MATERA 2019
Matera 2019
Matera in the last few years has undergone an incredible transformation: from being the ‘city of shame’ to reinvent itself, from becoming a UNESCO site to be appointed European Capital of Culture. All this process put Matera on the map for several reasons, giving new opportunities to citizens and changing the image but not the identity of the city.

Matera’s Bid Book suggested that a variety of different ambitions had come together in the coveted title: Europe’s Capital of Culture. What prevails over all differences, however, is a common ground embedded in substantial social capital and a vision of an ‘Open Future’, a design for an urban condition that enables diverse groups to interact intelligently, creatively and productively.
Through the claim that ‘culture’ can become the main tool the rethink community (and their future), Matera 2019 has been able to position the city in a hugely wider imagination, as a ‘must’ to experience in the next years. Matera 2019, through the leitmotif ‘open culture’, imagined a city to live, not to visit. Through the claim to transform tourists in ‘temporary citizens’, people became part of a community involved in constructing the future: Matera 2019 wanted Matera to became an arid ‘monument’ to be seen.

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