Murray Bell perfectly captured Porto's state of mind

As Founder and Director of global creative platform, Semi Permanent, Murray has over 15 years of experience within the creative industries, having programmed live festivals across the world including Sydney, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, London and Stockholm.

The above lines you can read at the Semi-Permanent official website; the ones that follow, Murray Bell shared with us at Porto City hall, on the occasion of the official announcement that the Invicta is the chosen city to host Semi Permanent 2020, in a ceremony that took place at Porto City Hall main Hall, on 10th December.

From the moment Murray Bell entered Porto City Hall, it was clear that Porto is going to be a part of Semi Permanent legacy. His attitude spoke volumes about the project he initiated some twenty years ago. His conversation was peppered with mentions of his starting the Semi Permanent project.

Murray shared with us that he adores the ocean (as any Australian, we surely believe!) and that he already had the chance to ride Porto's waves a couple of weeks ago.

One of the attractions for Murray was that Porto is an incredibly beautiful city, that offers something very unique to the world, and that is "this just perfectly little moment in time right now, and hopefully for the next couple of years, where it is a place for creatives and people, in general, to have a bit of space to imagine and dream about the future".

"For me Semi-Permanent was borne out of the feeling that everything was going to get very digital, in the future, I had this sense that as the internet was sort of growing in popularity and I felt that a lot of communication was starting to go online, that I felt there was a real power and strengthened importance to bring people together physically", Murray enthused.

"And so, this idea of creating an event, where designers and creatives and likeminded people could come together at one time and share ideas, and sort of look to the future, about their industry that they care about was become more and more important, so when I was twenty years old I had no real idea I was going to be here twenty years later"! Oh, boy, aren't we glad that Murray is in Porto right now!

Why Porto

One could say - we are saying it - that Porto was cast in the spotlight as the city is, in fact, a city with unfailing flair!

For Murray, "there is really a strong awe and appreciation for creativity and design here and you can see that through literally the signs that are around the walls, down the streets, and the Municipal and everyone and the effort they put into these things, and so, when you combine that with the fact that artists, and people and designers are interested in coming here".

Murray tackles event organisation like it is a natural skill and we are very content that Semi Permanet founder and CEO stated that "it is really an easy choice for us to say that Semi Permanent could find its home for Europe and Portugal in Porto and be that platform and that place for young designers to kind of lift themselves up and present themselves to a world, and equally also a really nice platform for international talent to come to Porto and share those experiences and knowledge with the local community and kind of create this beautiful cycle".

See you on January 20th for some hot news on this ultimate event in Porto.