The city and the local creative industry have lined up a number of activities for the celebration of the 4th Ibagiw festival as part of the local government’s compliance to the city being declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a Creative City for crafts and folk arts.
On November 16-18, 2021, 8 am to 5 pm, there will be a Basic Architectural Design and Landscaping of Tourism Properties which will be held at the Baguio Country club.
A virtual roundtable discussion dubbed “Quo Vadis Baguio” focusing on the city’s urban renewal settlement and land use will be held on November 18, 2021, 2-4:30 pm.
Further, there will also be a virtual merchandising on November 19, 2021, 8 am to 12 noon.
On November 26, 2021, 8 am to 12 noon, there will be another virtual activity on the Creative Economies and the 4IR which will be followed by the so-called Bisita sa Fablab which will be held at the Saint Louis University (SLU) fabrication laboratory from 1-5 pm.
A lecture on Animation 101 dubbed Dap-ayan will be held virtually on November 27, 2021 where the same will also be live streamed through Facebook from 9 am to 5 pm.
The closing ceremonies of this year’s Ibagiw Festival will be held on November 30, 2021 where there will be the so-called Anido Night.
On October 31, 2017, the UNESCO Creative Cities Network conferred to Baguio City its title as a Creative City for Crafts and Folk Arts in recognition of the city’s rich creative industry and that the city was given an initial 4 years to sustain the same for the benefit of the concerned creative industry stakeholders.
Earlier, the city launched the various activities that had been lined up for this year’s Ibagiw Festival which is a combination of both virtual and face to face events that will serve as the initial wave of activities geared towards gradually and safely reviving the heavily impacted local economy due to the ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
The UNESCO Creative Cities Network will be evaluating and assessing the city’s performance in sustaining its identity as a Creative City for Crafts and Folk Arts based on the 4-year plan that had been submitted when it was declared as such in 2017.
Concerned local creative industry stakeholders expressed hope that the decline in the number of COVID-19 cases will continue to pave the way for the sustained implementation of the gradual and safe revival of the local economy because the creative industry had been one of the heavily impacted sector with the said pandemic which had been going over the past 20 months.
Baguio City was the first city in the country that had been recognized by the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a Creative City for Crafts and Folk Arts where its recognition was followed by the declaration of other cities in the country as such but in other aspects of the creative industry. By Dexter A. See
