Ansamed

(ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 22 - The EU-funded project MANUMED, implemented in the framework of the Euromed Heritage 4 Programme, is organising an exhibition and workshops on the theme of calligraphy under the title 'The hand of the calligrapher', in the Algerian city of Ghardaïa.

According to the Enpi website (www.enpi-info.eu), the exhibition will take place from 25 November to 9 December and will feature the work of several calligraphers from different Mediterranean countries, as Algeria, France, Turkey and Morocco.

It will also be an opportunity to discover many manuscripts, centuries old, presented by the association of Abi Ishak Tefeyche, the Bibliothèque Nationale d'Algérie (National Library of Algeria) and the association for the protection of the heritage of the town of Bou Saada. Workshops for young people and a calligraphy contest will be held on November 26, in collaboration with the Association TAGEMI and El-Atteuf Cultural Centre. The workshops will be organised and open for all interested local young people of Ghardaïa and will be conducted by three calligraphers participating in the exhibition.

''The Contest - said Carol Giordano of the Manumed project - is open to amateurs and calligraphers, so they can share their works with the public''. Three calligraphers will be selected and will have the opportunity to present their work at the exhibition. The first prize is an internship at the Centre de Conservation du Livre (Arles). ''The written heritage is not only a complex idea, synthesis of the concrete and intangible, of the past, the present and the future'' explains Carol Giordano.

The Manumed project aims to contribute to the preservation of the diversity of written heritage, and its corollary, language, as an intangible heritage. It gives priority to training in the field of cultural heritage with particular focus on involving young people in the development of contemporary solutions, on paying more attention to national and minority languages in the region, and on supporting craftsmen who work in the domain of manuscripts and are still practicing ancestral techniques.

(ANSAmed)