Time for information, culture and education

Cities are living organisms, not just spaces where a handful of people live. The economy is important, yes, but what if culture and creativity were the driving force behind the development of these clusters? Everything is possible with the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN).

 
A leap of faith. It all began with a leap tied to an idea that might or might not work in the town of Óbidos. It was 2011, and the Church of Santiago was abandoned and in ruins. In addition to being a church, for 30 years it had been an exhibition centre, auditorium and cultural centre. But it was time to give it another mission. But what? Someone suggested: “Why not a bookshop?” And so began the literary adventure of Óbidos.

Ten years later, Óbidos is now a literary mecca that hosts festivals such as the internationally renowned FOLIO and the latitudes, a smaller festival dedicated to travel literature. The ruined church is now the Livraria Santiago, a space used by the bookstore Read Slowly, through José Pinho: «We opened the bookstore in 2013 and we realized the success that this type of project was having», recalls Paula Ganhão, head of the Tourism and Culture Subdivision of the Óbidos City Council, who despite recognizing the success of events such as Vila Chocolate or Vila Natal, «which are very important for the local economy, however they are not free from criticism, especially because they are considered mass events», and therefore are not sustainable.

And from then on, other spaces opened their doors to literature, to thousands and thousands of pages. «José Pinho said, “I don’t want to build a bookstore. I want to build a city, a literary town”» and he went ahead «transforming vacant spaces into bookstores», recalls Celeste Afonso, responsible for Óbidos’ candidacy as a UNESCO Creative City. Since then, the relationship between Read Slowly and the Literary Village of Óbidos is maintained and recommended.

The business became financially sustainable because it was also blessed by tourists and the international market: “This is really a step of madness mixed with… I don’t even know how it worked”, Paula Ganhão laughs. Óbidos now has a literary network made up of seven bookstores, The Literary Man Óbdios Hotel, themed accommodation, and two literary residences for writers. Inside and outside the walls, “we try to create a literary environment in which people enter the town and feel the presence of books not only in the bookstores, let’s say, but in every corner and feel that atmosphere”, says Paula Ganhão. And to make this atmosphere even more captivating, Óbidos decided to apply to the UCCN Network in 2015, when the first edition of FOLIO was born in the town.

Celeste Afonso, who was then councillor for Culture and Education, Cláudio Rodrigues and Paula Ganhão wrote the proposal. The network was not being discussed in the country, and the three decided to take a chance. “I remember the day we received the designation on 11 December [2015] and it was one of the happiest days of my life”, recalls Celeste Afonso “because I realised that the designation was much more than a UNESCO seal. The designation meant that we could show how a city, a small town in this case, is organised around culture”. Óbidos and Idanha-a-Nova became the first Portuguese cities to join this network.

And since then, five more have joined and others are applying this year. What horizons are there in this network? What importance and what relationship can there be between a city, culture and creativity? One of the answers is through sharing.

A cultural network called UNESCO Creative Cities (UCCN)

 
Culture is defined from many angles and one can define it as a fusion of customs, ideas, arts and beliefs, but most importantly, one of the fingerprints of a people. “A culture, we all know, is made by its cities,” wrote Derek Walcott, Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1992. What if through the culture of a region it was possible to make it more sustainable? Inclusive? Safe? Resilient? And creative? It seems (almost) abstract, but UNESCO, in its lines of action, allows these objectives to be measurable and possible, through the Creative Cities Network (UNESCO). Creativity Cities Network – UCCN).

This network, created in 2004, aims to use culture and creativity as drivers for the sustainable development of regions, through policies and efforts for the growth of regions and cities. This mission is hand in hand with goal number 11 of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda: to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. In line with this agenda, the UCCN are guided by the 17 goals.

The cities included in this network share their strategies, resources, experiences and knowledge to achieve the proposed objectives in local communities, in an international cooperation at the highest level of partnership. The network is divided into seven creative areas and cities apply for only one in particular, when the calls (open calls) open every two years. Cities that are able to join this network, after a pre-application, application and selection process, remain in the network for four years, in order to work locally and internationally to achieve their objectives.

After this period, UNESCO requires a Quadrennial Monitoring Report on the activities developed over the four years, enabling the city to remain in the network. Both Idanha-a-Nova and Óbidos, the first cities to receive the UNESCO seal, have already renewed their creative field and in total, there are seven creative cities in the country: three in the area of ​​music (Idanha-a-Nova, Leiria and Amarante), two in the area of ​​Crafts & Popular Arts (Barcelos and Caldas da Rainha), one in Media Arts (Braga) and one in the area of ​​Literature (Óbidos).

