The Cultural Development Foundation on Friday 30th October officially opened the doors to its Southern Office.
Exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, music, poetry, dance and film festivals, multimedia art, panel discussions on contemporary issues, educational and family-oriented workshops are just some of CDF’s activities. The launch saw a display of talent by the community’s youth through music and dance.
The Southern Office is the result of a single desire: to extend and diversify the social and cultural activities offered by CDF to the benefit of citizens and communities. It represents a new concept befitting the 21st century, a platform in accordance with the concerns of today’s society, promoting the value of culture as a means of social integration and economic development/empowerment.
Efforts to promote arts and culture within a community context face many challenges. In order to ensure programmes and other participatory processes work and succeed, communities often require some type of guidance, facilitation or collaboration. As elements of communities themselves, shift and evolve, the role and approaches of mediators such as CDF, must adapt and shift to fit local circumstances and situations so as to integrate arts and culture into multiple sectors, disciplines and systems concerned with community revitalization.
The Southern Office will work towards the following four goals of: (1) documentation, the work of inventorying; (2) celebration, where we honour our tradition-bearers; (3) transmission, where we ensure that skills are passed from person to person, generation to generation, and community to community; and (4) cultural industry, where we build stronger communities using intangible and tangible cultural heritage as a tool for economic empowerment.
The launch took place on Friday 30th October, 2015 from 10:30 a.m. at the Papel Craft Centre on Rudy John Beach Park in Laborie.