The Ministry of Culture gives us financial support again
20/01/2025
The MDRM_DIP group presented in May 2024 the project “Design Memory Region of Murcia. Stage Two” to the “Grants for cultural action and promotion” that the Cultural Industries Coordination Centre of the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Spain announces annually. It is a competitive concurrence procedure endowed with one million eight hundred thousand euros and to which 800 organizations opted this year.
Encouraged by the success of 2023, in which it also obtained ministerial support, the MDRM group conceived a second stage to consolidate the three general objectives of the project – to contribute to the enhancement of design and advertising communication in the Region of Murcia, delving into the history of regional design from its beginnings and considering all its specialties and applications; to promote knowledge and recognition of the work of senior professionals, as well as others who are no longer with us today and who also contributed decisively to the modernization and development of our region, and to act against the growing ageism of our society, identifying the discrimination suffered by older people, recognizing the positive impact that their knowledge and experience produce and communicating how important transgenerational cooperation is for the Good design.
And, in addition, taking into account the lessons learned from “MDRM. Stage One”, address some more, very operational objectives:
_Consolidate the working group by programming activities in relation to the two complementary areas: RE-KNOWLEDGE and DESIGNING THE FUTURE.
_ Expand and keep alive the non-normative digital archive that constitutes the website created and all related communication.
_Present the idea and its results at the national level, for greater social return.
_To publish a design publication about design and its protagonists, designers from all disciplines, bilingual Spanish/English, which optimises the work carried out and addresses a complementary approach to that provided by the website, allowing content to be completed and expanding the impact, approaching other non-Spanish-speaking audiences, and turning the object itself into a design object that immerses itself in the history of design and its protagonists.
From the beginning it was seen coming that this project of exploration, approach and communication of the trajectories of our senior colleagues and those who died prematurely, was interesting, urgent, and would be accompanied by an emotional component to consider, as it is being. And it was also to be expected that the stories of some people would lead us to discover new ones.
But the reality has exceeded all expectations, as MDRM has become much larger than expected, in different aspects and dimensions. Among them, a longer list of Protagonists and the interest in having in this project not only designers and advertising creatives, but also clients who have played an important role as promoters of design culture, for their vision of society, their own technological innovations and for being welcoming and concentrators of creative talent in their spaces. We are referring, among others, to entrepreneurs, founders of printing and journalistic media and to heads of public institutions, programmers and contractors whose memories are very interesting.
The group has found that most of the work of these design protagonists is not digitized or even organized, which complicates documentary work.
And there is also an intergenerational work that, started with the Higher School of Design (Edi) with the fanzine “Ganas y Canas”, is worth promoting.
The story for the Undersecretary of Culture mentions all these aspects and does not forget the many congratulations collected, which have reinforced the group’s intuition about the relevance of the project, although they have also significantly increased the pressure, due to external expectations towards it.
In November of this year, confirmation was received that DIP has been one of the 65 organizations chosen and that it has obtained the total financial support requested, 18,450 euros, to which it must add 20% more to comply with the bases of the call.
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