Financial sustainability to meet the goals that these cities set themselves is nothing more than restructuring each city’s municipal budget. “The creative cities that I know, from the moment they submit their candidacy, start to have a larger, more sustainable budget for culture,” explains Celeste Afonso, current member of the Strategic Council for the Culture 2027 Network and coordinator of Óbidos and Leiria’s candidacy for the UCCN. UNESCO does not provide any financial contribution, but the UNESCO seal is an essential contribution to combining culture and creativity with local development.

The importance of sharing experiences between cities, contact with other realities between cities within the same creative sector, in particular, and between all sectors, in general, sparked the desire to bring together synergies between Portuguese creative cities. And all this took place on a scale, in Krakow, at the annual meeting of the UCCN Network, in 2018. «[It was] at this annual meeting that the intention was stated to meet again on Portuguese soil and see how we could start this work and this cooperation. We immediately felt a great desire to work together», recalls Aida Guerra, responsible for the general coordination of the Executive Secretariat of the Portuguese UCCN Network. And on Portuguese soil, in Idanha-a-Nova, in the «month of the BOOM Festival», the first meeting of these cities took place, which, like UNESCO, maintain the tradition of meeting in the cities included in the network.

October 23, 2019, one year after the first meeting, was remembered for the signing of the Collaboration Protocol at the University of Minho and the founding of the Portuguese Network of Creative Cities. Days later, on the 29th of the same month, two more cities joined the network: Leiria and Caldas da Rainha. “We are not yet an entity, we are just a collective that has organized itself and is working together,” explains Aida Guerra, and when these two cities joined the UNESCO network, “they said yes [to collaboration with the Portuguese network] and we had the opportunity to deliver what we have been doing and working on since then.” Although the engine is still warming up in this national cooperation, the intention is “not to close ourselves off” because it is important to “work with others and discuss issues that interest everyone.”

UNESCO's broad umbrella ends up representing the intangible cultural heritage of various cities on four continents. A blend of the past mixed with the present that prepares for the future. Tradition, intertwined with recent practices, gives rise to something more. "It is easier to live and feel the intangible cultural heritage than to talk about it", writes Clara Bertrand Cabral, responsible for Culture at the National Commission of UNESCO, in the book Intangible Cultural Heritage – UNESCO Convention and Its Contexts (Edições 70, 2011) because «work and gesture, dance and dancer, story and storyteller become inseparable realities that must be perceived together and valued simultaneously», he contextualizes.

The definition of intangible cultural heritage expressed in the first point of the second article of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, from 2003, reflects this assumption. And in the book, which analyses the contexts of this convention, the person responsible sums up the importance of intangible cultural heritage in one sentence: “In tangible heritage, the most important thing is things; in intangible heritage, the most important thing is people.” These people who, from generation to generation, through setbacks and experiences, build what today symbolises each city, each region, which makes it unique and a product of its own history and creativity, which, hand in hand, look to the future and new horizons.
 

The multiple faces of the same phenomenon

 
“Craftsmanship is never perfect.” Of the five brothers, António Ramalho is the one who makes a profession out of clay. He continues to shape it according to his imagination and knows that nothing comes out perfect when there is a human hand involved in the making. He has been working with clay since he was a child, first in his free time, as part of an intermittent professional career in France, England and Germany, and finally in 2004, in his workshop in Barcelos.

António is the great-grandson and son of two of the most renowned artisans from Barcelos: Rosa Ramalho and Júlia Ramalho. He continues to make pieces with the theme of both of them and “sometimes something different comes out based on their work”, as is the case with Pieces of Grandma, a piece that brings together three of his great-grandmother’s themes: the big-headed devil, Christ and the goat. When he asks about Rosa Ramalho, he laughs. He remembers her as a woman who was “very funny and used to swear a lot [laughs] it was just the way she was”. And it was next to her that he sold his first piece, at the age of seven, to a Spaniard. If he knew where it was – if it really still exists – António would buy it. After all, it was his first clay piece.

