Meetings with Cultural Agents | starting from the 17th of July| São Francisco Convent, Coimbra

On the 5th of June of 2018, the City Council publicly presented the working group responsible for the candidacy of Coimbra to the European Capital of Culture 2027. From this date, and since the project has as a framework the inclusion and involvement of everyone, in the sense that it is a discussion platform extended to the whole community, the Coimbra Working Group 2027 (GTCCCEC 2027) has developed, since the first moment, a group of working encounters with the cultural entities and agents of the council of Coimbra.

In these encounters, we were searching for ideas that will be able to make the difference and contribute to a better project.

. Who have we met already?

Wolfdance Sport and Culture Academy – Association ACDW

Advocal – Coimbra Judicial District Artistic Association

The Night School

Amazing Arts – Coimbra Art Company

Coimbra Academic Association

Coimbra Alma Association

Salatina Cultural and Artistic Association

Coimbra Artistic and Cultural Association

Coimbra Recreational and Cultural Association

Mondeguinas Cultural Association

Mondego Region Ethnography and Folklore Association

Sporting and Recreational Association of the places of Casal da Misarela, Misarela, Vale de Canas, Ribeira and Barca

Coimbra Academic Ancient Choir and Choir group Association

Videolab Association

Coimbra Athaneum

Bonifrates, Cultural Performances and Theatrical Productions Co-operative

City Council Staff House, of the Municipal Services and of the Coimbra Municipal Companies

Lusophone dinner – Portuguese Association for Theatrical Exchange

Torre de Bera Recreation and Instruction Centre

Coimbra Polyphonic Choir

Chorus Ingenium – Cultural Association of the Engineers of the Central Region

Coimbra Tastes Fraternity

Chorus D. Pedro de Cristo – Cultural Association

Coimbra Professors Chorus

University of Coimbra mixed Chorus

Vox Aetherea Chorus

Coimbra Plastic Arts Circle

Photography Encounters

FAN – Coimbra Academic Party – University Student Music Group

GEFAC – Coimbra Academy Ethnography and Folklore Group

Coimbra Folklore Group

Folklore and Ethnography Group “As Tecedeiras de Almalaguês”

Folklore and Ethnography Group of Arzila

Regional Mondego Dancing and Singing Group

Ad Libitum Vocal Group

Imperial Academic Student Music Group of the Pharmacy Faculty of the University of Coimbra

Centre Club Jazz

Coimbra Lions Club

Loucomotiva – Taveiro Theatre Group

Marionet – Cultural Association

Classic Orchestra of the Centre

The Teatrão

Amador de Ribeira de Frades Theatre

TEUC – University of Coimbra Students’ Theatre

Tu Na D’ESTES – Association

University of Coimbra Medicine Students Music Group

UC Medicine Feminine Students Music Group

Psychology and Educational Sciences Faculty Mixed Students Music Group – Desconcertuna

Seminar “Shaping a European Capital of Culture” | October of 2018, Warsaw (Poland)

Our candidacy Coimbra 2027 was represented in the Seminar “Shaping a European Capital of Culture”, which occurred from the 8th to the 10th of October of 2018, in the European Capital of Culture of 2016 – Warsaw in Poland.  Who marked presence on the occasion was Professor Luís Filipe Menezes, in representation of the Coimbra Working Group 2027?

The Seminar, that reunited various European cities that are found in the preparation process of the respective candidacies to the title of European Capital of Culture over the next few years, had as its objective to contribute for the complex preparation process of the candidacy, sharing experiences, highlighting positive and negative points and debating organizational questions, cultural strategies and the demands of the candidacy process itself.

Public session October 2018 | Café Santa Cruz, Coimbra

Approximately half a hundred people, not just cultural agents, but also interested citizens united by the spirit of the project marked presence in the public session that took place in October, four months after the presentation of our Candidacy.

On the occasion, the GTCCEC2027 got to know the work developed up to now, giving note of the meetings and conclusions with cultural agents, elapsed between June and October

On the occasion, in a session with a high level of participation, the City Councillor of Culture and Tourism, Carina Gomes, was also present.

Consultation Council Meeting November 2018 | São Francisco Convent, Coimbra

The first Consultation Council meeting took place on the 11th of November of 2028, in Saint Francis Convent. The encounter, that reunited a significant number of Coimbra personalities, as well as from Aveiro, Oporto, Lisbon and even from Spain, counted on a set of relevant interventions, a debate of ideas and strategies that would come to feed and enrich the convictions and construction of our candidacy.

It was a wholesome debate of ideas and perceptions about European capitals of culture, and on the profile, temperament and genius of our city, from which new perspectives came out, sometimes similar and consonant, sometimes divergent and even opposed, in the most varied areas, from architecture to communication, from music to cinema, from geography to sociology, perspectives that the Working Group will integrate in its future discussions with a view to realizing the final proposal.

Public Session| January of 2019| Chemical Laboratory, Coimbra

The Chemical Laboratory of the University of Coimbra was the venue chosen for the performance of the second public session, a meeting in which GTCCEC2027 returned to present the work developed up to that date, still giving notice of the future plans.

Our Candidacy was given to know the support of the Portugal Lions club, as well as the materialization of a set of relevant meetings and reunions, as standing out for the first Consultation Council meeting and for the first Regional Culture Council Encounter.  Even subjects like the Study on Culture in Coimbra were broached, the International Discussion Forum – For 1C and the Ideas Night.

