Ottonomy Information

OTTOnomy brings the rich tradition of the Balkans to a creative imagining of our vibrant, inter- connected futures. Beginning in Albania, OTTOnomy will work in the Western Balkans to restore a historical monument and bring it back to life as a self-supporting Regional Center for Art, Culture, and Education and as destination sites for cultural heritage tourism. By promoting the arts and public education, the center provides a space for people in the Balkans to find common ground with each other, to develop relationships that create friendships, to embrace difference and handle conflicts peacefully, to work collaboratively across borders, and to reimagine futures of peace and possibility. Past and present, East and West, meet in OTTOnomy. The OTTO in OTTOnomy represents the architectural beauty of the cultural monument OTTOnomy wants to restore and bring back to life as a life-giving resource for the community. The Onomy in OTTOnomy represents the individuality and agency of autonomy autonomy as the individuals ability to create, to build, to grow By restoring historical monuments and creating them as homes to nurture mind, body, and spirit, OTTOnomy builds communities that support the individual and in which the individual works for the community in a shared vision of restoring the social bonds that hold us in common. This unique initiative melds cultural heritage with the vibrant creative intellectual life of the city and brings historical monuments back to life as income-generating centers that provide a holistic model of sustainable economic development and urban transformation.