Global Cultural Relations Programme
25 Apr 2018

Two years of Global Cultural Leadership Programme

Since its first edition in 2016, the Global Cultural Leadership Programme (GCLP) is proud to have gathered 80 cultural leaders from over 20 countries to participate to a unique experience.

After its first edition in Valetta and its second edition in Athens, the GCLP has started to grow a sustainable network of international young cultural leaders, managers and practitioners. Hence, the Cultural Diplomacy Platform is happy to see what the GCLP alumni have been up to since their participation to the programme.

What have the GCLP alumni been up to?

It is important for the Cultural Diplomacy Platform to keep close contacts with the previous participants of the GCLP. As much as possible, we try to support and encourage the activities of our former participants.

Annual Conference of the Association for Arts Management

Four participants who met in Malta at the Global Cultural Leadership Programme 2016 took part to the 11th Annual Conference of the Association for Arts Management, from 17 to 20 January 2018, at the University of Music and Theater in Hamburg, Germany. The topic was Cultural Leadership & Innovation: Utopias, Strategies and Challenges of Arts Management. Beth Ponte (Brazil), Alison Uttley (Canada), Ruhi Jhunjhunwala (India) and Faye Hobson (Ireland) delivered a workshop entitled “Global Cultural Leadership Training and Cultural Diplomacy”. They each stated what the GCLP was and what it brought them professionally and humanely. The Cultural Diplomacy Platform supported their participation to this conference.

European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018: International Perspectives Forum

In April 2018, the Cultural Diplomacy Platform organised a Forum entitled European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018: International Perspectives. Taking place in Brussels, the goal of this event was to highlight some of the main objectives of the European Year of Cultural Heritage with an international perspective, by inviting speakers coming from 11 countries outside and inside Europe. The Forum gathered 250 participants and was a unique opportunity to exchange knowledge, expertise and latest cultural heritage approaches between the EU and its strategic partners. In this context, the Platform invited two participants of the two previous editions of the GCLP: Aishwarya Tipnis from India (GCLP 2016) and Norton Ficarelli from Brazil (GCLP 2017). Because they are both active in the field of cultural heritage, the Cultural Diplomacy Platform wanted to show the audience what their activities and practices are. For that, they both showed short videos about their work and answered the questions from the audience.

Aishwarya Tipnis is a trained urban conservation architect, also operating as a “cultural diplomat negotiating between the past and the future by using design as a tool” in New Delhi, India. She has been involved in urban heritage conservation, working mainly with heritage buildings. Her work has inspired many private owners and families to restore their old houses. Renovating and preserving these buildings is for Aishwarya a way to make one’s identity sustain in the future. Aishwarya Tipnis has received the French Government honour “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” for her outstanding commitment to the preservation of French heritage in India.

Norton Ficarelli is a project manager at Instituto Pedra in São Paulo. This organisation has been working in the restauration and preservation of Vila Itororó, an emblematic building from the early 20th century. Every part of Vila Itororó reveals something about São Paulo’s history. The construction site is today opened for public visits which creates awareness on the fate of heritage houses in the city. In that matter, renovating such a place in São Paulo would soon open the restauration debate in the whole country. In a more and more segregated urban entity, Vila Itororó was the place where everybody could mingle. Even if it belongs to a distant past, Vila Itororó can be a great tool for the present for São Paulo’s populations to meet.

They talk about it

  • If you would like to discover the GCLP day by day, read the full travel diary on Medium.com!

Towards a GCLP Community

GCLP reunion at the European of Cultural Heritage 2018: International Perspectives Forum in Brussels, on 23 April 2018. With Sana Ouchtati (Cultural Diplomacy Platform Team Leader), Philipp Dietachmair (Project manager, European Cultural Foundation), Ioana Tamas (GCLP 2016, European Cultural Foundation), Aishwarya Tipnis (GCLP 2016, Aishwarya Tipnis Architects) Pictures by Ioana Tamas

Moments from GCLP 2016 in Valletta, Malta (click on the picture to see the gallery)

Moments from the GCLP 2017 in Athens, Greece (click on the picture to see the gallery)

You would like to know more on the former participants of the GCLP? Click here to see the profiles of our participants from the previous editions!

You would like to be part of the GCLP international network? Join us by applying to the third edition of the GCLP, click here!