Ingenia Cultural Fund: more than an artistic investment tool, a path to social change

The call for applications is now open for the only competitive cultural fund that combines economic, logistical, operational and monitoring support that is carried out annually in the country.

For the fourth consecutive year, the City of Knowledge Foundation is opening the call for applications to the Ingenia Cultural Fund, a support and investment mechanism in the creative and cultural sector of Panama, in projects that encourage social change through innovation and citizen participation.

In addition to a financial contribution, the Ingenia Cultural Fund is positioned as the only competitive cultural fund that combines financial, logistical, operational and monitoring support that is carried out annually in the country. The winning projects will have the opportunity to develop their proposal within the 120 hectares of the campus that is today the City of Knowledge.

Applications are open from October 29, 2024 to Sunday, December 1, 2024. To apply for the Fund, it is necessary to enter the platform https://ingenia.ciudaddelsaber.org/convocatoria/ , read the details of the call, complete and send the application form. The projects presented must follow the following themes:

• Culture and social innovation
• History of Panama and the City of Knowledge
• Intangible and tangible heritage
• Gender
• Biodiversity: fauna and flora of the City of Knowledge
• Environmental issues such as climate change
• Sustainable Development Goals and their understanding
• Inclusion

More than an artistic investment tool, the Ingenia Cultural Fund becomes a way to promote social change through the fund's winning projects and their staging. For the 2023-2024 period, the selected projects were: “Palenque Afrodisíaco” by Afrodisíaco, “Los juicios” by Enrique Castro Ríos and Invasión de 1989 by Infonimados. Each of these featured activities and performances open to the public, where more than 1,000 people were able to attend, learn about and enjoy these meeting spaces.

About the Ingenia Cultural Fund

The original idea for the fund emerged from an artistic residency developed at the end of 2019 by the artist and producer Eleonora Dall'Asta, who approached the City of Knowledge Foundation looking for a place where she could complete her final project for the master's degree in contemporary circus at the Stockholm University of the Arts, which involved the creation of an artistic residency, and the aerial dance piece 'Suspending the prison'.

This approach was one of the first steps towards the creation of the Ingenia Cultural Fund, which emerged in 2020 from the Vice Presidency of Communications of the City of Knowledge Foundation. Its objective is to create economic and public support that would promote the development and execution of cultural and creative projects on campus.