this first stage.
The European Institute of Cultural Routes (EICR) is now working in the frame of the new Enlarged Partial Agreement (EPA) of the Cultural Routes programme of the Council of Europe. Under this agreement, a new strategy and management policy for the evaluations of routes that have already received the certification, for new Route’s certifications and for the preparation of meetings of routes through a Consultative Forum will be implemented.
The 1st advisory Forum aims to be the most important annual meeting for exchanging ideas, projects and good practices between the cultural routes, the candidate Routes, the Member Countries of the Partial Agreement and experts in various fields. The 1st Forum took place on 23 and 24 November in Luxembourg at the Centre Culturel de Rencontres of Neumünster where the EPA is now based.
Diane Dodd from ARTidea was invited to give a 20 minute skype presentation on issues surrounding networking and fundraising. The presentation focussed on the networking and fiscal needs of the Cultural Routes, particularly on financing resources for the Routes.
Diane Dodd attended the symposium "The Mediterranean: Cultural Dialogue after the Arab Spring" organised by the German Foundation IFA (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations) and the International University of Catalunya.
The symposium explored what will happen for Europe’s foreign cultural relations in a dynamic Arab World that has changed the outlook of the Mediterranean.
Following decades of dialgue under different names and concepts, and as the Arab socio-political landscape underwent radical changes over the last few months, a new chapter in the Mediterranean dialogue between Europe and the Arab World becomes evidently indispensible. From the peaceful revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia to the civil war in Libya and the bloodshed in Syria, the expectations dictated by the wind of change are best expressed in the voices of representatives of the Arab civil society, while the potential responses are best echoed in the answers offered by their European counterparts.
See more at: http://www.uic.es/en/dialogue
On 20 and 21 October, Diane Dodd attended the European Culture Forum that saw more than 500 participants from culture civil society, the EU Member States and EU institutions in Brussels.
This biennial event is a unique opportunity to debate and raise the profile of European cooperation in the field of culture, bringing together both policy-makers and stakeholders from the sector from all over Europe and partner countries.
The 2011 Forum addressed some of the most topical questions for culture in the current context of economic crisis and globalisation in an open discussion with DG Education and Culture (EAC). A feature of this years encounter was that other DGs were represented in different sessions, including DG Information Society and Media, DG Regional Policy and DG Development and Cooperation EuropeAid. This follows DG EAC's policy to develop stronger links with other DGs.
See more at: http://culture-forum-2011.ec.europa.eu/
The 5th World Summit on Arts and Culture concluded on Thursday 6 October, generating a range of international initiatives to support arts practice and policymaking in Australia and internationally
Thursday also marked the official handover to the Chilean National Council for Culture and the Arts, the host of the 6th World Summit on Arts and Culture, 13-16 January 2014.
The 5th World Summit, co-hosted by the Australia Council for the Arts and the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA), was held at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre, Australia on 3-6 October and attracted 501 delegates from 72 countries.
The theme of the Summit, Creative Intersections, was explored by over 80 speakers who provoked wide-ranging debate around the role of innovative government policy in facilitating intersections between the arts and other sectors for the benefit of the broader community, including health and well-being, education, environmental action, business, international aid, social inclusion and digital technologies.
Publication of a final research report: Creative Partnerships: Intersections between the arts, culture and other sectors will be available in late 2011 as well as a compilation of the best practice case studies and papers presented at the Summit.
http://www.artsummit.org/
Prof. Greg Richards from Tilbourg University and Dr. Diane Dodd from ARTidea were invited to Malta by the team preparing Valletta's bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2018.
The intensive two day meeting took place in Valletta at the Chamber of Commerce on the 10th and 11th August 2011. The draft bid was presented for scrutiny and on the whole, the visitors were "impressed by the bid and the coherence and enthusiasm of the team".
Valletta 2018 will present its first bid book in the Autumn of this year, one year ahead of Dutch cities that will share the title in 2018.
