Culture as a response to an uncertain future

A retrospective look at the last twenty-five years cannot help but confirm that the millenarian theses were wrong. The world has not ended. The arrival of the year 2000 did not imply any technological collapse, nor did the gates of hell open to the sound of the trumpets of the Apocalypse. Ironically, however, these same twenty-five years have been marked by what some social theorists call the slow cancellation of the future: cyclical economic crises, the disarticulation of the social and political foundations of democracy, the rapid technological acceleration and the certainty of the climate emergency lead us to a situation of radical uncertainty and the return of ultra-conservative proposals. The precariousness and temporary nature of work, the difficulty of access to housing or the impact of artificial intelligence have generated enormous discomfort among workers in the cultural sector.

In this context, the cultural sphere has become a space of social and political tensions that make clear the role of art beyond the recreational and entertainment function to which some want to relegate it. For this reason, the commitment to cultural rights, which has been crystallising around the planet for years, is a strategy that goes beyond a discursive framework. It involves transforming the very way we understand culture: not only from the perspective of access, but also from the right to creation and participation. The Artist's Statute is a symbol and a challenge of this paradigm shift: better working and tax conditions for creators, as well as more equality and diversity in the sector and in institutions. Also the intervention on artificial intelligence and platforms, to protect copyright and the work of cultural workers. Likewise, the necessary transformation of the current fossil culture: it is necessary to review and transform, from the contents to the productive foundations of the art system, the role it has had in the reproduction of extractivist and ecocide dynamics.

Antonio Monegal says that culture is like the air we breathe. Although it may seem invisible, it is a vital resource, an essential good. Culture shapes us as much as education. For the next twenty-five years, then, we need cultural and artistic institutions to be a fundamental piece in imagining possible alternative futures, strengthening democracy and improving, literally and metaphorically, the air we breathe.