Manuel and Francisco Esteves Lima, known as the Mistério Brothers, are the only 12 brothers who work with figurative art in Barcelos. They perpetuate the name of their father, Domingos Gonçalves Lima Mistério, the nickname by which he became known. “Lately, we have been selling more pieces of devils, it was my father’s creation. And then we are known for the profane and the religious, we have that mix and of course, collectors have liked the devils”, explains Manuel, three years older than Francisco. Between the two, the division of labor is very clear: Manuel molds and Francisco paints, meticulously, the pieces. Under the table is the Last Supper for painting: “We also do the Last Supper of devils, maybe it even comes out more”, laughs Francisco. But the art of continuing his father’s legacy “wasn’t easy”, because in the last years of the Mystery’s life, “we saw that the figurative craft was completely dying”, recalls Manuel. Years later, with sacrifice, they didn’t let the machine stop and today they continue, religiously (or profanely?) to work in their parents’ workshop.

«I think that ceramics have this direct stamp. We can almost think in real time with our hands. I really like that.» It is almost like poetry that Vítor Reis, professor at the Escola Superior de Artes e Design (ESAD) from Caldas da Rainha and a ceramist, he describes what he feels about the art of shaping thoughts. He belongs to five generations of potters from Caldas da Rainha, but his passion for ceramics was an accident along the way. Despite growing up with clay, he did not want to follow that path, unlike his brother Mário Reis. He graduated in Sculpture at ESAD, and ceramics found him again years later, “a somewhat unexpected invitation” in a professional episode in which his brother joined the project. He enjoyed reconnecting with ceramics and, since 2013, has never stopped. He divides his time between classes at ESAD and the studio. The pieces he produces are reflective products, «I like to create points of opening for people to interpret it” and to “create ambiguities”. The ceramist does not see art as something consummated.

“We don’t just work eight hours, we work 10 and 12 hours a day and if we were to add everything up, the piece would never have the value it should have”, argues Francisco Mistério. Filomena Oliveira, a contemporary artisan from Viatodos, in Barcelos, supports this view: “Manual work is not recognised at all” because “it involves a lot of our commitment, it involves our time”. It is almost like a piece of the artisan himself.

Filomena uses crafts as therapy and uses waste as art. She makes flowers with fish scales, onion skins or soap; she uses three cod bones to create nativity scenes. “If I suggest something made from fish scales to people, they immediately say it smells bad. But when they see something made from these pieces and realise that it has no smell at all and the effect is very beautiful, their opinion changes, just as it did with the cod bone nativity scenes”, she explains with a smile. When people order pieces from her, “I don’t do them for profit [these works], I do them for pleasure and I like to see the satisfaction on the person’s face. Of course, I don’t mind selling them because that’s what I use to buy new materials, too, but it’s not my first need”.

For António Ramalho and the Mistério brothers, crafts are their main source of income. Every month is different: “I can’t get to the 31st and say, ‘I have X guaranteed.’ No one can say that. You can’t say you have a salary,” says António Ramalho, and the Mistério brothers agree. But the entire lineage of Barcelos’ crafts allowed it to be designated a UNESCO Creative City in the creative field of Crafts and Popular Arts in 2017. “Since we have the title, we have to defend it,” says António Ramalho with conviction.

“The natural consequence is to cross borders and go further and conquer the world. This was the thinking that led us to the World Network of Creative Cities in the field of crafts and folk arts”, explains Nuno Rodrigues, the technician from Barcelos City Council responsible for designating the city. Caldas da Rainha has been a partner of Barcelos in the UNESCO creative field since 2019. This stamp, now cemented by the UNESCO designation, had already begun to pulsate in the region centuries before, and the area is also known for the ceramics of Raphael Bordalo Pinheiro.

For Nuno Rodrigues, the inclusion of Barcelos in this network provides «a very strong exchange of sharing procedures, knowledge, interaction» one of which Barcelos is highlighted in the middle of the pandemic on March 19, Craftsman's Day. We Create Hope is the title of short film produced to pay homage to the artisans of the municipality. This dedication was even more important due to the times we live in today. Most craft fairs, an important source of income for the vast majority of artisans, have ceased. “Luckily for us, there are collectors who are loyal and keep ordering from us, and we keep making them, and they come here to pick them up or we send them by courier”, says Francisco because “we can never count on the chicken's egg, if a virus comes along you immediately take two steps back with a huge force”, he stresses.

