Manises Town Hall has today submitted the dossier for its candidacy for creative city together with all the documents and necessary guarantees to make it effective to the Spanish National Committee for Cooperation with UNESCO.
After over a year of work and effort, the initiative to make “Manises, creative city of UNESCO under the category of Crafts and Folk Arts” was brought to a conclusion. A long, costly process which would not have been possible without the implication of numerous council departments and a large number of social players who have given their support to this candidacy.
This international recognition will put our city on the map for its creativity, linked forever to the ceramic sector.
Carrying out this project required a titanic effort which coincided with the difficulties created by the COVID 19 pandemic.
The ceramic sector
As is well known, to talk of Manises is to talk of ceramics and the city’s unbroken tradition of over 700 years in ceramics . Indeed, there is a written record of the presence of potters after the conquest of James I in the “Llibre del Repartiment”.
What’s more, it should be said that it is one of the few towns, if not the only one, that has all the necessary elements for ceramic creation: from raw materials, such as pastes and colours, or kilns, even the shaping and making of pieces using different ceramic techniques.
A variety of ancient techniques, such as the lustreware technique, have been kept and continue to be used in Manises while the design of new plastic creations has been welcomed.
Education
In addition, the teaching of ceramics in Manises covers all levels and spheres, from formal training with specialised cycles in the IES Ausiàs March to the degree offered in the School of Art and Ceramics, and, as far as non-formal training is concerned, leisure workshops run by the Council, ceramic associations, housewife groups and the ceramic workshops themselves.
For all these circumstances and many other reasons, our city is worthy of this candidacy being submitted today following months of constant work.
“There is no other city in Spain in the Crafts and Folk Arts category and Manises is submitting a sound candidacy which meets all the requisites of an institution like UNESCO”