A meeting with the Minister of Culture, Graça Fonseca| January of 2019|Ministry of Culture, Lisbon

A committee of Coimbra, from which the City Councillor of Culture and Tourism of Coimbra City Council, Carina Gomes made up part, and elements of the Coimbra Working Group 2027 – Luís de Matos, Cristina Robalo Cordeiro, Luís Filipe Meneses, António Pedro Pita and Nuno Freitas – was received by the Minister of Culture, Graça Fonseca, in a meeting that took place in the Ministry of Culture, in Lisbon, on the day 7th of January of 2019.

On that occasion, the Minister got to know the Coimbra 2027 project, such as the Consultation Council, demonstrating interest in accompanying closely all the work that is to be developed, rejoicing still for the number of candidacies in the race to the European Capital of Culture, which, in her view, is representative of the intense vitality of national culture.

Ideas Night – An idea for Coimbra January 2019|Alliance Française, Coimbra

What do we want to be? What do we want to become?  What must we do? – and what will we do? – to prepare the city to return it culturally richer to the citizens that choose to live in it?   These and other questions were the motto of the discussion around the Candidacy of Coimbra to European Capital of Culture in 2027, in one more initiative made dynamic by the GTCCEC2027, passed in the field of Ideas Night, in the Alliance Française, in Coimbra.

It was a free and highly participated debate, in which was discussed that which this opportunity represents for the city, in national terms and which counted on the presence of the City Councillor of Culture and Tourism of Coimbra City Council, Carina Gomes.

The Ideas Night debate was moderated by Cristina Robalo Cordeiro and counted on the interventions of Ana Alcoforado, director of the Machado de Castro National Museum; of Carlota Simões, director of the University of Coimbra Science Museum and of Raimundo Mendes da Silva, curator of the Candidacy to Global Heritage “University of Coimbra High and Wise”.

Visit to Latvia

In November of 2018 Luís de Matos, Coordinator of the Working Group Candidacy of Coimbra to European Capital of Culture 2027, was displaced to Latvia, a country that will welcome the title of European Capital of Culture together with Portugal in 2027, giving initiation to preliminary contacts that will be developed throughout the construction process of the respective candidacies.

Visits to European Capitals of Culture|Valeta, Malta|Bologna, Italy Marseille, France

The GTCCEC2027 understands that the exchange of experience with other European capitals of culture is fundamental in the process of construction of our Candidacy.

In this sense, and of the contacts already effected, we realize from the visit to the city of Bologna in Italy, European capital of culture in 2000, and to the city of La Valletta, in Malta, currently European capital of culture.

On the basis of these visits there were three great objectives. First, to know the preparation process of the candidacies, namely in what it says in respect of information gathering about how the commissions were constructed, and the thematic lines that the candidacies structured defined and chosen.  It was still sought to know which programmatic options and how consensuses were constructed around the respective candidacies, as well as, how an institutional and political unanimity were constructed.

It was still the objective of these visits to get to know the programming of the events (the originality of the proposals, the preoccupation (and respect) for the city’s identity, but also for its opening, range and internationalization. Questions like the type of organized performances, the taking advantage of cultural spaces, the motivation of the audiences, were still observed in these visits.

In a parallel way, it still wanted to observe in situ the form how the cities were transformed to host this event and to respond, in the future, to the dynamics created by the demands that are the consequence of the fact of being (or having been) the European Capital of Culture, namely in terms of the proposals for new audiences. 

It was, equally, the objective of the GTCCEC2027 to know the various impacts of the event – ecological, social, economic (the supports, subsidies, financings), as well as, the establishment of contacts and encounters with personalities that were linked to the preparation of the candidacy or programming (Roberto Ghandi, Director of the Museums of Bologna, in Malta, Maren Tichter and Chakib Zidi, cultural agents)

In Malta, there was even the opportunity of visiting the management cabinet of the European capital of culture and some points of support spread throughout the city, where the GTCCEC2027 can gather information about the strong points and weak points of the Candidacies.

Council supports UC in the European Universities candidacy as a form of valuation of Coimbra 2027

The executive of Coimbra City Council (CM), in the meeting of 29.01.2019, deliberated support to the alliance “European Campus of Cities Universities – EC2U”, formed by the universities of Coimbra, Pavia (Italy), Alexandru loan Cuza de lase (Romania), Salamanca (Spain), Turku (Finland) and Poitiers (France), in the field of the initiative of the European Commission “European Universities Alliances”.  The CM Coimbra City Councillor of Culture, Carina Gomes, highlighted the “importance of the Council supporting the University of Coimbra in this candidacy, namely for the valuation with the candidacy of Coimbra European Capital of Culture 2027”. The EC2U arises in the field of the initiative “European Universities Alliances”, that integrates the Key Action 2 of the Erasmus + programme. It is about a project that sees to reinforce the strategic partnerships between Higher Education institutions and to impel the creation of “European Universities”, that is, university networks of the European Union (EU) that allow the students to obtain an academic degree through the combination of studies performed in various countries of the EU, stimulating international competitivity in European space in this way. 

International Forum “For1C – A European capital of culture in the XXI century|16th of March of 2019, Saint Francis Convent, Coimbra

Forum C, of Coimbra Capital of Culture, but also of Knowledge, Science, Community, Path, Current, Citizenry is first a set of initiatives that we will carry out during the preparation of the Candidacy of Coimbra to European Capital of Culture.

Established in the principles and practice of the SWOT analysis, and with the help of a group of national and international personalities, we will seek, for the scrutiny of strong points (S), weak points (W), opportunities (O) and threats (T), to establish a diagnosis and to define strategic objectives for our action. The experience of some and others, their knowledge and critical spirit, the comparison of points of view and opinions, the pertinence of the councils and their advice, help us in the (re)discovery of the city that we inhabit and in the audacity of the proposals that, starting from there, we will elaborate.