The Barcelos Craft Fair continues to operate in accordance with the DGS contingency plan and, to help artisans, the municipality has launched measures, such as support for sales online parts and a product acquisition plan for 50 units worth 800 euros each: “It was a way for the municipality to give a boost to sustainability in two months of lockdown and it was very well received”, explains Nuno Rodrigues. “For me and him, it’s not even enough to cover our salaries, not even for a month of expenses. And our salaries aren’t that much”, points out Francisco Mistério. However, he adds that the help that the municipality gives to stands for the fairs is welcome. As there was none in 2020, Nuno Rodrigues guarantees that this year this monetary support will be doubled.

In Caldas da Rainha, the municipality also rolled up its sleeves and put products on display twice in 2020 the project Molda Concept Store, as they acquired 120 pieces from local artisans, for a total of 30 thousand euros. The goal is not only to help the community, but also to organize a public exhibition with these pieces by the end of this year. If 2020 was a difficult year for artisans, 2021 does not look very encouraging. António Ramalho says that, in 2020, he managed to sell «relatively well», but «this year people are more cautious, they don't buy as much anymore». But the same cannot be said for Vítor. 2020 ended up «being one of the best years of work», he says, «but I'm not completely satisfied saying this because I'm not oblivious to what's going on around me».

When it comes to sustainability, Caldas da Rainha did not fall short of meeting the needs of local artisans. While still in the application phase, it consulted the artists and realized that the surplus materials from the workshops ended up in the unsorted waste because they had no compartment to put them in: «They were, in fact, concerned that the use of chemicals would end up, in our case, in the Óbidos Lagoon and contaminate this important natural and species repository», explains José Antunes, focal point of the municipality.

The challenge to solve this problem was set to José Frade, a professor at ESAD, who is coordinating a team to achieve this goal. In the first phase, explains José Antunes, a scientific survey of practices is being carried out to provide a response, and the next step will be “the creation or development of a device or set of devices that allow the collection of these surpluses, thus safeguarding the water table from the polluting residues of the by-products that come out of ceramics”.

And if it's so true that «o craftsmanship is the configuration of each time», says Nuno Rodrigues, it is also true that figurative art acquires another dimension over the decades: «The original traditional figurative art has not been made for a long time. This is an evolutionary process and so we have to adapt to the present day. The themes are different and it is a constant evolution», explains António Ramalho. workshops and the educational actions carried out by the municipalities of Barcelos and Caldas da Rainha are fundamental to continue cultivating this craft through new dimensions, new worlds. It is also in this collision of hybridism, thinking outside the box, that Braga, Creative City of Digital Arts (Media Arts), the only one in the country, which connects the world of art with technology.
 

The cultural technological ecosystem and the arrival of the first Portuguese biennial

 
Reinvention and creativity, combined with technology, seem to be a happy marriage to shape the circumstances of a city that was transformed in the 20th century. After the textile crisis, Braga saw the birth of a group of artists who came to revolutionize the atmosphere of Braga with creativity, by combining science, arts, technology and innovation. media arts are just that, a broad concept, but one that results from this intersection and manifests itself in different directions, such as in digital art, virtual and augmented reality, sound art, artificial intelligence, cinema, robotics, machine learning, bioart, among many others.

“Educate, yes. But not for what is obvious or innate. Educate so that we can discover our own paths.” This is the motto of Braga’s educational system. Media Arts, the Circuit, it reads on the official page. It was born in 2019, aggregating activities and creating others, as a result of the synergies that were created when Braga was designated the Creative City of Media Arts, in 2017. The Circuit focuses on five areas for different audiences: “We think about the programming in a very broad way”, explains Sara Borges, the Circuit’s programming advisor, “and the truth is that within these categories the activities also end up getting involved with each other, touching on each other, and in fact we try to make the programming very dynamic and fluid”.

Working with schools is a valuable asset in itself in promoting critical thinking combined with art or topics such as Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning. These activities serve to “alert and prepare them to be much more receptive and more open to this type of offerings that have a large component of innovation and technology, but which are always creative and cultural doors”, says Joana Miranda, executive coordinator of Braga Media Arts. The “use of creativity in the service of, for example, such important areas as climate change, the issue of urbanity, the protection of the city” are important for this awareness and promotion of grey matter at a young age.

