By DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, Sept 4: The Kuching Creative Cities Forum, scheduled for Sept 14 at the Sarawak Cultural Village (SCV), will highlight the theme, ‘Creative Industry Sustainability: From Traditional Practices to the Modern Economy’.
The event is supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, and Culture (MOTAC) Malaysia, which is currently developing a framework for this vital sector at both national and regional levels.
Creative players from across Sarawak and Malaysia are urged to attend and explore the various approaches being employed by 12 creative cities around Asia Pacific, all of which are members of the Unesco Creative Cities Network (UCCN), which aims to position creativity as a strategic factor in sustainable development.
Kuching South City Council (MBKS) mayor and UCCN Kuching head Dato Wee Hong Seng underscored the global growth of the creative economy, especially among youth.
“It also looks set for increasing prominence as efforts are made to advocate for culture to have its own standalone goal in the post-2030 development agenda. Malaysia’s creative industries are in an incredible stage of growth.
“With Malaysia, under MOTAC, taking over the Asean chair next year, this is an area where our fellow Asean nations can focus our collaboration, putting our creative industries and our culture on a firm footing for the future,” he said in a media release today.
Karen Shepherd, Strategic Director of UCCN Kuching and Unesco Focal Point, highlighted that the forum will share international examples of how cities around Asean are supporting their own creative economies through policy, programmes and events.
“Twelve cities from the clusters of gastronomy, design, craft and folk art and music will each present on their approach at local level.
“From Kuching, we are pleased to announce that Emily Yii will be our keynote speaker. She will take us through her journey from media specialist to one of the partners in Kantin at the Granary. This will include the decision to open a second outlet in Singapore and, just recently, their nomination for Best Restaurant in Malaysia, the only Sarawak restaurant in the list,” she said.
The forum, which is free to attend thanks to MOTAC’s generous support, aims to provide essential and inspiring content for both policymakers and creative industry players.
It will feature examples from major Asean cities like Jakarta, Bandung, and Singapore, as well as smaller cities like Chiang Mai, Sukhothai, and Baguio, which share a closer context with Kuching.
The organisers are also pleased to welcome Ipoh, recently designated as a City of Music under the network.
Karen added that policies to support the creative industries are being developed both at the national level by MOTAC and at the Sarawak level by the Ministry of Tourism, Creative industry and Performing Arts.
“This event will give our domestic stakeholders a glimpse of various international examples to inform this process. It is an exciting opportunity for our creative industry players to network with each other and also to become inspired by the collective creativity across Asean. We hope to see a packed auditorium at the Sarawak Cultural Village to talk all things creative,” she said. — DayakDaily
