International recognition: Santiago, American Cultural
Capital 2004
Among
ten other cities, Santiago de Chile and Austin (Texas)
were the ones chosen as "American Cultural
Capitals 2004". The initiative is directed
to all cities from countries that belong to the
American States Organization (ASO), which has the
institutional support from the Latin American and
the European Parliaments.
There are three
goals: to become an inter-American integration instrument,
help to a better understanding among American people
respecting their national and regional diversities,
and promote the nominated cities to the rest of
the world.
The organizers chose Santiago because of the important
cooperation and assistance work that the City has
been making with different Chilean places and the
rest of the world. Santiago has international cooperation
agreements with fifteen other cities.
The activities planned for the year 2004 will be
related to the concepts of heaven and earth, seen
from the perspective of the city's origins. People
will see works around the idea of origin and future
from such different fields as History, Anthropology,
Archeology, Architecture, Folklore, Painting, Theater
and Music.
The first American Cultural Capital was Mérida
(Mexico), in the year 2000. Then, Iquique (Chile)
in 2001 and Maceio (Brazil), 2002. From next year
on, there will be two cities chosen per year. Both
should be from countries linguistically or geographically
different, such as Panama and Curitiba (Brazil),
those chosen for the year 2003.
