Global Arab Network | EU organizes conference on cultural heritage of the Medina of Tunis

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EU organizes conference on cultural heritage of the Medina of Tunis

Global Arab Network - - Hannan Taha

Monday, 22 March 2010 11:58

The EU-funded project Mutual Heritage is organising a conference on the appropriation of the cultural heritage of the Medina of Tunis as part of a series of seminars covering various aspects related to cultural heritage.

A press release said the conference, to be held on 24 March in the French city of Tours, will tackle issues such as the appropriation of architectural and urban cultural values by civil society in contemporary Tunisia, the perception of the general public of its own cultural heritage in a socially and economically marginalised Medina, the information promoted by the media, and the stakes involved in urban planning.

The conference will finally draw a state of the arts of public interventions in the field of cultural heritage in Tunisia.

“During the decolonisation period in the first decade following independence, the Medina of Tunis and its future were a heated subject of debate among architects and urban planners,” explains Jellal Abdelkafi, a landscape architect and a lecturer at the conference. “It was at the same time a contentious political issue between the traditionalist middle class and the protagonists of a national movement who called for turning the page over the past and initiating the reform and modernisation of the new state. The creation of an Association for the Safeguard of the Medina of Tunis in 1967, was the first of its kind in the Arab and Muslim world, and reflected an intellectual awareness of the value of cultural heritage. Since then, the concept of “Medina” as a national cultural heritage to be inscribed on the UNESCO List of World Heritage gained a new status, and became an icon of identity which transcends history and announces the new ideology of culture,” he added.

The series of events organised by Mutual Heritage on the subject, particularly in Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia, aims to find solutions to some of the issues raised within the project and to encourage exchange between professionals, professors and students in the field of architecture and social and human disciplines.

Mutual Heritage, funded with a budget of €1.6 million under the Euromed Heritage IV programme,aims at implementing activities to train various professionals and heighten awareness among the populations; including trainings, workshops, targeted activities, and info days. It also aims to produce a series of publications to raise awareness of this heritage which is generally unknown. Also, five exhibitions will be organized around the core of the project, its objectives and activities, and these will contribute to make this heritage better known to the larger public.

Global Arab Network

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