Six projects selected in the second edition of Alliances for Cultural Democracy

At the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation we welcome six new projects from the Alliances for a Cultural Democracy 2022 call from our Citizen Art line, with which we want to promote an accessible culture in which all people feel represented. The selected projects, from different artistic disciplines and through the involvement of very diverse agents, aim to implement artistic mediation processes that promote the active participation of citizens in cultural life.

This second edition was born in 2020 with the aim of supporting projects carried out in alliance between different agents that, from the point of view of cultural rights (access, participation, creation) and, through cultural and artistic mediation, promote greater cultural democracy. The mission is that these projects allow the participation of citizens in cultural life with special emphasis on groups with difficulties in accessing culture.

The good reception and the enriching experience developed with the beneficiaries of the first is what prompted us to launch a new edition of Alliances for Cultural Democracy. On this occasion, we have received 81 projects from 14 of the 17 Spanish communities, of which six have been selected. Themes related to institutional openness, social inclusion, the resignification of the territory and memory stand out. All this under the umbrella of artistic disciplines such as visual arts, music and sound art or the living arts, although most of them are projects with multidisciplinary approaches that bring together more than one artistic expression.

Through a selection process in different phases, the jury has selected six projects from different autonomous communities that address the challenge of cultural democracy from different perspectives and at different levels: from the neighbourhood context of Espacio de Artes Escénicas or Menudo Trajín, to the municipal context of Mestura La Palma or Caravana Ciudadana, through the inter-institutional About Culture or PPR.

Selected
projectsAlliances for Cultural Democracy 2022

About Cultura: expansion of the Apropa Cultura program
Make it Accessible Association in partnership with the Consorci de l’Auditori i l’Orquestra
Madrid

It is a project whose mission is to promote access to and participation in culture for people in vulnerable situations. Its main objective is to implement the Apropa Cultura programme in the Community of Madrid through the training of cultural facilities and social entities, the official launch and communication of the pilot programme and the progressive incorporation of more cultural facilities and social entities.

Performing Arts Space
Thyme Foundation in alliance with the Kubbo
AssociationMadrid

This project of the Tomillo Foundation is carried out in collaboration with the Kubbo Association and its objective is to create a space for community development in Usera and Carabanchel through artistic creation in the formats of youth. To achieve their goals, they have established five artistic routes: creation, freestyle, audiovisual, urban dances and the music school, in which not only the different artistic skills will be developed, but also transversal skills such as critical thinking, collaborative work, self-confidence and autonomy.

Bank of Collaborative Projects
Tekeando Women’s Association in alliance with the Institute of Culture and Arts of Seville
Seville, Andalusia

The Bank of Collaborative Projects project seeks to turn the alliance already built with the Institute of Culture and Arts of Seville (ICAS) into a space for institutional experimentation around cultural practices that promote a greater democratization of culture. The project consists of launching two public calls from which projects focused on artistic mediation and cultural democracy are selected, which are then programmed in the cultural spaces dependent on the ICAS.

Mestura La Palma: memory and roots after the volcano
Office of Civic Innovation S. Coop. in alliance with the Karmala Cultura
Cultural AssociationLa Palma, Canary Islands

Mestura La Palma takes as its starting point the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma in September 2021 to develop a participatory cultural programme in which to work on the collective memory and roots of the people affected by the eruption. The project contemplates different actions aimed at the recovery and enhancement of their experiences through meetings, the construction of a repository of knowledge for mutual aid or the construction of objects that materialize the oral or audiovisual archives of the experiences lived.

What a hustle and bustle: festive workshops to weave affections from the Secadero
Las Cigarreras Cultural Center in alliance with La Cuarta Piel and neighborhood associations in the area of the Secadero
Alicante, Valencian Community

Menudo Trajín is a project to reactivate the old tobacco barn in Alicante that is based on a triple alliance between La Cuarta Piel, a young art/architecture collective; neighborhood associations in the area of the Secadero; and the CC Las Cigarreras, current manager of the space. The project seeks to establish a link between the neighbourhood initiative and the environment that surrounds it by relying on three actions: an itinerant banquet, an annual cycle of festive workshops and the co-design of a workspace within the Secadero.

Citizen Caravan: mediation processes of the Caravan of Cinema
projectFundación Extremeña de la Cultura in alliance with Imago Bubo Rural Colectivo and Underground Arqueología
Badajoz, Extremadura

Caravana de Cine was born in 2018 as an alliance between the Ministry of Culture of Extremadura and the Extremadura Foundation of Culture. It responds to the conviction of the importance of cinema as a transformative element in the socio-educational and cultural field. For this reason, it seeks to generate spaces and actions that respond to the urgency of audiovisual pedagogy, the democratization of film culture in peripheral and rural areas and the generation of cultural opportunities and projects based on the orange economy and sustainable and local development.

The jury of this second call has been composed of:

• Jesús Carrillo, professor of the Department of History and Art Theory at the UAM
• Fernando Sánchez Cabezudo, advisor and artistic coordinator of the National Dramatic Center (CDN)
• Marta Rincón, head of visual arts, architecture and design at AC/E Acción Cultural Española
• Saúl Esclarín, Culture and Tourism technician of the Ribera Baja del Ebro region
• Irene Pomar, educational development technician at the Museo Nacional del Prado
• Claudia Delso, Councillor for Participation and Democratic Innovation of the City Council of A Coruña
• Carmen Palacios, cultural coordinator of the Würth La Rioja Museum.

With this second edition of the call and together with the six selected projects, we follow a path that we began in 2020 with the purpose of making culture part of everyone’s life. Support for these proposals stems from the conviction that these alliances will contribute to imagining new ways of thinking and carrying out cultural projects and policies, in a way that effectively responds to the needs and desires of all people.

Images: During the formation of Erro(re)tik / View of the exhibition of the project Convivial Neighbourhoods / A moment of creativity during the project Thinking a Hache