ARTS PLAYERS TALK TO ARTS DECISION-MAKERS
10 proposals by Autre(s)pARTs for a different relationship with art and with local communities
Nowadays, the opinion of artists and arts players on the issues of general public interest involved in cultural development and their translation in terms of public policy is not heard in our country. Most often limited to corporatist demands or requests for funding, their voice has no weight with respect to the public arts institution. However, these are the men and women who, through their everyday ground-work, construct the country’s cultural and artistic life, provide the raw material for the administration structure, and justify the existence of the French Ministry of Culture and of the arts departments of local and regional authorities. Often, they have the feeling that they are considered as just another "application file", an object and a pawn that is named and moved without the slightest consultation, according to the will and whims of the princes who govern us.
For us, the artistic and cultural act must not be solely on the initiative of the State and the local and regional authorities. In democratic society, artistic and cultural action must be on the initiative of civil society and independent players. The field of our actions interacts with the fields of regional development and planning and with policies for urban and national development, education, etc. Therefore it is necessary to put in place real consultation with the institutional representatives of these fields, in keeping with the strength of our projects.
Therefore we are expressing ourselves to make our contribution to the development of a new, alternative arts policy, and to the experience of our working methods on the ground.
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