Guadalajara
Guadalajara is the second largest city in Mexico, with a population of 1,495,182 in the Municipality and 5,000,000 in its metropolitan area. Birthplace of numerous world-renown creators, including film director Guillermo del Toro and architect Luis Ramiro Barragán Morfín, Guadalajara has a flourishing creative ecosystem. The city is known to be a meeting point for innovation and technologies, attracting state-of-art technology developers and creators. Media arts in Guadalajara represents 1,200 established enterprises, generating more than 24,000 direct and indirect jobs in the city.
Guadalajara adopts a cross-sectorial approach of media arts as an innovative and interactive tool that adds value to other creative fields but also to the way that citizens experience the city. To name but a few, the Guadalajara Light Festival (GDLuz) offers residents the opportunity to rediscover the city through video mappings, multi-media shows and interactive projections. Alongside this, the Cultural Festival Sucede promotes cultural diversity through artistic happenings throughout the city's public spaces.
Many initiatives and policies implemented by the city favour the development of creative and cultural industries, such as Tasa 0%, a full tax-exemption programme on tickets sold for non-profit public cultural shows. The Municipal Development Plan; a strategy implemented to improve access to culture, stimulates growth within the city's creative sector, as well as organises and sponsors artistic groups, cultural organisations and creative companies with the aim of extending the creative potential of local cultural actors. Guadalajara also obtains state funds from the Stimulus Programme for Creation and Artistic Development (PECDA), aimed at promoting cultural-led development by joining resources from both public and private sector.
As a Creative City of Media Arts, Guadalajara envisages:
- supporting local talents and advancing creative industries through initiatives, placing media arts at the core of their programmes, such as the International Book Fair (FIL), the Guadalajara Light Festival (GDLuz), and the Creative Digital City (CCD);
- establishing a creative and innovation hub within the city centre, aimed at enhancing living standards and affirming Guadalajara's position as a hub for creative and digital industries in Latin America;
- strengthening cross-sectorial approaches between media arts and other creative fields covered by the Network, especially literature;
- fostering the mobility of artists within the UCCN, enriching their work through intercultural exchanges;
- promoting media arts co-productions and facilitating the exchange of knowledge and experiences with other member cities; and
- participating actively within the network and the media arts subnetwork by notably proposing a candidature to host a future sub-network meeting.
