"Diary of an encouter (Diario di un incontro)" is the title of the publication, available in Italian, English and Japanese, in which we wanted to bring together all the initiatives carried out for Matera European Capital of Culture 2019 together with our partner EU-Japan Fest, a Japanese association of private companies that for 30 years has collaborated with all European Capitals of Culture to create opportunities for exchanges and shared work between Japanese and European artists.

Not just a meeting between artists, but between cultures, between populations and, ultimately, between people. The most emotive images of this meeting, which can be seen by browsing the catalogue, primarily portray the smiles and kindness of the Japanese volunteers who arrived in Matera with the Volunteers Exchange programme. Our friends have shown incredible enthusiasm in making their contribution to some important Matera 2019 projects, while at the same time finding a great welcome among the local volunteers and the Matera community.

And then there are the cultural productions, which involved many artists from Japan: the actress Ema Tashiro in the show 'Humana Vergogna', part of the project 'Poetry of Shame' co-produced by #Reteteatro41; the artist Kaori Kato in the workshops on paper and the creation of installations for 'M.E.M.O.RI. - The Euro Mediterranean Museum of Re(f)used Objects' co-produced by Luna al guinzaglio; the juggler and contortionist Hisashi Watanabe, of the Atama to Kuchi company, on stage with 'Inverted Tree' as part of the project dedicated to the contemporary circus 'Circus +'; the artist Takashi Kuribayashi, with his two artistic installations 'Entrances' and 'Cielo Capolvolto'; the multimedia artist Ryoichi Kurokawa with his audiovisual performance 'Subassemblies' for the 'In Vitro - Artificial Sonification' project co-produced by LOXOSconcept; the artist Hiroaki Umeda in the digital art and dance performance 'Intensional Particle' for the 'Quantum Danza' project; the architect Gakutoshi Kojima, who in 1974 participated in the international competition for the recovery of the Sassi stone districts, protagonist of a design workshop and a talk organised by the Open Design School.

Through the 'City Pop Up' project, Open Design School also hosted the Solar Cooking Club workshop with Japanese architects Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima of the Atelier Bow Wow studio, while for the Artistic Residencies project, thanks to the collaboration with the Basilicata Chamber of Commerce, the Japanese artist Yu Arak, who has worked with the network of companies linked to Casamatera, came to Matera. Another artistic residency was that of the 'European Eyes On Japan' project, which brought photographers from the European Capitals to Japan, observed through the shots taken by a ‘European eye’, and the 'Passport Programme', a joint programme of cultural exchanges between artists and culture experts from Basilicata and Japan.

All of the above and other content are included in this volume that we have created as a sort of diary in verse, disseminating between the pages, triplets, in homage to the tradition of Japanese haiku, written by Edoardo Delle Donne, the Basilicata author of the 'Manifesto for Matera', an emotional map in eight points from which the artist Kuribayashi obtained the verses that constituted the verbal material of his installation 'Cielo Capovolto'.

Meetings that are intended for deeper bonds and exchanges. Because a meeting is not only in the moment, it lasts over time... people to people!

Diary of an encouter (Diario di un incontro) / Catalogue