Art based tourism

When Art and Tourism Converge!

You stand in front of a Shekasteh- Nastaliq calligraphy, and your eyes track along the eye- catching and elegant lines and curves which magnetizes you to the other world and fascinates you with the mystery of this unknown world. No matter how long have you feel trapped in a life of routines, monotony and sameness, the image of this magical artwork will be recorded in your unconscious mind, and awaken your thirst to being in a place- in a world- you don’t even  remember?

What is the influence of art on modern man?

Modern man is frustrated and he has missed something in his life. He feels lost in bustling of modern life and forget about his feeling of homesickness and isolation, but as his is free from the entrapments of daily life, he seeks the roots of these feelings and comes back to ego and his own world. Then he compares his real life with the ideal one driven from his imaginations and search for signs of the imaginary world. Art, is the most tangible manifestation of the unknown and immaterial world; the world from which we have vague memories…. A world we’ve been apart from!

 Art is not only an immaterial phenomenon, but also it has materialistic dimensions; it’s of us, of clay, of man…. art make us aware of other ways of thinking, feeling, and imagining, and give us the opportunity to challenge human endeavors. By art we can share our creative experiences with each other. Art is the common language of humans to communicate and talk about “who are we?” and “where are we?”

         “What art does is to coax us away from the mechanical and towards the miraculous.

           Art asks us to think differently, see differently, and hear differently, and ultimately

           to act differently……. . Art is memory — which is quite different [from] history. Art

          asks that we remember who we are, and usually that asking has to come as provocation.”

         -Jeanette Winterson (2006)

What is art based tourism?

The modern man who is seeking to find the answers of these questions through ego identification, turns to art and travels around the world to see and hear how the other world is seen, interpreted and recreated in different cultures around the world. The modern man’s enthusiasm for this searching, developed a new market in tourism which is called “Art based Tourism”.

Art based tourism, as a subset of cultural tourism, has flourished in recent years. According to the UNWTO, 37% of the total number of tourists around the world, are cultural- historical tourists, and art is always one of their main motivations. From the past to the present, many individuals have traveled to attend in music concerts, art events and festivals. The new generation of art based tourists are not satisfied by just seeing and listening, but they are eager to experience directly the creation of art and to have their own story. This generation is seeking to travel experiences through which one can feel a connection to himself and to his surrounding world; travelers learn while doing, use this knowledge to develop their skills, and feel satisfied with their flourished abilities. That’s the value the art based tourism- which is integrated into creative tourism concepts- will add to the tourists’ experience.

One of the characteristics of art based tourism is to present what embedded in art and cultural context and providing the opportunity for travelers to discover and experience other cultures, which ultimately leads to production of high quality artworks and creating a mutual relationship with tourism sector. In Art based tourism people are connected through their hearts not their languages leading them to cultivate friendships and sustainable cultural exchanges.

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