[spectre] Open Letter regarding MANIFESTA 2018 in Palermo

[Jaromil]

To: The citizens of Palermo who want to work together for real change,
Director of Manifesta 12 Roberto Albergoni, Chief of Cultural Office
of Palermo City Andrea Cusumano.

cc: Mayor of Palermo Leoluca Orlando, present and future Palermo City
administration independently from political affiliation.

Subject: the creation of a permanent online platform to receive
proposals and to provide funding for culture.

Sender: The signatories of this open letter are artists and cultural
workers from Palermo, some coming from other cities, some active
internationally, as well as art lovers, are together interested in the
use of public resources for cultural activities, and the
implementation of joint opportunities in accessing funds for cultural
production.

OPF - Open Public Funds

In 2018 Palermo will host MANIFESTA. Through OMA a group of
international and local artists, cultural operators, will tackle the
issues of governance.

Regardless of the contingent context, and with the objective to
reflect the theme of Governance, OPF is a wonderful opportunity to
rally the synergies of the city towards resolving common issues.

“Manifesta 12 in Palermo is a great challenge to rethink how far
cultural interventions can play a role in helping re-shaping one of
the most iconic Mediterranean crossroads in our history as part of a
long term transformation process. Manifesta 12 will raise questions
such as: “Who owns the city of Palermo?” and “how to claim back the
city?“. The city’s migration problems are symbolic of thefar wider
crisis situation which the whole of Europe is facing right now.” -
Hedwig Fijen, Director of Manifesta

“Manifesta 12 in Palermo in 2018 will be a fantastic opportunity for
the city to reinvigorate its local and international identity. It is a
moment for Europe to appreciate the significance of its Mediterranean
dimension and identity: Palermo brings Manifesta to the Mediterranean
and the Mediterranean to Europe. Manifesta 12 is an opportunity to
celebrate Palermo for what it really is: a laboratory for the
humanities, arts and culture. The city will be able to renew itself
and pave away for its future.” - Leoluca Orlando, Mayor of Palermo

WHY

Regardless of these important institutional activities, Palermo is a
city that is home to many independent and vivid cultural activities
that constitute the specific contemporary character of the city. In
addition to MANIFESTA Palermo has achieved three major results, the
first with the recognition of the Arab-NormanUNESCO trail, the other
two with prestigious awards: Palermo Youth Capital 2017, Palermo
Italian Capital of Culture 2018. In an extraordinary context making
great strides forward, the issue of governance is absolutely
strategic, synergistic and central to all the objectives yet to be
achieved. For a governance to reflect a contemporary idea of
participation it is necessary that institutions and citizens work
together with the design of the appropriate tools.

WHO AND HOW

A large group of artists, cultural operators and creative
professionals, present to MANIFESTA and to Palermo City the OPF
Platform (Open Public Funds). The online platformprovides all the
information on calls and opportunities vital the field of cultural
production. This tool has the primary objective of governance through
transparency and simplified management of public funds. Often the
Italian municipalities, including Palermo, utilize poorly structured
communication of the resources and funds available (1). Although the
City of Palermo has recently improved its portal, there are still many
gaps to fill. OPF is a platform that has a specific mission to address
these gaps as best and as quickly as possible, drawing from a pool of
cultural operators, planners,designers and artists with extensive
experience and expertise, specifically drawing from all new and good
practices conducted in European countries.

WHAT OPF DOES

Good governance practices with public funds are implemented through
few simple steps:

- Simplified registration to the specific municipality news letter for
  procurement and tenders (calls and opportunities).

- Sufficient time between the publication dates of the calls and
  opportunities and their closure, followed by the publication of
  results.

- Transparency through open data of the allocated public funds.

- Cyclic programming and calendar set in advance for announcements, an
  open service for counseling.

- Permanent online portal with the function of receiving cyclically
  cultural proposals, to optimize the evaluation process and the
  implementation of projects.

OPF achieves these objectives based on the collaboration of artists
and professionals of creative field based in Palermo and abroad. They
have gathered to offer their services in order to build and test to
Palermo City a clear mechanism that provides information about calls
for the allocation of public funds to cultural initiatives. The
platform is designed along the example of other European cities such
as Barcelona, Helsinki, Amsterdam etc.


(1)- Palermo City is working to help contemporary cultural activities
to thrive locally. For this to happen, it seems necessary to improve
the cyclical launching of open calls to allocate public funds to local
initiatives (at present available only for Christmas-and New Year
show,for Santa Rosalia and few sporadic occasions). Moreover looking
at the recent open calls launched, we saw how necessary it is to
improve the tools for a more effective and scheduled communication.

Waiting for your kind reply to start working together!

If you wish to add your signature, please do not hesitate:
https://secure.avaaz.org/…/Open_call_per_cittadini_e_ammi…/…

Our best regards

- Egle Oddo, artist and board member of Catalysti Transcultural Artists Association
- Sandro Aglialoro
- Angela MariaBenivegna, artist and writer
- Claudio Collovà, regista e direttore artistico
- Claudia Di Gangi, artist
- Andrea Kantos, visual artist, project manager
- Emanuele Calì
- Patrycja Stefanek, artist
- Federico Bonelli, co-initiator of dyne.org/trasformatorio
- Libera A. Aiello
- Daniele Di Luca
- Jesse Marsh
- Davide Ricco
- Stefania Galegati
- Valentina Cardone
- Eija Tarkiainen, curator and board of Minuksi and Comitato Sarastus association
- Timo Tuhkanen, music composer, artist and activist
- Eva Polare, artist and activist
- Claudia Gangemi
- Rossana Becarelli,cofondatrice Associazione Internazionale Crysalis-Arti per la salute(Presidente: Michelangelo Pistoletto)
- Marco D'Amico
- Pixelache.ac, transdisciplinaryplatform for emerging art, design, research and activism
- Mari Keski-Korsu, artist, festival director
- Owen Kelly, Doctorof Arts, Principal Lecturer in Online Media
- Petri Ruikka, artist, festival director
- Mikko Laajola, artist and activist
- Agnieszka Pokrywka,artist and co-initator of Temporary.fi
- Fondazione Dyne.org, digital community and free software foundry
- Umberto Cantone, regista







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