Dénia has actively participated in the III Meeting of UNESCO Creative Cities in Spain that was held last weekend in Bilbao. The meeting has been made to coincide and has converged with the prestigious Bilbao Bizkaia Design Week, which the Basque city organizes annually as the Creative City of Design. The mayor of Dénia participated in the working sessions of the meeting, Vicent Grimalt, and the director of the Office of Innovation and Creativity, Floren Terrades.
In addition to the work meetings, workshops and institutional visits, a central act took place on Saturday at the Azkuna Zentroa in which prominent creatives from the participating cities showed proposals for interaction between the rest of the disciplines of the UNESCO network: Cinema, Design, Gastronomy, Crafts, Music, Literature and Digital Arts. On behalf of Dénia as a City of Gastronomy, the chef Juanfra Valiente intervened, at the head of the creativity department of Quique Dacosta Restaurant, who gave a presentation on design and contemporary cuisine.
Within the activities agenda, the Dénia delegation visited the Basque Culinary Center, where they were received by the academic director, Alex Beitia, with whom they discussed future collaborations. Contacts were also established with the Artxanda Higher School of Hospitality, in which its director, Joseba Lozano, explained the operation of the Basque Food Laboratory, which researches and creates innovative products for food companies. For her part, the Councilor for Health and Consumption of the Bilbao City Council, Yolanda Díez, acted as a guide on a visit to the La Ribera Market of the delegations of the two Creative Cities of Gastronomy of Spain, Dénia and Burgos.
All participating cities were invited as an exception to the inauguration of Bilbao Bizkaia Design Week (BBDW21) held at the Guggenheim Museum.
The seven Spanish cities of the UNESCO network have been making progress in the last three years in strengthening ties and are studying to form an association between them to strengthen collaboration, become more visible and claim their common needs.
Institutional and technical representatives from Seville (Music, 2006), Bilbao (Design, 2014), Granada (Literature, 2014), Burgos (Gastronomy, 2015), Dénia (Gastronomy, 2015), Barcelona ( Literature, 2015), Terrassa (Cinema, 2017), Llíria (Music, 2019) and Valladolid (Cinema, 2019). At the beginning of November, the Valencian city of Manises was added to the UNESCO Creative Cities network, in the field of Crafts and Popular Arts.
In Bilbao ... the only creative thing they have is the Museum and the little dog, neither of them is by a Basque and none of the museum exhibits are. For the rest, Bilbao as a city has nothing remarkable.