Manifesto 15: Cultural colonialism, metropolitan cohesion...?

I know, this headline is not for making friends, but if it serves at least to reflect critically, then it will have served something. Operation Manifesta is something that has clear and obscure contrasts, everyone sees and knows that. A handful of people in the industry I speak to are tight-lipped about the macro event, as you first need to know how it will all end. In addition, all the administrations of the sector are represented - therefore, you can be left without an assignment if you think too much. In addition, in this small country of ours we tend to the culture of the destruction of everything that the other does, and less often of reflective criticism that serves to build better realities. Yesterday evening, I went to the presentation of Manifesta 15 in society, with excitement - as they say - at the Palau de Pedralbes - an elegant place with a certain aftertaste of mothballs -, with a good group of guests and I was able cordially greet, among others, the recently released Culture Minister of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Sònia Hernández. There were also the artists Gabriel Ventura and Rosa Tharrats, the art critics Conxita Oliver and Joan Gil, the gallerist Miguel Marcos, the artist and promoter Bernat Daviu, the director of Arco Maribel López, the director of the Macba Elvira Dyangani, Ferran Barenblit, former head of the Barcelona museum equipment, the president of the Miró Sara Puig Foundation, Marta Gustà, head of arts at the ICEC, Pere Almeda, director of the Ramon Llull Institute or Montse Badia, head of A*desk...

And, between conversation and conversation, with one of the people I spoke to and whose name I will not quote, but with extreme lucidity, a nuclear concept emerged: cultural colonialism. The private foundation that manages the Manifesta 15 Barcelona event, with the tutelage of the country's administrations, is directed by the incombustible Hedwig Fijen, a Dutch conservative; a woman who, without denying her desire to transform the societies where the biennial nomad passes - things in culture and in any field to consolidate take a lot of time and work - is also a cultural business that raises money and that it tastes like welcome Mr. Marshall. There is always latent, not the lack of being receptive to the contributions from wherever they come, but a certain complexity of having to import foreign creativity to approve us and having to do rebecca to be able to access the cake of the event. Because Anglo-American culture sets the guidelines - look at the MOCO museum in Barcelona - and the sense of self-esteem that does not flourish excessively in our cultural troops: despite having generated some of the most relevant artistic and cultural icons of the 20th and 21st centuries.

But let's get back to it. The Manifesta is an investment of almost eight million euros (5,211,513 euros Barcelona City Council, 1 million Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya, 1.2 million Diputació de Barcelona and 500 thousand Ministerio de Cultura) and, for plus inri, you have to pay to access it; I'm not against paying to enjoy culture, but rather that with so much public money invested one doesn't want to make an effort to democratize and socialize, two key words that are worn out like most. Eight million is not a small amount for a sector that struggles to collect a million dollar salary at the end of the month, but it is also not exorbitant when measured against other competitions or actions in cultural matters. Journalists, cultural agents, artists and collectors have come and will surely come from everywhere. And the Manifesta has managed to look at the prism of the metropolitan culture of Barcelona with greater breadth and interaction - even among the municipal technicians - and open the "Three Chimneys" of Sant Adrià del Besòs. And since distances nowadays – with the factor of the high-speed train as a variable – are no longer measured only in kilometers but in time: Lleida, Tarragona and Girona are, I'll put it bluntly, the metropolitan area of Barcelona. Sometimes I go faster traveling to Girona in 30 minutes than passing the metropolis from end to end. I will not talk about the Renfe transport to move between the headquarters so as not to make us cry; public transport is demanded from the country's administrations, but the offer and the service are for buying a combustion car, because electric cars are expensive - except for second-hand ones - and charging points are a drama. Already done, we could have extended the Manifesta a bit and made a country biennial. Nothing else, we will be reporting and watching how one of this year's most important events unfolds, as is the Tàpies year, the thirty years of the CCCB or the forty years of the MNACTEC, among others.

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Manifesta goes beyond the limits of Barcelona and will be deployed in 12 cities in the metropolitan area