Gertrud van Dam and Bram Buijze attended the official launch of the Foundation Valletta 2018 on 20 June in the beautiful Manoel Theatre. Alexei Dingli, Mayor of Valletta, and David Felice, chairman of the Interministerial Commission, illustrated the candidacy, emphasizing that entire Malta will be included in the programme. It was nice to meet Karsten Xuereb again. After having been cultural attaché in Brussels he is now the project coordinator of Valletta 2018. He warmly welcomed the small delegation from Utrecht and showed the video that Utrecht made about the vision and themes for Utrecht 2018. As always people responded positively – it is indeed an informative and funny video.
The themes for Valletta 2018 were being discussed in yet another terrific spot: Verdala Palace. By having the workshops there, the organisation put into practice that being European Capital of Culture will certainly not be restricted to Valletta. It was very nice how Gertrud and Bram were included in the discussions on the themes. They attended two workshops: '18-Creativity and Play at the Heart of Learning' and 'Cultures of Translation'. Both themes are closely connected to the themes on which Utrecht is working.
It was inspiring to attend and it was a good introduction of the Malta-Utrecht cooperation for a large group of people who are interested in the European Capital of Culture. Many showed their interest in this cooperation, for example in the 18-theme, creative industry and cultural heritage.
The Foundation Valletta 2018 will work on the first version of the bidbook, to be presented in October 2011.
