In February 2012, CUMEDIAE was born. Today, ten years later, we are very happy to celebrate with you our 10th anniversary!
Read the words of CUMEDIAE’s co-founder, chairman and CEO Ignasi Guardans, in a letter addressed to all those who have made all of CUMEDIAE’s achievements possible in the last ten years, recalling what has been and imagining what will be.
Here is to many more years, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CUMEDIAE!
The First Ten Years
In Italy, a captain was trying to impress his girlfriend, and with that purpose he imposed a maneuver on the ship that resulted in the largest shipwreck in history. The Costa Concordia, twice the size of the Titanic, capsized, and 32 people tragically lost their lives.
In Egypt, the wake of the Arab Spring was empowering an Islamic organization mostly unknown to foreigners before that time. The Muslim Brotherhood would assume power a few months later, in a sequence of events that would have a huge impact across the Southern Mediterranean.
In London, the final preparations were being made for what would result in those excellent Olympic Games. Around that time, British film director Danny Boyle was certainly rehearsing what would later become, at the Opening ceremony in July, the most memorable and spectacular showcase of the hosting nation’s culture to the world.
“The Artist”, a beautiful and risky black and white silent movie, won the Oscar award for both Best Film and Best Director. And so did the film’s excellent soundtrack, fully recorded a few months before by the Brussels Philharmonic at the Belgian capital’s Flagey Studio number 4.
All this, and many more important things, were happening in the World, in Europe, and in Belgium, at the start of the year 2012. But for us, the memory of those moments is directly linked to our present: in February 2012, a Decree by the King of the Belgians officially recognized the legal existence of a new non-profit structure promoted by a small group of people, under the name of Culture and Media Agency Europe, or in short, CUMEDIAE.
Ten years later, we are very happy to celebrate with you all our tenth anniversary. And (as it is probably allowed at least every ten years) we do that with legitimate pride.
Anyone involved in management (and funding, let’s say it) in the cultural and creative sector will easily understand that this has not always been an easy journey all along. But here we are, alive and kicking.
Ten years where we have been able to provide advice and support to a large number of organizations across the European continent, and where we have been involved in an important number of European cross-border projects. Ten years where we’ve had the pleasure of hosting more than eighty brilliant young interns from many European countries, without whose energy and passionate contributions we would not have been able to do all what we have done. Ten years that leave a ton of reasons to say thank you to many people, starting with those who supported this project at its very beginnings, those who have professionally travelled with us for a part of this journey, and those who put their trust on us at some point along the road.
Indeed our anniversary also pushes us to look forward. We have important projects in the oven, some of them waiting for the goodwill of the EU evaluators. And he have more ideas than those we can actually implement. But all that will have its timing. For today, let’s focus: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CUMEDIAE!
Discover the projects that CUMEDIAE has implemented during its first 10 years!