Colombia will celebrates its cultural heritage in September, with more than 90 community events throughout the country and the second annual, “National Culture and Patrimony Encounter” in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta.
First occurring in 1997, the “Patrimony Month” celebration seeks to unite Colombians and bring them closer to their traditions and cultures with the catchy slogan “in September there are no holidays, but I am here.” Instead of focusing on city-specific events, “Patrimony Month” aims to integrate the entire nation in the celebration and discovery of their cultural history and future.
For the entire month of September, small municipalities as well as Colombia’s largest cities such as Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Bogota, Medellin, and Santa Marta, will be hosting artistic and folkloric exhibits, photography workshops, traditional games, food experiences, guided tours of historic centers, and many more ways to get to know Colombia
“The purpose [of the event] is to continue opening spaces so that society in general will appropriate and recognize the cultural patrimony of the nation,” a spokesman of Colombia’s Culture Ministry, Ibon Maritza Munevar, explained to Colombia Reports.
Special events include the second annual “National Photography Marathon,” the fifth annual National Gastronomy competition, and the second annual, grand finale, “National Culture and Patrimony Encounter” in Santa Marta.
“We invite you to celebrate ‘Patrimony Month’ together with us. Keep in mind that patrimony is everywhere and is everything, in the everyday things that surround us in our daily life, like in the teapot, in the bottle where you keep the milk, in a painting, in the house, in the park … in everything that can have an emotional significance or in anything that we can identify,” elaborated the Culture Ministry’s Patrimony Director Juan Luis Isaza Londoño.
