Skip to main content
Candidacy process
Navigate to the next section

Modena is

UNESCO creative city

for the Media Arts

THE RECOGNITION

Modena creative city

Andrea Bortolamasi, Councilor for Culture: "A recognition that rewards the great networking work of the Promoting Committee".

Modena is a Unesco creative city for the Media arts and is the first city in Italy to receive this recognition. The nomination was formalised on Monday 8 November 2021, in Paris, by the director general of Unesco Audrey Azoulay during the general conference which designated 49 new Creative Cities in the world. The Italian creative cities thus rise to 13. The network now has a total of 350 cities.

'It is an important recognition of which we are proud', is the first comment of the mayor of Modena Gian Carlo Muzzarelli.
The acknowledgment rewards the great network work carried out by the entire promoting committee which supported the candidacy in a choral and constant work that began over a year ago and which testifies to the great vitality of the cultural ecosystem of our city.

CANDIDACY PROCESS

The candidacy process was announced by the Mayor - Gian Carlo Muzzarelli - and the councilor for culture - Andrea Bortolamasi - with a view to providing an opportunity to re-launch culture and strengthen the Modena brand by emphasising its nature as a city that is open and fertile for young people, that holds firm to its manufacturing roots but also looks to the future as a creative city, where culture and technology interact thanks to a network of qualified players.

Media arts today represent a category that sums up innovation and creativity, experimentation and research. Modena is the first Italian city trying to become part of the UNESCO Media arts cluster, a city that invests in new languages - digital and technologies - applied to cultural languages.

The Creative Cities Network  is a UNESCO programme first launched in 2004. It involves a network of 246 cities from 72 countries on five continents. The aim of the Network is to promote knowledge, cooperation and projects among cities that have identified culture and creativity as the driving forces boosting their development.

Through the Network, in seven clusters corresponding to as many cultural sectors - Music, Literature, Crafts & Folk Art, Design, Media Arts, Gastronomy, Film - the cities can enhance their experiences and skills on national and international markets.

The candidacy of Modena is a process because the transformation of the city is an ongoing development: old places and spaces are regenerated and become new places and new spaces, where culture and technology, humanistic and scientific knowledge talk to each other. The actions aim at implementing projects and processes currently in progress.

The candidacy process is implemented jointly by the City of Modena and several public and private actors which are part of the Promoter Committee.

Modena will start from the human factor - a subject and an object at the same time - in relation to artificial intelligence applied in the fields of art, education, production, data, etc. It is a process of transformation of the city, towards a thinking and creative city, where different skills interact.

2021 Candidacy dossier

UNESCO CREATIVE CITIES NETWORK: The Candidacy of Modena Media Arts Cluster

Download