Opening of the bookshop at the Civic Museum of the Ursino Castle

The Ursino Castle of Catania is
getting ready to the opening of the exhibition Picasso e le sue passion. While the preparation of the exhibition
is underway, in the room XIII a totally new space, that will characterise the
castle in the coming four years, is shaping up: CUB, the Castello Ursino
Bookshop.

Books; merchandising related to the
Castle and its artworks, but also to the exhibitions that will take place,
starting with the one on Picasso; objects from Sicilian artisans (zero
kilometre); products resulting from projects in favour of legality; and also
cultural products and events. CUB aims to be a cultural and tourist reference
point for the tourists coming to Catania to discover a piece of Sicily, but
also for the citizens who will get a new way to ‘live’ the castle.

Today, the municipality officially
assigns the bookshop to a group of enterprises that includes Officine Culturali (association
responsible for the management and valorisation of culture, specifically of the
Benedictine Monastery of Catania) and Karma
Communication (agency of communication interested in cultural and tourist
themes).

According to Francesco Mannino, president of Officine Culturali “this is a bet
that Officine Culturali and Karma Communication are making that will allow to
create jobs. At the same time it is a challenging experiment. Maybe those who
did not participate to the call, made this same consideration, with an opposite
perspective, though. Despite this assignment has a cost for us (the licence
will cost 36.200 euro for four years, i.e. 750 euro per month) we decided to
gamble and invest in our town and in the civic value of its museums, on
cultural and community tourism and on its communication. This is not only a
commercial project. It aims to propose ideas and services to those who
following the opening of CUB, we hope, will find a new reason to visit the
castle. They will not only find ‘products’ but a different way to communicate
our cultural heritage. We will not be welcoming ‘clients’ but ‘users’ of
culture”.

The bet and the experiment will be
visible from April 3, but are already in motion though the group of enterprises
should have had six months to prepare and open the bookshop. Learning about the
exhibition on Picasso, CUB became real in advance to offer residents and
tourists a further service during an event that will mark the 2015 cultural and
tourist framework of Catania and Sicily.

The opening is set and the invitation
is extended to the whole city.