White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 1and services enhance the quality ofeveryday life.Both in terms of the variety andvastness of the phenomenon, Italyboasts one of the most importantcultural macro sectors enhancing socialquality in the world. In Italy creativityand the culture industries can rely onspatial and temporal conditions forsuccess, especially in the creative spacesof its cities and its industrial districtsand local enterprise systems.Culture as history and local territoryAt the heart of the Italian model is thebond between our creativity andcultural production with history and thelocal territory. Time and space are thehistorical dimensions of theextraordinary waves of creativityrunning through the history of Italy.Culture industries and creativity havebeen shaped by the local territory,which for the Italian model primarilymeans material culture production, thequality of urban space and the space ofenterprise districts.Culture is an idiosyncratic asset, specificto a spatially defined place and able tocommunicate its content to the wholeworld. Thus, for example, we haveHollywood for film culture, Murano inVenice for the art of glass making,Rome for the ancient historical heritage,and Paris for fashion. Or to cite to acase in dance culture, we could mentionthe Calle Caminito, a small alley in thepoor Boca quarter of Buenos Aires,where the tango originated and thenwent on to become an internationalcultural phenomenon.The territorial origins of a culture andof the goods and services of itsconsequent cultural production do notfollow standard patterns (Scott, 2005)but after a chance beginning, grow andare expressed around a system ofclustered economies. Our historic cities,many of our industrial districts, ourperforming arts and to a lesser extentour technological innovations have along history of accumulating knowledgeand experience.a) Creative cities and creativespacesCreative cities and creative spaces,which we will analyse in greater detail inthe next chapter, represent in anexemplary and innovative way howspace and time are at the origin and arethe outcome of creative and culturalphenomena.History is an accumulation of ideas,knowledge, mindsets, culturalatmospheres, identities and symbols. Ateach transition, successive generationsleave enhanced creativity which forcenturies has characterised the workand thought of the best talents. Thecontext in which talents live influencesthe production of creativity and culturebecause the spatial phenomena ofclustering have turned out to beimportant pre-requisites. These mayinclude external economies, theproduction of trust and co-operation,and the strengthening of a sense ofidentity, of pride and of entrepreneurialenergy (Scott, 2000). In other words,the city has been and partly continuesto be the ideal framework for theproduction and social distribution ofWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 24