Kourion2030 | Co-designing a long-term cultural strategy

From April 2024, OLA Team collaborates with the organization KOURION2030 – Candidate City for the European Capital of Culture, in order to develop the 10 years Cultural Strategy of the Municipality of Kourion. Our intention is to develop a chain of interaction and sharing between different actors and stakeholders of the Municipality. Such a procedure is an opportunity for the communities of the area to express opinions and visions for their future that could exceed the cultural sector and provide general insights in terms of infrastructure and services that could be crucial for social reproduction, education, environmental sustainability and economic growth.

Our approach attempts to connect the dynamics of future economic development of the area with the socio-cultural characteristics, the needs and the aspirations of the local population in order to produce an inclusive cultural strategy that could reflect the history of the place and address the contemporary challenges by its inhabitants. The general aims are the following:
– Designing and coordinating a series of activities aimed at fostering community engagement and cultural development
– Raise awareness on the title of ECoC, the challenges and the opportunities
– Develop a long term cultural strategy by involving the local community in the design process

The process of the research team is engaging in the design the following target audiences: Cultural associations, Organizations of the Civil Society, Sports Associations, Public officers of the Municipality, Representatives of each community, Youth Municipal council, School students and teachers, Social workers and professional from the social provision sector, Local associations in the productive sector of the area, Researchers and artists with links or experience on working with the local community & Migrant communities.

Field trip and series of workshops in May 2024 – Revealing the materials of local culture

We designed and implemented two workshops during our first field trip in Cyprus, based on the Co-Design Square Kit and the methodology of Collective Emotional Mapping, as an introduction of the goal of the KOURION2030 initiative to the local community, through thematic areas of discussion. The process was structured in 7 categories relating to the cultural strategy (what is a city, the collective mapping, connecting the dots, collective construction, the politics, infrastructures & services, impact), having as central intention to provide space and time to the participants to express ideas, perspectives, problems, needs and visions about the local area.

A second field trip is planned in the begging of October in order to conduct the second series of workshops with high school students and experts working in the cultural sector.