This initiative will have a financial contribution from the European Regional Development Fund, amounting to €1.5 million and should unite “cultural agents, municipalities and citizens, in defense of the artistic community and cultural heritage, intangible and material”, during the first five months of 2021, according to the AML statement. The approval of the application submitted by the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, and its 18 municipalities, to the Lisbon 2020 Regional Operational Programme, was announced at the meeting of the Metropolitan Culture Working Group.

Mural 18 will start in January 2021, and run until the following May. “The programme will soon be revealed,” the municipalities said. Through Mural 18, “a set of events will be developed in multiple artistic areas (music, theatre, dance, street arts, etc.), primarily outdoors, and in spaces that value the cultural heritage of our territory, contemplating, whenever possible, roaming actions”.

“At a particularly delicate time for the cultural sector, and for the agents and structures involved in its design, production, the municipalities of the metropolitan area of Lisbon, in a unanimous way have set up a programme with an impact on the subsistence of those who make culture their life”, they say.

The municipalities of the AML stress that this initiative “is also a clear position on the importance of cultural activities in the life of our community”.