The Circuit is not closed in on itself, “it is not an isolated unit”, but rather an aggregating and multifaceted system, open, which includes partnerships, with a specific annual budget. And not even the pandemic was able to short-circuit this machine. The adaptations were at the level of the programming, which had to be rethought, and the collaborative sessions were moved to the register online. "Obviously, this component, which is fundamental, is always missing: proximity. And we know that this proximity and face-to-face interaction will never be replaced," points out Sara Borges.

Braga never stopped, it reformulated itself. The artists, the technicians, the musicians, continued to be Braga's focus Media Arts, explains Joana Miranda. In 2020, Braga received the open call from the program City to city from UNESCO on the theme of “Human Responsibility”, where artists from Braga presented their projects and, locally, musician João Carlos Pinto was the winner. The Braga native won a grant worth one thousand euros and had the opportunity to collaborate with Sarah Degenhardt, the winner from the city of Karlsruhe, in Germany, and the work was presented in December of the same year.

“If we work in isolation, there won’t be much benefit,” guarantees Luís Fernandes, creative and executive director of gnration, a cultural center managed by the municipal company Teatro Circo and owned by the Municipality of Braga, linked to the creation, performance and exhibition of contemporary music and its relationship with art and music. «We have been working towards this, to play a very active role in this network, and to help each other, for example, in situations like the one that has hit us now.»

In full confinement, the gnration did not follow the fever of events in streaming and instead, they made 18 proposals to artists: “A large part of what we collect [now] comes from invitations from our local, national or international artists to develop new content” and thus increased the volume of work of these artists, a measure that Luís considers “assertive”. One of these works, varied in themes, is the sound documentary by Sofia Saldanha, The Thunderstorm.

«We didn't demand it to be immediate, but something for the artist to think about. That was our first reaction. Then we kept feeding the website with some content that we didn't have yet" and almost every week they release new content, he explains. The exploration of media arts and technologies have been increasingly sought after by local artists, a fact visible in the summer laboratories. But the gnration is more than a collective, it is a vortex. The creative and cultural activities organized by this team motivated the municipality to apply to the UCCN Network.

Luís joined the executive in 2014, a year after it started: «It was precisely the work whose gnration developed, Semibreve and a series of other entities not only artistic, but also at an academic level, at a research level" which "contributed to the decision to submit this application to this specific area." And one of the objectives of this application, assumed in 2017, was precisely to organize the first Biennial in the country, also known as Index.

The zero edition, the experimental one, took place when the pandemic was still a mirage, in mid-2019. Four days of varied programming, including shows, performances, artistic installations and the curiosity of visitors made the event a success. Braga's relationship with the arts and technology is reflected in the Index, through creative professionals who see time as an ally for the success of the biennial, not only on an artistic level, but also on an educational level, so that it is not a "superficial" event, guarantees Luís Fernandes.

The first edition is already being prepared, assures Joana Miranda. It is a “very large investment because it is very ambitious, but also very comprehensive and is designed to be effective at least in the first half of 2022”. Until then, other projects and activities are being developed, such as the Electronic Device Orchestra (ODE), an activity that began in 2019, with a group of seniors from the Asilo de São José, who used computers, tablets, mobile phones and other devices to create music, under the direction of Filipe Lopes. The second edition was dedicated to young people between 15 and 18 years old, and this year it is open to all types of audiences, under the direction of the musician from Braga, Pedro Santos.

O Semibreve, on the other hand, is one of the festivals that mark the soundscape of Braga. Electronic music and digital art have been combined in a single festival since 2011 and this year it will take place from October 29 to 31, if the pandemic allows it. And in this city, how is sustainability thought of? Although the word refers to environmental issues, the definition of the concept also involves economic sustainability. “Braga as a city has a very well thought out and very transversal sustainability strategy”, says Joana Miranda, because sustainability also means being able to live in a city where one can survive as a designer, artist, musician or sound landscaper.
 

Listening: the act of inclusion called music

 
Music connects generations, people, and environments. Music is much more than just notes harmoniously placed one after the other; it is also language. And it can also be therapy. And this is where Joana Pinto comes in. She has been a music therapist at Pousos Musical Artistic Society (SAMP), in Leiria, and works with babies, children, teenagers, people with disabilities and elderly people with various pathologies: «We have many projects, not all of them are music therapy. But I believe that they are all therapeutic. I am a bit daring, but I believe that music is an art that in itself is truly transformative and transcendent.» And the physical reaction can trigger goosebumps on the skin, a tear that insists on appearing in the corner of the eye, or the tapping of the foot in soft blows on the floor, counting the beats. This is the perfect language to express the feeling that cannot be expressed in words.

