The government of Huenya announced today that it would launch a new program meant to integrate public art and innovative architecture into its ongoing reconstruction of infrastructure and public spaces throughout the country.
The “Huenyan Aspiration Project” initiative is meant to “provide inspiration and beauty for all Huenyans to enjoy,” Secretary of Culture and Sport Quahcatzin told DTNS. The initiative will be led by the Department of Culture and Sport, but is expected to pull in several other departments. The Departments of Infrastructure, Education, Public Works and the Environment are all expected to participate. The initiative will review proposals for specific projects from “everyone from artists and architects to environmentalists and nature experts”. The initiative will not be limited to Huenyans only. Secretary Quahcatzin said that proposals will be accepted from “any interested party from any country with good relations with Huenya.”
The ultimate goal of the initiative is to “ensure that as we rebuild Huenya, we remember that we are building something that will ideally stand for many generations beyond our own,” President Xiadani told the Chamber of Deputies today in her own announcement. More conservative members of the Chamber pressed the President to explain why such an initiative was needed now. Anquechotl, a Party of Huitzilopochtli legislator from Tepala, questioned the wisdom of such an initiative. “We are still rebuilding from a civil war, as well as the more recent aggression against us by the Xiomeran Empire. We have much to do just to keep Huenyan cities and regions functioning and continuing to fix that damage. It is frankly a hard expenditure to justify under the circumstances.”
The President responded to the conservatives’ skepticism by arguing that now is, in fact, the best time for such an initiative. “We are not just rebuilding physical infrastructure in this country. We are, in fact, building a nation where none existed before. It is far easier to build cultural projects now rather than figuring out how to implement them later once our infrastructure is fully rebuilt. It will also be more beneficial sooner rather than later as we continue to define a Huenyan identity and who we are as a nation.” The President also pushed back against the argument that cultural projects were frivolous at this time. “People need basic infrastructure, naturally. But that is not all that they need to truly flourish. Great works of art and architecture help expand our mental and emotional horizons, and foster a sense of pride. When we think of truly great nations, we see nations that value their culture as much as they do power lines or roads,” the President said. “These aspirational projects will show our people, and the world, who Huenyans are and what our nation is.”
