The city of Denia has been selected, along with five other European cities, a map of its cultural heritage that will be part of a project of shared identification of the values of the European Union. The initiative has already received the approval of the agencies of the Union and will be financed with 150.000 euros from the common funds.
The participation of Dénia takes place after the signing of the agreement with Parma, an Italian city with which it shares collaboration space within the network of Creative Cities of Gastronomy of UNESCO. Precisely Parma will be in 2020 the Italian Capital of Culture and has led this project in which, in addition to Dénia, the only integrated Spanish city, include Linkoping (Sweden), Tours (France), Kassel (Germany), Konavle (Croatia) and a seventh partner, SERN, which in reality is a transnational collaboration group between populations of the Italian region of Emilia Romagna and an association of cities and counties of Sweden, which includes Stockholm.
The approved initiative is part of the Citizens' Europe program and has a generic title European Network for a Participatory Valuation of Cultural Heritage. Between the 1 of February of this year 2019 and December of 2020, transnational and local meetings and seminars will be held in the six cities, the results of which will be shared in a final conference to be held in Parma.
Local seminar in Dénia
The local Dénia seminar will take place between the months of December 2019 and February 2020. The work forum will be coordinated by the Office of Innovation and Creativity of the Dénia City Council and will propose the drafting of a map of cultural and gastronomic heritage from the region of the Marina Alta.
The sessions will involve professionals and technicians from the cultural sector, public officials, representatives of civic associations, non-governmental organizations related to the field of culture, and any interested citizen. A special appeal will be made for the integration of youth groups.
The participants will show their opinion and contribute ideas for the inclusion in the map of architectural elements (archaeological sites, riuraus, mills, fountains, warehouses, norias ...), landscape (traditional crops, spaces of environmental value, singular environments ...) or intangible legacies (cooking recipes, songs, traditions, customs ...).
The resources will be added to an innovative platform
The map and the resulting resources will be part of an innovative digital platform with the intention of "preserve and promote cultural heritage assets identified and valued by local communities". As indicated in the proposal assumed by the European Union "The platform does not intend to share fragmented and disorganized local knowledge, but to identify a group of cultural resources that communities wish to transmit to future generations".
Among the objectives pursued is the promotion of the role of citizens in the choice of tangible and intangible cultural heritage of their territory, thereby creating greater self-confidence in local communities. It also seeks to promote reflection and debate on a common European vision of the cultural legacy and turn the seminars and work sessions into an innovative and experimental laboratory in which two Council of Europe conventions are implemented: the Faro Convention (Portugal) on the social value of cultural heritage, and the European Landscape Convention (CEP) that looks after the quality of landscape environments.
