Hola is the typical Chilean greeting so it seems apt to use here. The IFACCA Board meets together face to face twice a year, and our first 2013 meeting has just taken place in Santiago Chile.
It has been a rich few days for the Board and especially for me, as this is both my first meeting as a Board member and my first visit to South America. Doing new things for the first time usually makes for an intense experience and this visit has proved no exception to that rule of thumb.
One key reason for meeting in Chile, is because the next World Summit of Culture takes place here in January 2014. Together with our Chilean partners from the National Council for Culture and the Arts(Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes) considerable planningis underway to ensure that the Summit will be successful. You can read more here about the summit, which has Creative Times: new models for creative development as the theme. www.artsummit.org sets out the details.
Santiago will be an excellent host city. Public transport works well, the city feels extremely safe, the people are charming and the food is good. Moreover the weather in January is likely to be 'perfecto'. Prices are reasonable and the country is truly fascinating in terms of its cultures, geography and history. For tongue-tied people like me for whom Spanish is a struggle, it is extremely fortunate that many Chileans are fluent in Inglés.
There are many intriguing galleries and museums, though sadly I just missed out on the contemporary opera that was on so I can’t report on that. The strong role culture has come to play 'post dictatorship' is evident in the jail turned Cultural Centre and in the powerful living museum for Chile's memory which tells many stories about the human rights abuses of the Military regime and explains the narrative surrounding the coup very clearly. (Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos).
Before I sign off, I am pleased to advise members that the Board Meeting confirmed my suspicions.....that Sarah Gardner and the IFACCA team continue to work tirelessly and impressively for the members. The Acorns newsletter is a great entree into the work that IFACCA does, and demonstrates the benefit of an international overview. Here is a link if you are not already connected: www.ifacca.org/acorns/