On the other hand, music, as a language and culture, should be accessible to everyone. This is the vision defended by Martim Sousa Tavares, director and founder of Orchestra Without Borders (OSF), based in Idanha-a-Nova: “We are going to simplify the message, remove the barriers of elitism that supposedly exist in classical music.” The OSF started in 2018 and has been growing and supporting young musicians to pursue this dream, without the geographical, stereotypical and monetary obstacles, says Martim. And the mission is this: to continue to combat the different barriers that still exist in classical music, the stigma and its access.

Idanha-a-Nova is a territory rich in musical knowledge and, despite the increasing desertification that has been felt over the last few years, there are structures that continue to be safeguarded. This is the case of the centennial Idanhense Philharmonic Band, broad in its 46 members, mostly young people between 25 and 30 years old. But the band is just one of the many aspects of this collective: it also consists of the Catarina Chitas Arts Academy, the Senior Academy (with more than 300 students in the music area) and also a Memory and Music Resource Center. João Branco and Clara da Costa, members of the Philharmonic's executive, say that this work is important for the community and for the preservation of memory, in general, and for the perpetuation and teaching of music, in particular.

But within the sphere of music, artisanal practices are also fundamental. In Lufrei, a parish in Amarante, the world of artisanal production of the viola amarantina, which almost disappeared in the municipality, is opening up. It was António Silva, together with Eduardo Costa and other teachers, who managed to revive this practice. For António, the viola amarantina is a challenge, a passion: “[The viola amarantina] was weakened, it was lost, and this is almost like us saving someone who is in danger. And then there is the work, which I have always enjoyed challenges”, he confesses, always with a big smile. In his workshop, work has stopped, much to the artisan’s dismay, a forced interruption due to the pandemic.

Eduardo Costa, a teacher and head of the Associação Viola Amarantina (AVA), decided in 2014, together with Cândido Costa, to order Amarantina guitars adapted for children for the schools where they taught, and it was then that Eduardo realized that artisanal production was at risk. It all started with the Propagode Association, but later Eduardo decided to leave and found AVA. Today he teaches several young people, despite the constraints of the pandemic and the fact that the conditions of the teaching space are not the best for preserving the instruments. “The municipality continues to provide the necessary support so that teaching classes can be held for the youngest children in the town of Amarantina,” points out Aida Guerra. focal point of the Municipal Council of Amarante, although it is clear that these activities are mainly launched by private entities. For example, the Amarante Cultural Centre (CC Arts de Amarante) is part of the Portuguese Network of UNESCO Clubs, an “extension of the action of the National Commissions”, it reads on the official page.

In Leiria, on the other hand, musical talent had already been spreading throughout the city since the last decades of the previous century. When she discovered the city, Celeste Afonso was “ecstatic” with what she read and heard: “It was clear to me that Leiria was already a creative city, while in Óbidos we had to build it, it was already there, Leiria was a creative city, all it needed was a name.” And in 2019, they managed to join the UCCN and not even Covid stopped their eagerness to take music to the four corners of the municipality. With a van shaped like a stage, musicians toured the streets of the municipality of Leiria to bring music to the population. Like Martim Sousa Tavares, Celeste Afonso also defends that culture should be accessible to all generations, regardless of geographical location. This ambition is being developed and will be put into practice this year, says Celeste Afonso. It is an ambitious plan with no ticket sales, but “this cost is the cost that has no return. It is an investment in culture and that is how we have to see it”, he points out.

Investment in music in Leiria has also been made by private individuals, as is the case with Omnichord Records, publisher and cultural cooperative of Leiria, founded by Hugo Ferreira in 2012. In addition to launching names from Leiria on the national scene, such as Surma ou First Breath After Coma, the publisher participates in several educational projects in the region, such as the project Omnipresent Music. «I think that the experience of culture, not just music, is an eminently communal experience and has to be pedagogical and educational», argues Hugo Ferreira.

