Following the designation as a Creative City of Gastronomy under UNESCO, the city is holding an open forum for all gastronomic and creative players in Kuching. This half day event will be held on 13 July 2022 at Dewan Masyarakat MBKS, from 8.00am to 12.30pm. The forum seeks to hear from a broad base of stakeholders, both to create links between our local players and also to define better collaboration going forward with other Creative Cities around the world.
Karen Shepherd, Strategic Director of UCCN Kuching Creative City, said: “The main purpose of designating in this important global network is to provide support and assistance to our creative economy. As a creative city of Gastronomy, this starts with our food chain, from smallholders to stallholders, from chefs to food manufacturers. But it is also broader than this. It includes our filmmakers, food bloggers, designers and festival directors. If we want to put Kuching food on a global map, to raise our standards both for our local people and all the visitors to our city, then we need to pool our incredible talents.”
“The Creative Cities in the gastronomy network, and indeed across all the creative fields, are committed to working with each other across eleven specific areas. These ‘priority areas of collaboration’ are: Academic/Scientific; Communications; Creative Economy; Cultural Identity; Economic Development; Education; Food Security and Food Justice; Policies; Sustainability; Tourism; Traditional Knowledge. A Kuching delegation is due to attend the XIV UNESCO Creative Cities Network Annual Conference in Santos, Brazil this month and this forum aims to give us the right information to approach this important knowledge-sharing platform.”
“This is why we want to hear from you, all the gastronomic and creative players in the city. We want to hear about your challenges in these areas and also work together to come up with some solutions. Only the people working hard in this sector day after day can provide the best insight into how we can proceed as a city. Your knowledge will help us to plan better activities for our own UCCN programmes going forward and also to stimulate opportunities for international collaboration.”
We are asking everyone interested in attending this forum to register at https://forms.gle/8aUvhsmH9pbq6gNz8 so that we can plan more effectively. A link to registration is available at www.kuchingcreativecity.com. For more information, please email uccnkuching@kuchingcreativecity.com. We look forward to seeing you there.
