Andy addresses Mexican Senators

Andy Pratt gave a keynote lecture at Mexico City’s first major conference on Creative Cities (Sept 23-4). Mexico has established a Creative City Strategy called Laboratory for the City, Mexico City’s Government Experimental Office. They hosted the event, PODER HACER (a play of words meaning “the power to do / what we’re able to do”) to celebrate creation, specifically urban creation. The aim of the conference was to gather the knowledge and to present it to the local congress in the process of building a new law that advocates for the power to create. Andy was accompanied by a number of other speakers including Charles Landry and Prof. Nestor Canclini (who was a recent visitor to CCI). The event was attained by local activists and policy makers keen to discuss and make Mexico an innovative example of creative city making.

The event certainly got the discussion going in Mexico City, Charles and Andy were invited to speak to a special meeting of Mexican senators to brief them on the challenges and opportunity of the cultural economy and cities.

The pictures show Andy and Charles Landry with Senator Mario Delgado in the chamber of the Mexican senate.