Yesterday,
Cultura de Base
(Grassroots Culture) was presented to society, a platform “generated by different cultural and social agents in Barcelona that functions as a meeting point for analysis and reflection on cultural policies and the repercussions they have had in recent years. The main point in common between the people, collectives, and agents that currently form part of this platform is focused on questioning the cultural policy model of Barcelona that has been plaguing this context for several years now.”
You can read the full letter of introduction after the jump or on the platform’s website itself. All power to the grassroots!
Technorati Tags: Barcelona, cultural_policies, culture
In recent years, we have suffered a false policy of consultation and participation that hides a total lack of complicity between social and cultural agents and public administrations and political-cultural decision-making centers and, consequently, with the future of our city. This disconnection has had terrible consequences such as: the progressive disappearance of independent spaces; the closure of hundreds of creation spaces (studios, workshops, rehearsal rooms, etc.), especially in Poblenou (22@); the obscure process of changing the orientation of the Centre d’Art Santa Mónica; the use for political purposes of the programs of a large part of the cultural institutions; the “fabriques per la creació” program launched without understanding the cultural reality of the city; the criminalization of certain cultural practices related to public space and many other conflicts still open.
The lack of transparency in the political orchestration and decision-making behind the backs of cultural agents, neighborhood associations, and independent collectives responds to a model based on the instrumentalization of culture for political and economic purposes that only simulates dialogue with the social bulk, starting from negotiations burdened by policies of faits accomplis. All this has led to a situation of extreme frustration and weariness on the part of the cultural and social agents who have been relegated from our role as interlocutors and suffer the consequences of a model that seems not to exist, that is the result of contingency and that is designed by the sum of short-term decisions and that, consequently, lacks a real and visible project.
We also think that this situation is partly a consequence of our inability as cultural producers to generate forms of communication and reflection that escape the most immediate work disciplines and that has divided the demands that would be more effective and beneficial for the city, linking them instead of remaining in a sterile sectoral isolation. We must be aware that we have not been able to communicate to the public the importance of the events that have occurred and how these affect not only the people who work in culture or those directly affected in each conflict but the entire bulk of civil society.
For all these reasons, we believe it is necessary to establish Grassroots Culture to collectively show the position to all these events and work together to stand up to the excesses of the political-cultural class of the city. This platform will seek at all times to add and include the existing demands and the forms of resistance already established by the agents, collectives, and independent spaces of the city. In this way, it will work actively to understand all its needs with the aim of building a common front to denounce the situation we are suffering and that marks our cultural present.
We believe that by focusing on these points in common and taking collectivity and permanent dialogue as the main tools, we can generate reflections and strategies that promote concrete actions that can help generate a healthier cultural landscape that is in line with the real needs of our context.
[CdB]
Barcelona September 2008