1. Visioni Urbane The Basilicata Creative Sceneas Seen by a Traveller Alberto Cottica

2. 3. Disclaimer

The following is only a rough, oversimplified sketch of the Basilicata creative scene. However, it has been run before the community and approved by it

VU's ideology: the market is not evil. It is a major locus for cultural communication. This does not necessarily represent the scene's generally accepted view

Photos are courtesy of the Basilicata creatives

4. 5. Who are the Basilicata creative people?

Meetings and interviews (June-November 2007)

A virally compiled database

about 50 interviews, 90 sightings

www.visioniurbanebasilicata.net/creativi-lucani/

6. 7. What do they do? 8. 9. Where are they? 10. 11. More theater in Potenza? 12. 13. More ICT/audiovisual/literature in Matera? 14. 15. Good news

Good attitude to cooperation

Fairly good skills on organizing cultural events (some have been going on for many yaears)

Strong ties between Basilicata creatives and high-profile artists (Abbado, Kiarostami...)

Very strong ties with the land itself, seen as engine of the artistic experience

The returnees move back to Basilicata, bringing fresh air, vision and relationships

16. 17. Bad news

difficulties to access cultural markets

• Most events are free: difficult to extract revenue from attendees

• little involvement of private sponsors

• insufficient demand analysis

• little drive to reducing dependency from public sector grants

• only very few art orgs have NOT quoted public sector grants as a very important financial source

• cultural training activities are a little more private demand driven

18. 19. More bad news

little scene awareness

The relationships between Basilicata creatives and cultural movers and shakers are point to point

Some of them have been opportunistic and driven essentially by the availability of public grants

20. 21. What creatives are saying:

There is no real cultural strategy for Basilicata

There is no integration between the cultural and other policies (tourism, region marketing...)

So, culture is not viewed as part of the region's strategy

There is a shortage of venues/production spaces

There is a shortage of certain key skills

22. 23. Lucania's blogosphere: a resource

In Basilicata blogs and online fora have become a locus for public debate

Strongly connected between them and with the outside

About 15 bloggers on the VU community, among which 2 of Italy's top 50

A bloggers association to establish an offline presence

24.