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Country(ies):
France

Massalia-Marsceleste
Urban spaces to promote dialogue through artistic production
Partners:
City of Marseille Organising Committee
Funding Bodies:
City of Marseille, Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Cte d'Azur, General Council of Bouches du Rhne,
Community of Towns in Marseille Metro Province, private sponsoring and donations.
Project Description:
Massalia was a unique, gigantic, one-day street festival in June 1999 which attracted 400,000 people to the
streets of Marseille. It was organised to celebrate 2600 years of Marseille history and was intended as a
collective hymn celebrating the diversity of the city. It was a festival prepared for the Marseille people by the
Marseille people. Preparations for the festival involved all the different cultural groups making up the city of
Marseilles - a Mediterranean port and a multi-ethnic centre par excellence. Massalia had a big impact on the
local, urban environment by involving the various communities and neighbourhoods not just on the day of the
festival but during the whole nine month period running up to the festival. The organisers aimed to build a
common space which would help spark off a process of recognition and respect between the different
communities, their cultures and styles of creativity.
In June 2000, the festival was repeated. Another street festival - Marsceleste - was organised to celebrate the
arrival of Marseille in the third millennium, concentrating on music and musical creativity; but still including all
cultural communities in the city. It was organised by the Cit de la Musique and also involved public and private
funders.
Lessons to be Learned:
Diversity and dialogue were used as starting points for organising the festival. Its organisation was carried out in
co-operation with all communities living in Marseille. This system of co-operation set up to prepare the festival
was designed to foster understanding of each other's cultures through interacting and working together. The
complexity of Marseille's community and culture was the raw material for this collective creative project
drawing both on folklore / memory and contemporary expressions. The organisers found that involving the local
community during a long and creative process had profound effects. Intercultural encounters are expected to
become a key feature, not only focused on presentation and promotion of cultural traditions, but also to foster the
creation of alternative and hybrid cultural experiences.
Target Groups:
Population of Marseille

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Contact Details:
Not available
Additional Resources:
Information on La Friche Belle de Mai, a socio-cultural centre in Marseille that was very actively involved in the
planning and organisation of both festivals, is available from:
http://www3.comune.venezia.it/ineuropaenelmondo/urbact/friche_ws7.htm
Submitted by / Source:
Emmanuelle Richez: Case Study of Massalia and Marsceleste. In: Danielle Cliche, Ritva Mitchell, Andreas
Wiesand (ed.): "Creative Europe. On Governance and Management of Artistic Creativity in Europe". ARCult
Media: Bonn, 2002.

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Council of Europe/ERICarts, "Compendium of Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe, 16th edition", 2015 | ISSN 2222-7334

http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/intercultural-dialogue-database.php

7/5/2015