We present the book Culture for Life: A Critical and Plural Study of Culture

What is needed for the demands of the cultural sector to be met? What more do we need to change ways of doing things that have proven unsustainable? From the Foundation we publish this book in which we reflect on the evident and necessary relationship between culture and life.

Culture as an engine for a free, full and sustainable life is one of the pillars of work of the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation. For this reason, seeing how its foundations were shaken after the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, forced us to think and want to take charge of this fragility.

Hence the book Culture for Life: A Critical and Plural Study on Culture, a publication that brings together 30 voices and a great plurality of cultural positions and proposals with the aim of reflecting, on the one hand, on the value and impact of the sector in the creation of a fairer, more inclusive and sustainable society and, on the other hand, on the value and impact of the sector in the creation of a fairer, more inclusive and sustainable society. on the other hand, to serve as a beacon for the main actors in cultural policy, public administrations and professionals in the field.

Although it forms a whole, this polyphony of texts is organized into four parts that draw horizons for action: “Cultural Rights“, “Economies of Culture“, “New Cultural Institutionality” and “Transformative Culture“.

Public policies that promote cultural rights

Promoting citizen participation in cultural life and, therefore, making cultural rights effective are the themes on which the texts that make up the first block of the book: “Cultural Rights” reflect.

Based on a historical contextualization of the recognition of these rights in Spain and their effectiveness, the various authors present in this section point out the shortcomings of current public policies, both in education, private financing and social innovation, and affirm the need to rethink their scope or scope of impact. “Participation is the axis on which the concept and contemporary cultural public policy pivots. A participation that implies seriously considering the effective contribution of citizens not only in terms of consumption and enjoyment, but also of real and effective contribution to artistic and cultural management and production”, says Gemma Carbó, director of the Museum of Rural Life of the Carulla Foundation.

The evolution of cultural policies after the pandemic is also the subject of analysis in this section. From the perspective of social innovation, the experience of collaborative environments, models and formulas is collected to deepen the structural change of organizations that work in social, human and cultural development and, ultimately, in institutionality. Likewise, the study is nourished by interviews that revolve around the need for artistic education in schools and the political protection of culture in Spain and their respective shortcomings and a letter from the doctor Luis Gimeno in which he reflects on the benefits of culture for health.

New economic models for the cultural sector

Just as social and economic conditions determine cultural practices, cultures dialogue with the lives we live. This is the premise of the texts that shape “Economies of Culture“, a block in which a look forward is launched on the cultural economic model to understand and rethink the value of culture, the areas in which it operates and cultural work beyond its products and the surplus value they generate. It brings together a proposal that, based on the premise that understanding culture from its productive capacity is a partial approach, outlines other possible ways of recognizing oneself in the cultural fact and legitimizing alternatives to the current model of economy and cultural policy.

Thus, the chapters belonging to this section delve into the value of cultural and creative industries beyond rhetoric about the therapeutic and utilitarian value of culture, the urgency of rethinking new economies for art or the need to propose a post-sectoral character on the competences and agency of cultural policies. “The social and solidarity economy contributes to cultural democracy that considers citizens not as consumers, but as active participants in artistic and cultural production and in the respect of cultural rights,” points out, in this sense, Rocío Nogales, director of the international research network EMES.

Along the same lines, other sections are articulated that analyse the obsolescence of the approach of public policies to the characteristics of cultural work, presenting the contributions to this reflection of two projects in the audiovisual field such as Filmin or the experimental audiovisual distributor Hamaca.

It also reflects on the role of philanthropy in fostering a transformative culture, its subsidy models and the possibilities of weaving alliances that contribute to strengthening the sector and making it economically sustainable. “The foundation sector can be a great ally of public policies by having greater agility in its processes, greater scope for innovation and longer execution and evaluation time,” say Susana Gómez, Isabelle Le Galo and Sonia Mulero. “It can provide data on experiments and their impacts, it can nourish practical knowledge in the development of larger-scale policies,” they conclude.

The need for a holistic revision of the cultural economic model is the conclusion of this second part of the book that invites us to include the social dimension to build common spaces, ensure diversity, social justice and, ultimately, improve the lives of people as a whole.

The need for a new cultural institutionality

The cultural institution has been in Spain a controversial signifier intimately linked to the debate on the very idea of democracy. This has meant that the cultural institution contains a heavy ideological charge and is the scene of a disturbing political interventionism, but also that the question of its deep meaning and its relationship with society has been kept alive, which has been raised with more intensity than in other latitudes where art and culture have occupied a comfortable social space for some time.

Thus, the third part, “New cultural institutionality“, reflects on the need for transformation of the cultural institution, the need to review the traditional functions of the museum or to question the model of institutional culture, proposing a change that takes the institution to the service of culture and not the other way around. Cultural mediation is treated here as a fundamental tool to generate processes that favor the participation of citizens in cultural life, regardless of the condition of each person. “Art must be an object of enjoyment and, therefore, it is necessary to generate bridges of access for citizens, so that contemporary art is not restricted to a social elite,” adds José Luis Pérez Pont, director of the Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporànea.

The authors participating in this block reaffirm the need for cultural institutions to listen to citizens and evolve towards models that promote other development logics, the importance of advocating collective intelligence to create new narratives that guide profound transitions in our ways of life, or the role of digitalization in democratic and innovation processes. “It is time for the cultural system to function with another logic without being dragged down by the accelerated and consumerist productive vision that capitalism imposes on our lives,” says Cristina Alonso, co-director of the Teatre l’Artesà.

Transformative culture

The capacity of culture to transform a territory and generate a critical society is the common thread of the last section of this publication, “Transformative Culture“, which reflects on the role of culture in addressing the country’s challenges, despite its lack of prominence in major political debates. Although culture is already being included in the main cross-cutting policies, a narrative has not been built around it,” says Manuela Villa, deputy and spokesperson for culture of the Socialist Parliamentary Group in the Madrid Assembly.

Likewise, the role of the artist and their perception by society is deepened, alluding to the fact that one of the keys for any innovation in the field of culture to work is the need to think explicitly about the living conditions of creators and the revaluation of their work by the community.

The texts collected in this fourth and final part also address the reactivation of the sector in non-urban environments, the need to develop a rich and diverse cultural ecosystem, the need for public policies on care, the transformation of the rural environment through culture without overlapping its own vernacular memories or how community culture is one of the approaches that favour greater cultural democracy.

To close the block, one plus one, in charge of the direction and editorial coordination of the publication, interview Santiago Cirugeda, who highlights the importance of society leading decision-making and participating in the solutions to its demands, opening new avenues for political advocacy from art and culture. at the same time that it makes effective the rights of citizens.

It has been years of work, conversations and reflections that have resulted in this book that, from the Foundation, we hope will serve everyone to reflect and change the discourse on the value of culture to influence its social, educational, healing, emotional, affective, cohesive, inclusive, egalitarian and sustainable power.