UNESCO Creative Cities

Chief JK John Kasaipwalova with aspiring writers
at the National Museum and Arts Gallery p

Port Moresby can become a UNESCO’s City of Literature alongside some of the diverse and complex cities of the world.

A “UNESCO’s City of Literature program” as described in Wikipedia “is part of a wider Creative Cities Network, which was launched in 2004 and is currently made up of 180 UNESCO Creative Cities globally…The Network was born out of UNESCO’s Global City Network’s aim is to ‘promote the social, economic, and cultural development of cities in both the developed and the developing world.”

The cities in the network promote their local creative scenes and conform to UNESCO’s goal of fostering cultural activity. As of last year (2017) 28 cities have been declared that are now part of this network.

I have been invited to participate in two of the UNESCO’s City of Literature in Australia and New Zealand last year (2017). I participated as a writer in the Melbourne Writers Festival in August-September last year. Melbourne became a UNESCO’s City of Literature in 2008. The second UNESCO’s City of Literature I participated in, last year (2017) as an honored guest, was Dunedin, New Zealand.  Dunedin became a UNESCO’s City of Literature in 2014. 

Other notable cities in the world declared as UNESCO’s City of Literature are Edinburgh, Scotland (2004), Iowa City, Iowa, United States (2008), Dublin, Ireland (2010), Reykjavik, Iceland (2011), Norwich, England (2012), Krakow, Poland (2013), Heidelberg, Germany (2014), Granada, Spain, Baghdad, Iraq (2015), Barcelonar, Spain (2015), Lviv, Ukraine (2015), Ljubljana, Slovenia (2015), Montevideo, Uruguay (2015), Obidos, Portugal (2015), Tartu, Estonia (2015), Ulyanovsk, Russia (2015), Bucheon, South Korea (2017), Durban, South Africa (2017), Liliehammer, Norway, Machester, England (2017), Milan, Italy (2017), Quebec City, Canada (2017), Seattle, United States (2017), and Utrecht, Netherlands (2017).

Port Moresby could also become a UNESCO's City of Literature. For a city to become a UNESCO’s City of Literature it must meet the following criteria: (1) quality, quantity, and diversity of publishing in the city; (2) quality and quantity of educational programs focusing on domestic or foreign literature at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels; (3) Literature, drama, and/or poetry playing an important role in the city; hosting literary events and festivals, which promote domestic and foreign literature; existence of libraries, bookstores, and public or private cultural centres, which preserve, promote, and disseminate domestic and foreign literature; involvement by the publishing sectors in translating literary works from diverse national languages and foreign literature, and active involvement of traditional and new media in promoting literature and strengthening the market for literary products. Submitted bids are reviewed every four years.

Port Moresby can become a UNESCO’s City of Literature based on the historical development of literature and literary education introduced here in Port Moresby before spreading into other Pacific Island countries. 

Thee historical context and the impact it has on PNG and other Pacific Islands, including on New Zealand Maori writers and Australian Aboriginal writers is there. It is a cross-sector program that will involve people from NCDC, UPNG, Department of Education, printers, publishers, booksellers, National Museum, Arts, and libraries.

Port Moresby has the ingredients for it to become a UNESCO’s city of Literature.

I think once people value works of literature for what they are worth then we will have a society that has read itself through the eyes of its writers. In our case we struggle to understand ourselves. Many of us have written and published our works, but none of our stories, poems, books, plays, and essays are read in schools, let alone read by other Papua New Guineans.  Having a UNESCO’s City of Literature program might help in that direction.

Second reason is that a vibrant city is not just about infrastructure development and fancy facilities, but it must also reflect the arts, culture, music, drama, and books, publishing, and festivals on literature. It becomes very boring when it is just about one aspect of contemporary living and modernity.

Russell Soaba & Drusilla Modjeska talking about writing at the National Museum and Arts Gallery

I write this with the hope that winds of change will sway to the side of literature, writing, publishing, writer’s readings, and festivals. There is no doubt we can do all these, but only if funding is made available for this purpose. 

We used to have the PNG Festival of Arts and Culture in the early 1990s, Ondobobondo poetry recitals, literary publications, National Literature Competition, and we still have the regular activities of the Port Moresby Arts Theatre, the Crocodile Prize, the National Book Week and other activities of the National Libraries and Archives Board.

To make Port Moresby become a UNESCO’s City of Literature all stakeholders have to work together to make it happen. It is a project with many positives.  Through celebrating of literature through the establishment of Port Moresby as UNESCO’s City of Literature, we can begin to work on monumentalizing our pioneer writers and thinkers. Imagine having a park or boulevard or walkway with the burst of pioneer PNG writers like Ahuia Ova, Ligeremaluogan Linge, Albert Maori Kiki, Vincent Eri, Kumalau Tawali, John Waiko, Arthur Jawodimbari, John Kasaipwalova, Russell Soaba, Nora Vagi Brash, John Kadiba, Leo Hannet, and many more. We can also have contemporary ones listed here as well.

Students Learning to writer from the Chief at the National Museum and Arts Gallery

The Nora Vagi Brash Amphitheatre at the National Museum and Gallery is where contemporary PNG plays and dramas can be performed. Nothing seems to be happening there. If Port Moresby becomes a UNESCO City of Literature then it will focus on PNG literary culture.

A lot of young people do not even know some of our pioneer writers or have read books such The Crocodile, Ten Thousand Years in a Life Time, Sana, Aimbe the Pastor, Three Short Novels of Papua New Guinea, or even poems like “Aia” by Alan Natachee, “Bush Kanaka Speaks” by Kumalau Tawali, or plays like “The Ungrateful Daughter”,  “Manki Masta”, “The Good Woman of Konedobu” or even “Which Way Bigman?”

I do hope that the UNESCO Office in PNG will support this concept to ‘promote the social, economic, and cultural development of cities in both the developed and the developing world.”