Bergamo. “Culture as an engine of growth: ideas for the next administration”: this is the title used for the meeting which took place late on Monday afternoon May, 20thwhere, in addition to various illustrious guests, the centre-left mayoral candidate was also present Elena Carnevali.
A conference that took place in the meeting room of theHotel Palazzo Santo Spirito. To coordinate everything Marco Berlandacandidate on the list “European Bergamo” for the Municipality of Bergamo, who introduced the main theme of the evening: “Tonight we are not talking about culture in a specialized sense, about high culture. We talk about culture in an overall sense: values, styles of behavior, knowledge that are formed through work, craftsmanship, industry. Culture has been a monumental lever to promote tourism in the municipality and in the provinces. Bergamo and Brescia, capital of culture, was such an important event that it should be replicated. The cities worked really well and showed elements in common that one could imagine a second event of great public impact. Furthermore, why couldn’t Bergamo seek collaborations with other municipalities in the province to build cultural landscape routes in grand style, without leaving the initiative to local pro locos but building a program that enhances artistic, historical, museum and architectural routes? We could draw the attention of tourists and keep the flow of tourists high which, in the absence of major projects, would risk decreasing to the overall detriment of the community”.
“Creating culture means increasing the wealth of knowledge – he begins Nadia Ghisalberti, Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Bergamo -. Listening to the many associations in our area was fundamental to understanding the public cultural policies of an administration. Bergamo features ten different museums, two historic theaters and a series of archaeological areas. In these ten years we have found a more solid model of relationship with private associations, building a cultural understanding: this gives the municipal administration greater tools for comparison. On the topic of landscape, we have strengthened the Bergamo Brescia link with the cycle path and the Via delle Sorelle, which allows us to enhance the landscape and capture all the aspects of a landscape that unites the two cities and which are outside the major tourist flows. We built it so that it leaves a legacy of paths, a habit that must become a necessity for co-planning. Something that has never happened in Italy, like two countries together with a unique project despite the skepticism of many people.”
“Speaking of the Donizetti Theatre, we reached the end of the renovation within budget and on time: it was a small miracle – he comments Giorgio Bertapresident of Donizetti Theater Foundation he was born in Polytechnic of the Arts of Bergamo -. There has been criticism over the years, culture itself somehow leads to criticism. From the beginning, however, we had clear objectives: the product we wanted to offer our audience, but also the type of audience we had to address.”
“On the first one it was clear that we didn’t want to offer a show as an end in itself, but rather something functional to creating our own cultural identity – continues Berta –. As regards prose and opera, I would like to underline the presence of young people: the young people are invited, stimulated and arrive with an immense desire to follow. I believe in young people, there is a need to involve them. For our part, we try to be transparent: for every activity carried out we write a report to our donors and sponsors, we meet them, we update them. We believe we have created a sort of trust, a fiduciary relationship. Culture is the obligation to think, it helps to have depth and perspective, to think that we are in the world to make the future better than the present”.
A fundamental theme, that of culture as an engine of growth, which undoubtedly also passes through science, ‘represented’ in this meeting by Andrea Moltrasiopresident and founder of Bergamo Science: “Culture is a capacity for thought and in-depth analysis, something that qualifies our nature. I would like to make Bergamo a museum of interactive science. Our mission is scientific dissemination, with the creation of a culture based on the pleasure of knowledge that can educate especially young people.”
“I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the guests present for the relaunch of culture in Bergamo – underlines the centre-left mayoral candidate Elena Carnevali -. Culture as the development of people and as the growth of a community, this is the mandate that must become one of the important assets of this city: it has been so for these ten years and will continue to be so. The legacy left to us is significant: we will have great urgencies but we must not loosen our grip on the cultural issue as a whole.”
“We also have another task – he continues -, something new that you will find in the program: the neighborhood festival. Even as regards libraries, we must ensure that they are open for a long time and are the heart of many activities. We must ensure that Bergamo continues to live up to what it has been in recent years.”
“Culture is regenerative, it allows you to feel alive – he concludes Paola Rossileader of European Bergamo -. There is also a prosaic element, that of the regeneration of landscapes. The regenerative element is very important, it happens that decadent places can become new places and poles of attraction and this is what we must continue to do in Bergamo”.
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