And not only is music educational, it is also sustainable. An example of this is the BOOM Festival, which will celebrate its quarter century in 2022. In 2019 alone, the festival attracted more than 40 people from 150 different countries to the Idanha-a-Nova region, but BOOM “is a festival that aims to use the language of culture and the arts to transform human beings and, at the same time, to regenerate the environment and nature”, explains Artur Mendes, a member of the Good Mood team, the cultural organization that organizes the Boom Festival. Good practices at a sustainable level are the crux of this cultural organization. Between 2015 and 2018 alone, they planted more than 720 trees and this year 50 more, in order to reforest the area in a sustainable and active way.

In line with sustainability as a driver of inclusion and environmental preservation, the festival has seen its programming postponed for yet another year. However, Artur Mendes emphasizes that next year the activities will take place on the New Moon, instead of the Full Moon, to symbolize the end of a phase and the beginning of something much better: the next 25 years of BOOM and the end (?) of the pandemic. During the lockdown, the association was not absent and decided to launch a video series alluding to the theme of Covid, inviting artists and musicians. But the challenge is now even greater for the cities that are competing.

The cities in the competition and the importance of this network

 
There is always a “before” and an “after”. If before the cities that competed for the UCCN could consider events and projects in a single format, the face-to-face format, after the emergence of Covid, the scenario changed. There is a concern to make the objectives and programs adaptable to the circumstances and the cities that responded to the open call UNESCO this year are aware of this factor.

Covilhã, Santa Maria da Feira and Alcobaça are the three cities competing for two creative fields that do not yet exist in the country: Design and Gastronomy. Covilhã is known for its industrial heritage, particularly in wool, which is strongly marked in the municipality's landscape. But after the implementation of the University of Beira Interior (UBI), the Design acquired even more importance in the area, by offering training in the most varied areas of Design, explains Francisco Paiva, executive director of the city's candidacy. This creative field, believes Francisco Paiva, could be one of the drivers for population settlement in the region, especially «young people, with qualifications and skills that could ultimately benefit greatly from this territory, which is already aging and experiencing demographic loss», points out the director.

In the case of Santa Maria da Feira, competing for the creative field of Gastronomy, it sees an opportunity to cement what is already innate to it: «[The candidacy] arises above all from the ancient identity of the territory and the region and is a commitment to valuing a culture of authenticity, not only of Santa Maria da Feira, but of an entire vast region in which Santa Maria da Feira has the privilege of intersecting», points out Pedro Marques, councilor responsible for culture and focal point of the application.

The region, strongly influenced by the Douro River, the Aveiro estuary and the mountains, has developed over the last 20 years “a unique cultural and creative dynamic, recognised nationally and internationally”, through festivals such as the Festa das Fogaceiras or the Viagem medieval em Terra de Santa Maria. These initiatives, the councillor points out, make the region’s gastronomy gain even more cultural value.

On the other hand, Alcobaça gathers the ingredients for its candidacy through the gastronomic tradition of conventual sweets from the Alcobaça Monastery and the quality of its fruit, such as the registered Alcobaça apple brand. The Alcobaça ginja is another of the region's trademarks and the various associations linked to gastronomy transform it into a cultural product that, Inês Silva, councillor responsible for Culture in the Municipality of Alcobaça, hopes will be important for achieving the UNESCO seal.

On October 29th, these and other Portuguese cities in the competition will find out, after a selection process, whether they are part of this network. A network with more than 246 cities from all over the world that connect and exchange experiences, share help, strengthen ties, create exchanges and all with a common goal: culture and creativity as a driving force for the development of these regions, in order to make them more sustainable, from every perspective of the concept.

The common denominator among all these cities, including the Portuguese ones, is that one creative field does not mean excluding others; quite the opposite. Music can join hands with literature, just as media arts can develop gastronomy. The idea behind this network is precisely to mix ideas, to spark new solutions, to bring together knowledge. That is why each creative city, regardless of its creative field, wants to develop its entire territory by bringing together the multiple facets of culture, combining creativity throughout its territory. The Portuguese Creative Cities have made this effort, uniting in a national network in which sharing and mutual assistance are the main values.

A region should not be viewed solely through the economy. Developing territories, making cities more sustainable, resilient and creative through their culture, through what defines them, makes them stronger and more inclusive. All we need to do is put the pieces together from all sectors, like a puzzle, to make them better, as Italo Calvino wrote in his work Invisible Cities: “[…] starting from there, I will assemble piece by piece the perfect city, built of fragments mixed with the rest, of moments separated by intervals, by signals that someone sends without knowing who is picking them up.”