The City of Nassau, a UNESCO Creative City of Crafts and Folk Arts, was represented by two delegates: Pamela Burnside, President of Creative Nassau, and Gevon Moss of the Downtown Nassau Partnership at the Annual Meeting of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) last month which was held from May 25-28 in Kanazawa, Japan which is also a City of Crafts and Folk Arts.
Along with 143 delegates from 32 different cities from all around the world, this Annual Meeting was an opportunity for the newly designated city to discuss relevant matters relating to the UCCN in group sessions, to interact with members of the respective clusters (the UCCN represents seven creative disciplines of Design, Film, Gastronomy, Design, Literature, Crafts and Folk Arts, and Media Arts), as well as to participate in plans for the new UCCN website due to be launched by mid June, and the upcoming 70th anniversary of UNESCO.
The delegates were also treated to various Creative Tourism activities which included trips to Kanazawa Art Museums, historic sites, educational facilities, traditional Japanese cultural shows as well as partaking in Japanese culinary delights. Mr Moss, acting as Mayor of the City of Nassau, participated in the Mayor’s Roundtable Discussion and highlighted the work of the Downtown Nassau Partnership aimed at enhancing the City’s offerings by facilitating and promoting more creative experiences for the visitor and local patrons to the city centre.
Representing Creative Nassau, the non-profit entity which made a successful application in 2014 on behalf of the City of Nassau, one of the first of only two small island states in this region to do so, President Pam Burnside described the conference as “an amazing experience. The opportunity to interact with sister cities of the Network clearly emphasized how Creativity can very easily become the third pillar of The Bahamas’ economy, and provide not only considerable economic activity for Bahamians, but also offer the unique gamut of creative Bahamian enterprises to stimulate the visitors’ and the local residents’ experience of the country.”
The Nassau delegation also placed a bid to host the 2017 Meeting in Nassau, in competition with Brazil, Paris and Italy. The results will be relayed to the Network within a few months. For more information on the UCCN visit, log on to the Creative Nassau facebook page and website at www.creativenassau.com, as well as the temporary website http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/creativity/creative-cities-network/ until the official website does live later this month.