MiBact has declared Procida the Italian Capital of Culture 2022.
This means that in 2022 the spotlight will be on 44 cultural projects and 150 events distributed in 300 days of programming. There will be 350 artists from 45 different countries and the involvement in the creation of the events themselves will involve over 2000 citizens. 7 symbolic places of the island will live a new life thanks to this recognition.
The proclamation was announced during a press conference by the Minister for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, Dario Franceschini in the presence of the mayors of the ten finalist cities: Ancona, Bari, Cerveteri, L’Aquila, Pieve di Soligo, Procida, Taranto, Trapani, Verbania, Volterra; all cities full of beauty and values. But it was Procida that stood out among them all, this year, and it is a signal not only for Procida, but for all the cities of the Gulf.
“In 2022 we will be back to normal,” said the Minister for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, Dario Franceschini, “and culture and tourism will be back as important and strong as they were before the pandemic. The conception of the Italian Capital of Culture, which dates back to 2014, determines a path of enhancement of all cities beyond the winner, setting in motion a virtuous and attractive mechanism. I take up the invitation of President Baia Curioni to also find a mechanism to reward not only the winning city but also the nine finalists,” Franceschini concluded.
The reasons that led to the choice of Procida as the Capital of Culture for 2022 are various: “The context of local and regional support, public and private, is well structured; the heritage and landscape dimension of the place is extraordinary; the laboratory dimension that includes social aspects of technological diffusion is important for all the Tyrrhenian islands, but it is relevant for all the realities of the small Mediterranean islands”. Also significant is the evaluation of the project, which “could determine, thanks to the combination of these factors, an authentic discontinuity in the territory and represent a model for sustainable processes of development on a cultural basis of the island and coastal realities of the country. The project is also capable of conveying a poetic message, a vision of culture that from the small reality of the island extends as a wish for all of us, to the country in the months ahead.”
These words kicked off an extraordinary redevelopment, which will affect the entire island territory until the end of this year, whose signs, however, will be indelible – in the history of the island of Procida – for years to come.
