Heritage First!, the first biennial in Romania dedicated exclusively to cultural heritage proposes a hybrid of cultural events that will combine the fascination and diversity of cultural heritage with professionals in their fields of study, volunteering and the community under the auspices of a biennial with the aim of contributing to cultural regeneration and promoting cultural heritage in Romania.
The program aims to use the power of heritage in community regeneration issues and to mediate between several categories of public by implementing a package of activities broken down into four categories - conferences, contests and calls for ideas, art and culture, exhibitions and events. By the nature of the proposed activities, the program brings together specialists from the cultural sector, representatives of the public sector, investors, artists, students and volunteers, NGOs, the local and tourist community.
The biennial proposes a hybrid of cultural events in the form of a satellite in Timișoara with the aim of highlighting and exploring the relationship of people with the spaces and the communities in which they live in, as well as to co-create and promote good practices in the field of sustainable heritage development.
The project consolidates interdisciplinary cultural practices through an artistic residency that will connect Baile Herculane and Timișoara, and coagulates specialists, representatives of the cultural sector, artists, students and volunteers through a hybrid of specialized events that will take place in Timișoara on the occasion of World Day of Heritage.
The proposed activities connect a city designated European Capital of Culture in 2023 and a spa town in development, recently included in the Network of Historic Spa Cities in Europe and in the European Route of Historic Spa Cities, being the only spa town in Romania in these lists. The activities of the satellite program developed in Timișoara come in support of the thematic packages as they were defined within the Heritage First! biennial, have a unitary effect and contribute in an integrated way to the consolidation of the local cultural ecosystem and to the support of the national cultural dialogue.
Cultural heritage is therefore approached through two perspectives - an artistic one, acquired through the experience of a mobile artistic residency and - a specialized perspective outlined by a series of conferences, presentations and workshops that come later in the continuation of the elaboration of the package of documents containing resolutions and results from the thematic conferences that will take place in Baile Herculane.