The Sicilian city prevails among the 10 finalists. Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano also announced that from next year a capital of contemporary art will be named
I am proud of this recognition: it will offer us a great opportunity for future development and for the local economy. Today Agrigento and Sicily didn’t win: Italy won. Because in the historical and political moment in which we find ourselves, having chosen and promoted this dossier whose project focused on the cultural exchange between peoples and the different ethnic groups of the Mediterranean, was a great act of courage and sensitivity on the part of the jury and the institutions. Francesco Miccich, mayor of Agrigento, reacts with enthusiasm and emotion to the proclamation of his city as Italian Capital of Culture 2025 in the Spadolini hall, on the ground floor of the Ministry of Culture at the Collegio Romano. Immediately afterwards he launches an appeal to the other finalist cities: Let us not leave ourselves here today, going home. Instead, we are trying to create a tourist network from Aosta to Agrigento, all united by being Italian. The other nine finalist cities were precisely Aosta with Assisi, Asti, Bagnoregio, Monte Sant’Angelo, Orvieto, Pescina, Roccasecca and Spoleto. The award includes one million euros in funding.
Very significantly the Agrigento 2025 project includes Lampedusa, landing place for countless and often tragic landings of immigrants. We read in the motivations of the jury chaired by Davide Maria Desario: Agrigento assumes the relationship between the individual, neighbor and nature as the center of its candidacy dossier, involving the island of Lampedusa and the municipalities of the province and placing the theme of reception and mobility.
For the Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano, being the Italian Capital of Culture for a year allows you to turn the spotlight on local realities. A great wealth of Italy, due to its history, the plurality of places that characterizes it, each bearer of wealth. The opinion of Undersecretary Vittorio Sgarbi is dissonant: A partially wrong verdict for a competition between cities of different sizes. Now we need a twinning Agrigento-Gorizia, European Capital of Culture 2025, for joint and coordinated projects.
The dossier for Agrigento Capital of Italian Culture 2025 was prepared by MeNo (Memories and New Works), the association chaired by cultural manager Roberto Albergoni and which contributed to the success of Manifesta 12, the great European biennial of traveling contemporary art organized in 2018 in Palermo. The project mentions the vast cultural heritage of Agrigento (the Valley of the Temples, a cultural brand famous in the world, therefore the archaeological heritage but also the medieval and baroque city, the endless wealth of religious buildings) and connects to the great protagonists of Agrigento and its territory over the centuries: from Empedocles to Luigi Pirandello, from Leonardo Sciascia to Andrea Camilleri.
The dossier also looks at the contemporary by inserting the beauties of Agrigento in the tracks of the digital universe, of the ecological transition, of the sustainability of the cultural and tourist offer. Linked to the theme of water there will also be the knot of transmigrations, and not just of the landings, of our difficult times.
The title of Italian capital of culture awarded for one year. The first capital city of Italian culture was Mantua in 2016, then Pistoia (2017), Palermo (2018) and Parma in 2020, also extended in 2021 due to the pandemic. In 2022 it was Procida’s turn, in 2023 Bergamo and Brescia are together. In 2024 it will be Pesaro. Minister Sangiuliano announced that starting next year, alongside the Capital of Books and Culture, we will have the capital of contemporary art. On a proposal from the European Union, we will soon also have the Mediterranean capital.
March 31, 2023 (change March 31, 2023 | 20:48)
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