11 December 2019 and 21 February 2020. Two dates that are reference points for months of research, assembly and construction of the story of stories, that of a wonderful journey to be preserved and shown to the world. The faces, the projects, the spaces, the workshops, the exhibitions, the events, the emotions: all that has been Matera 2019 is today part of the large open window on the Google Arts & Culture platform, an immense online museum where you can retrace the extraordinary year of Matera European Capital of Culture 2019, reading about it from exclusive and emotional points of view.

Matera 2019 is the first European capital of culture to be present on the Google Arts & Culture platform, alongside the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world such as the New York MoMA, the Palace of Versailles and the Venice Biennale.
The presence of Matera 2019 on the platform developed by Google to promote and preserve online culture does not simply aim to tell the material heritage of the city, but above all to enhance the stories and processes that accompanied the 2019 initiatives.

Unlike other institutions, in fact, we worked and concentrated on the processes and stories that made this exponential global visibility in the cultural field possible. The narrations are therefore dedicated to the volunteers and citizens that were the protagonists of cultural productions, to national and international artists who have enriched the cultural offer, to large and more immersive exhibitions, to film productions, to the Cava del Sole that became a vessel for all the music of the world, to the great workshop of Matera 2019, to underground Matera (the productions hosted in the underground spaces), to the expanded city (the activities in Piccianello, in the village of La Martella, Serra Venerdì, the quarries, the Murgia, the prison, the Tre Torri Theatre), to the whole of Basilicata, which in 2019 lent itself to welcome and produce various cultural and creative processes, to the Sassi stone districts as a stage for the European capital of culture (Inhabiting the Opera, Open sound, Heritage Games, Matera Alberga, to name a few) to the great co-productions (Rai Radio3, Teatro San Carlo, Teatro delle Albe, etc.), to the murals that today colour the centre and the periphery (but not only) of the city of Matera.

After the launch of the dedicated page and the first stories, which took place in December 2019, in February 2020 the narrative process was complete, enriched with other stories and elements, of which people and places are the protagonists. Many multimedia pieces and routes mapped for the first time with Street View, with added photographic and video content, dedicated to the events of the Matera 2019 cultural programme, for a total of 519 elements accompanied by a narrative available in Italian and English, for a highly representative story of the major thematic strands of Matera 2019.

An important result therefore, the result of a great collaboration between the digital communication team of Matera 2019 and the editorial staff of Google Arts & Culture, who have approved all the proposed content, confirming both the quality of the materials and the choice of storytelling method.