Rome, the guest city of the Mercè 2022
The Italian capital will show their culture with shows, concerts and other activities.
Since 2007, at each edition of the Mercè festivities, Barcelona has invited a city with which it maintains or wishes to maintain unique ties of friendship or cooperation. The guest city showcases its contemporary artistic expressions during the festivities and contributes to the festival with a unique cultural profile. This year, the guest city will be Rome, the first Italian city to take part in Barcelona's biggest celebration. At the moment, a delegation led by Jordi Martí, deputy mayor for Culture, Education, Science and Community, is in the Italian capital to work on the programme and weave institutional complicities. Meetings will be held with the Roman Deputy Mayor, Silvia Scozzese, the Culture Councillor, Miguel Gotor, and with representatives of the Spanish Embassy in Rome and cultural agents of the city.
With this invitation, Barcelona wants to restore normality to the festivities, which will run between 23 and 26 September, after two editions in which the health emergency has conditioned them. Rome will showcase its artistic potential, and its proposals will be part of the Mercè Arts de Carrer and Mercè Música programmes.
Relations between Rome and Barcelona go back a long way. Both city councils share lines of work on municipal management. They have collaborated before, promoting policies and strategies, such as the drafting of the Rome Charter of Cultural Rights. The Catalan capital is home to a large Italian population, and there are institutions like the Italian School and the Italian Cultural Institute of Barcelona.
Medellin (2007), Istanbul (2009), Dakar (2010), St. Petersburg (2011), Montreal (2012), Vienna (2013), Stockholm (2014), Buenos Aires (2015), Paris (2016), Reykjavik (2017), Lisbon (2018), Beirut (2019), Barcelona (2020, due to the health emergency) and Havana (2021) have been the other invited cities before Rome.