Project by
YProductions
for the
CCCB
in which we participate in collaboration with
Sitesize
with the research
How to Collectivize Culture in Barcelona
. The YProductions proposal « arose as a commitment by the CCCB to rethink collaborative processes between the cultural institution and self-managed collective projects. The objective is to optimize the lines of research developed by different collectives or spaces that understand cultural production as an agent for challenging institutional directions. These critical investigations, whose process exceeds the framework and schedule of the project, raise debates and methodologies that align with the current context of institutional crisis. MCI raises the possibility of experimenting with a ‘minimum space’ where critical research processes in the cultural sphere can be negotiated, contextualized, and activated. »
In this framework, the objective of the research we propose is to consider, taking into account the network of agents, controversies, and relationships that define the current moment, what practices and ways of doing are more just in the management of culture (understanding as more just those practices and ways of doing that allow the actors who participate to modify to a greater degree the very norms that regulate their participation).
Public policies in culture tend to ensure and perpetuate the monopoly of the management of cultural assets by the administration itself, as well as reaffirm and promote the image of the state as guarantor that common goods will not be overexploited, functioning as a type of circuit that feeds back on itself. Beyond this, we currently see how public administrations do not even respond to this pattern, but covertly dedicate themselves to the defense of private interests.
Self-management collective of culture understood as a common good should not be valued for its effectiveness in terms of profitability, but for its effectiveness in terms of social justice. To think how this idea is articulated and how it could be articulated at the present time is the fundamental objective of CCCB.
METHODOLOGY
Our methodology can be divided into two different approaches: on the one hand an investigation based on interviews and bibliographic consultations and on the other hand a research based on networking work with various agents (individuals, organizations, institutions…). This work in network will result in two face-to-face meetings, open to public participation. The objectives of these meetings will be to examine and collectively contrast the different models of culture management based on the own experiences and to trace future lines of work (individual or collective).
We will try, as far as possible, to build knowledge collaboratively and dialogically with the agents who will participate in the investigation as co-investigators. All this does not mean to be placed “in the place of” the agents who will collaborate in the investigation, on the contrary it will be about highlighting the place that each one occupies in the field from which he/she is speaking, in this way everyone has information that would allow him/her to understand how the discourse of the other works -what function it has- in the field from which it comes, that is: from where he/she speaks, for whom, what he/she achieves with his/her discourse, of what agencements his/her discourse participates, how it is assembled with other devices, etc. Public face-to-face meetings:
The meetings
will be preceded by a preparatory work in collaboration with the invited entities to define the dynamics and the topics to be discussed (and if necessary review the list of guests). The meetings will be two and we propose that they take place at the Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) and at
Can Batlló
. Initially we propose that the meetings have an informal character and that the collaborative construction of knowledge be promoted, we understand then that these meetings should be closer to the format of a discussion group than to that of a conference as such. should be more The first of these meetings took place in the hall of the CCCB on November 24, 2011. The session brought together various experiences that we can divide into two groups: On the one hand, we find citizen initiatives that, to a greater or lesser extent, have had the impulse, collaboration or support of artistic institutions or agents in the field of art and that have reached a certain degree of stability and consolidation, such as
The first of these meetings took place in the CCCB hall on November 24, 2011. The session brought together various experiences that we can divide into two groups: On the one hand, we find citizen initiatives that, to a greater or lesser extent, have had the impetus, collaboration, or support of artistic institutions or agents in the field of art and that have reached a certain degree of stability and consolidation, such as
La Casa Invisible
(Málaga) or the
Advisory Board
of documenta12 (Kassel). On the other hand, experiences that are in a more or less incipient phase of definition: an artistic project such as
Open-roulotte
(Ripollet) that is launched with the will to generate citizen dynamics aware of their role in cultural policies, a cultural space such as the
Ateneu Santboià
(Sant Boi) that wants to be citizen-managed, is in the negotiation phase with the public administration and could find alliances in the field of art; and finally the case of the
Ateneu Enciclopèdic Popular
(Barcelona) that for six years has been demanding from the administration the recovery of part of the athenaeum’s heritage and the transfer of a new headquarters to constitute itself as a social and cultural space.
In the public working table we have the presence of Jesús Carrillo (head of the public activities department of the
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
(Madrid), the Nicolás Sguiglia (member of La Casa Invisible), the Plataforma Ateneo Santboià, Xavi Pérez (cultural manager linked in Sant Boi), Meritxell Bonàs (teacher of the Escola El Martinet), Sara Talla (president of the Asociación Balafon), both collaborating entities in the project Open-roulotte, Hansel Sato (member of the educational team of documenta12), Manel Aisa (member of the Ateneu Enciclopèdic Popular) and Iván de la Nuez, head of cultural activities of the CCCB.