World Day for Cultural Diversity

The Bilbao City Council and UNESCO Etxea share the idea that respect for cultural diversity is essential to promote intercultural dialogue, sustainable development and peace.

For all these reasons, the action designed for Saturday 21 May, a space for reflection in BBK KUNA, has three fundamental vectors: communicate, reflect and celebrate. Between 12:00 and 13:30, a discussion on cultural diversity and social cohesion will take place. The aim of this initiative is to discover the importance of protecting and promoting cultural diversity and its expressions in order to generate social cohesion.

Five people committed to inclusion and interculturality, recognised for their social and cultural activism, and representative of different artistic expressions in Bilbao, will take part in the meeting:

They are Emilia Larrondo (sociologist and DJ of Mexican origin), Miguel Ángel Puentes (plastic artist and director/speaker of Radio Candela of Colombian origin, Cruz Noguera (playwright and performer of Venezuelan origin), Nilda Diarte Aguilera (writer of literature and theatre of Argentinian origin) and Betto Snay (hip-hop musician, cultural dynamiser and fashion designer of Angolan origin).

– DJ Hija del Nopal will be in charge of a musical session between 13:30 and 14:30.

– The Bilbao artist of Colombian origin Miguel Ángel Puente presents his exhibition on the invisibilisation of domestic workers on floor -1 of BBK Kuna.

– From 17.00 the HaurKuna workshop will be dedicated to interculturality. This activity, designed for children aged 3 to 10, aims to generate a positive impact through play, bringing the 2030 Agenda and the challenges of the future closer to the little ones. The session is free, in Basque and Spanish (groups of 15-20 participants).

– Likewise, and to celebrate the strength and resilience of cultural diversity in particularly critical times, such as the current ones caused by the pandemic, the Urazurrutia Quay -outside BBK KUNA-, will host a festival open to the public between 18:00 and 21:00. There will be a performance of an extract from the play “Solange and the walker”, which recreates the real-life encounter between an African woman and a European man in a refugee camp in Greece. The music and dance collective Follow The Party will perform, and there will be a participatory mural with the mural artist Eva Mena Den XL.