Delivered over 4 years, across 8 European cities, with 13 international partners who implemented a series of culture-led ecological regeneration projects, Future DiverCities became a movement showing how culture-led urban regeneration could be a key to more inclusive, equitable, and environmentally adapted common spaces.
Led by La Friche La Belle de Mai and focusing on the often forgotten empty spaces in cities and beyond, Future DiverCities fostered artistic interventions in 8 locations – Berlin, Zagreb, Kuopio, Florence/Londa, Timisoara, Athens, Liepaja and Marseille – with a total budget of 3.3M EUR, co-funded through the Creative Europe programme of the EU.
On 16 April 2026, the project’s final event took place in Marseille with all partners, collaborators, local communities and public, sharing their experiences across the continent, underlining the results of the cultural interventions, and sharing their personal highlights from the project, under the umbrella topic of Cultures in Regeneration: Urban Ecologies in the Making.
According to Martina Aiazzi-Mancini, who curated LAMA’s intervention in Londa, outside Florence, four years seemed to be just enough time to allow the partners to get to know and earn the trust of local residents, unearth their needs and wishes are for the intervention space, the needs of the younger generations using it, and explore deeply how artists could helpfully contribute to improve these squares, gardens and habitats.
The European Commission representatives applauded the Future DiverCities pilots and research findings, which could really help culture leaders engage further in sustainable urban regeneration initiatives, and potentially contributing to a paradigm shift that places both people and ecology at the heart of urban regeneration.
The partners concurred that paying attention to the relationships between humans and non-humans is key to envisioning a fairer future for all, and culture can help cities thrive within planetary limits, creating places that are inclusive, resilient, and vibrant.
The conclusion of the event, as summarised by the project’s creative director, Laetitia Manach is that the Future DiverCities pilots are rich learning experiences. Even though the project has now ended, the work is not finished, as the battle to preserve the commons against the economy is ongoing.
