In October 2021, the city of Bastia publicly applied for the label of European Capital of Culture for the year 2028 with the intention of extending this application to the whole of Corsica. Thus the Bastia-Corsica 2028 association was born.
Just over a year later, we officially entered the competition by submitting our bid file on 2 January 2023 to the Ministry of Culture.
AU-DELÀ DE L'ÎLE / BEYOND THE ISLAND / ALDIL'ISULA
With this concept, we affirm the double will to problematise the insular reality of Corsica, from which its social, cultural and ecological singularity derives, but also to impulse a change of view on our territory beyond this insular fact, which has been the object over the centuries of projections, of folklorising marketing, of utopian constructions and of political experiments.
By projecting ourselves beyond the island, we wish to rise collectively beyond our determinisms to enter into a plural dialogue with the European continent and the Mediterranean world.
THE NEXT STEPS
At the end of February, a delegation will go to the Ministry of Culture to present and support our application to a jury of twelve European experts. At the end of this hearing, the jury will announce the cities that have been shortlisted to be European capital 2028.
If we are one of the shortlisted cities, we will have a new dossier to build and present in the autumn, and it will be at the very end of 2023 that the European committee of experts will make its selection public, thus designating two winning cities: one in France, the other in the Czech Republic.
