There is a great desire to rediscover and renew the community pact. It is culture, participation, sustainability and lies within the thousand activities of Matera 2019. The effort to relaunch economies, rediscover the social pact, identities and inclusive practices is taking shape. A push from below, in a territory stratified in people and stones. The perfect synthesis of that spirit evoked on the opening night of Matera 2019 by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. That January 19 in Eurovision was immediately warned that the city would accept the President's invitation and cross the year with the strength of those who want to break down the barriers between citizens and institutions. In the name of culture. Outside the city or regional borders.
Part of it these days the cycle of meetings " People Have the Power " in collaboration between thee Foundationi Giangiacomo Feltrinelli e Matera-Basilicata 2019. Together they studied five appointments to deepen the processes of grassroots participation . They dig into the most serious practices of active citizenship, those that help people feel better and not be divided. A sort of duty for the Capital of Culture: not to shy away from reading disjointed realities on the wave of induced emotional phenomena. The sensitivity to intercept needs and direct them culturally towards inclusion, the sense of community. Challenges that cannot be entrusted only to the institutions, which in the end would appear as the citizens' substitutes. Why not face them by rallying the intelligence and energy of citizens? By presenting exhibitions, research, readings? The appointments of the two Foundations unfold between Milan, Brussels and Matera, with international guests. They have been entrusted with the task of explaining new forms of democracy, of the economy, of triggering thoughts and actions capable of changing reality and generating new social quality.
On Wednesday 6 March, Yves Sintomer, director of the Marc Bloch Center in Berlin, at the Italian Cultural Institute in Brussels, will hold the conference "Democracy is: the power to transform reality".Sintomer is a French sociologist, author of books such as "Power to the people", "Participatory budgets in Europe", a lover of participatory democracy and follower of the German philosopher JürgenHabermas. With Sintomer there will be Paolo Verri, Director of the Matera Basilicata 2019 Foundation, Spartaco Puttini of the Feltrinelli Foundation, Andrea Felicetti of the UniversitéCatholique de Louvain and Chiara Baldi, journalist of La Stampa. The photographer Nico Colucci will be present with his exhibition "Matera, probable landscapes", fresh from the success of the exhibition in Bruges. The process of integration in Western democracies is being questioned by Eurosceptic movements and currents of opinion. Culture and grassroots participation can foster a new sense of European citizenship. In Matera, from the deep South, the ambition is cultivated to fill this sense of collective bewilderment with trust in a reconstructed, healthy, eco-compatible environment with the right spaces for all forms of cultural expression. Few spaces for fear.****
