Associazione Casa delle Culture - The House of Cultures

Casa delle Culture (The House of Cultures) was founded in Ancona in 2007 by a large group of various associations. As a result of a wider project for the urban and cultural regeneration of the area, that began in 2005, the Municipality of Ancona agreed to renovate a former refrigerating room of the ancient municipal slaughterhouse, where the association is currently located. Our location includes: - an intercultural and multilingual library - a multipurpose audio-visual room - an exhibition room We aim to foster active citizenship, cultural integration and social interaction among citizens. Among the statutory aims: 1. the enhancement of cultural resources, voluntary work and civil society of the town of Ancona, by improving the connection within cultures, experiences and knowledge; 2. the improvement of the life quality in the city, by creating a network among associations and citizens in order to develop cultural resources for creating, monitoring and implementing projects in the town; 3. the promotion of meetings and cultural contamination in order that ideas, imagination and studies of each group or individual citizens could confront themselves with each other. In doing so, we aim to take on the new challenge of a multi-ethnic and multicultural society, valuing any kind of differences, to achieve a sustainable development and promote an eco-friendly approach within the town; 4. the development and realization of cultural projects and our member's shared goals 5. the enrichment of the association's activities, by proposing and testing interventions with the civil society, and activating participatory democratic projects; 6. the optimization of the activities, in order to avoid dispersion of human, cultural and financial resources as well as historical memory for their achievement; 7. the advancement and promotion of all the needed actions towards the City Council, to obtain and directly manage an adequate location, situated in the city centre, where we can coordinate and achieve the above objectives. A place to concentrate the presence and the initiatives fostered by the signatory associations as part of the cultural life of the town; a place where is possible to provide citizens, organizations, institutions, associations with information, training, proposal for actions as well as dialogue. This location act as a symbol and embodiment of a participatory democratic culture, which needs to start with the enhancement of the reality of the city of Ancona and the experiences of each person living in it. During 2011 and 2012 many highly qualified and diverse activities were held. All the activities are open to the public with no discrimination of age and/or origin: organization of participatory performances; reading courses on social-economic issues; training courses about voluntary work and development cooperation; meetings with national and international experts, which included open debates with the citizens on environmental, cultural, economic and social issues; inauguration of the multilingual library "House of Cultures"; workshops about various topics: folk and traditional dance, journalism, Italian language, photography, classical theatre, theatre for young foreigners, literary English translation, video-maker; Amnesty International exhibitions; international exhibition of the Polish artist Exilentia Exiff; "Lines of Resistance" an exhibition of art and civic engagement; Brazilian film festival "A look at Brazil" - International cooperation project PARA UM PROTAGONISMO JUVENIL; festival of short films "The Visionary House"; festival of short films "The Visionary Boot"; exhibition dedicated to Marco Bechis "A look at the border" - Corto Dorico 2011; various meeting with local authors and publishing houses "Stories of Home"; various puppet shows for children "The House of Kids"