Presentation of the Report
The National Consell of Culture and Arts (CoNCA) has released from the Parliament of Catalonia the Annual Report on the state of culture and the arts in Catalonia for the year 2023. In line with tradition, this document was delivered to the president of the Catalan chamber, Josep Rull, and to the acting Minister of Culture, Natàlia Garriga. This report, of approximately 240 pages, offers a detailed analysis of the territory’s cultural ecosystem, supported by a broad set of figures and statistics, and suggests several recommendations for its enhancement.
An Exercise in Ambivalence
CoNCA members have indicated that the year 2023 was categorized as “ambivalent” for Catalan culture, reflected in both positive and negative data across almost all cultural areas. CoNCA president Vinyet Panyella emphasizes that “income is increasing in various areas, but artists still face difficulties in making a living from their work.” In general terms, the report portrays a slow recovery of the sector after the pandemic, with billing figures that exceed or are similar to those of 2019, despite the fact that the number of cultural users and consumers remains a little below the levels. pre-pandemic levels.
Disparities in the Cultural Sector
Panyella points out that the more industrial sector seems to have overcome certain challenges, but the more creative and popular sphere, which includes artists and community culture, “still has numerous deficits and, to a large extent, notable precariousness.” The areas most affected by this “inequality” include the live arts, whether performing or musical, as well as the visual arts. The president also warns that “precariousness is perpetuated not only in the private sector, but also in the public sphere”, where there are positions that are not called and are covered by “diverse contracts”, generating imbalances in the labor structure.
Opportunities in Digital Culture
However, the CoNCA also highlights the favorable moment that digital culture is experiencing, especially in the video game industry, as well as the Catalan publishing sector. According to 2022 data, which are the latest available, significant increases were recorded in billing and in the number of titles and copies published. In contrast, there is a decrease in the number of art galleries in Catalonia and a drop in dance performances. At the same time, concerns are expressed about the slow recovery of the public in visual arts, museums and heritage spaces, which are still struggling to reach the visitor numbers prior to the health crisis.
The Catalan Language at Risk
The report shows special concern about the use of Catalan, which has decreased drastically and is considered “serious.” The recommendations include urging the urgent updating of Catalan cultural legislation, since much of the current regulations are from the 1980s and 1990s, and are completely outdated. The low visibility of culture in the central spaces of the media, both public and private, is also denounced, and a call is made for “urgent and determined action” to reverse this trend.
An Intersectional Approach
This year, the report presents a new chapter that delves into various intersectional themes related to culture. If the previous year a pioneering analysis of the transversal influence of culture in sectors such as education, health or community action was carried out, this year the focus has been placed on the intersection between culture and gender, as well as between culture and tourism . A section, written by Carme Fenoll, is also dedicated to investigating the future of libraries, highlighting the renewal of school libraries as an “urgent priority for the country.”
Analysis of Events and Trends
This new chapter joins the usual “Events and Trends” sections, which begin the report, where various relevant figures offer a summary of how the year has passed in the different cultural sectors: performing arts, visual arts, popular culture and associations, audiovisual and multimedia, publishing and literary creation, digital culture, language, music and the field of museums, heritage and archives. These retrospective stories are completed with sectoral data and the main cultural indicators that appear in the fourth chapter of the report.
Financial Challenges
The CoNCA positively evaluates “the budgetary effort by the Generalitat in favor of culture” and considers that “it moderately adjusts to the economic reality of the country.” However, he also warns that this “positive perception about the increases in the Department of Culture’s budget is diluted when asking about its impact on the sector.” Throughout Natàlia Garriga’s mandate, the budget has been growing progressively, but the much desired and defended 2% cultural figure has not yet been reached. However, the CoNCA – which has been demanding this percentage for more than ten years – continues to defend a “paradigm change” in the evaluation of budgetary investments.
Investment and Access to Culture
According to the report, last year, all Catalan public administrations (city councils, regional councils, provincial councils and the Generalitat) allocated 176 euros per inhabitant to Culture. This figure is slightly lower than the Spanish average (€189/inhabitant) and is still quite far from the European Union average (€238/inhabitant). Despite this, the CoNCA confirms that “the recovery of the public budget for Culture is happening, and it is the Generalitat that is leading it.” After years of imbalance, the distribution of cultural investment between the different administrations is once again very similar to that of 2010: 55% city councils and regional councils, 11% provincial councils and 34% Generalitat de Catalunya.
The Necessary Paradigm Change
The increase in resources has been fundamentally allocated to lines of aid and subsidies that had previously been classified as insufficient. However, there is still a long way to go to effectively articulate the country’s cultural system. Throughout 2023, the CoNCA promoted a public policy analysis laboratory for creation, known as Politarts, and the main conclusion drawn is that it is necessary to move from a cultural policy of aid and subsidies towards a policy of articulation of the artistic creation, which includes a more solid and accessible fabric of spaces, agreements and structures.
The Proposal for a National Plan
“It is essential to establish continuities and mechanisms that generate economies of scale, instead of implementing measures that only address specific actions,” the report maintains. According to Salvador Casals, member of the CoNCA plenary session, it is also urgent to make the subsidy system more flexible and simplified so that it better fits the calendar of cultural life (for example, aligning with performing seasons instead of operating with fiscal years). Furthermore, it would be advisable to promote more multi-annual aid programs to contribute to the consolidation of cultural projects and improve the supervision of the results and social impact of said aid.
Promotion of Patronage
Likewise, the CoNCA reaffirms the importance of one of its historical demands: the promotion of patronage. It is considered that there is room to increase the income generated through this route, especially after the recent update of state regulations. The approval of an autonomous patronage law is defended, since, currently, “financing through patronage does not adequately cover the needs of Catalan cultural projects.”
Territorial inequalities
The CoNCA Report highlights that the Terres de l’Ebre, where 2% of the Catalan population resides, does not have any official art gallery or concert hall, presenting a deficit compared to the Catalan average in terms of bookstores and theaters. Similar situations are observed in the Alt Pirineu and l’Aran region, where there is only one theater and one art gallery for more than 74,000 people. Likewise, in this district there are no visual arts centers or concert halls, making it one of the regions with the least cultural infrastructure in the country.
The Concentration in the Metropolitan Area
In Ponent, the number of bookstores, art galleries and archives is below the Catalan average, as are the regions of Central Catalonia, which also lack art galleries. Both demarcations represent 5% of the total population of Catalonia. However, the most alarming situation is reported in Penedès, where cultural infrastructure is also lacking, including theaters, archives, libraries, bookstores, art galleries and concert halls. On the contrary, the Girona regions, where 10% of the population resides, exceed the average in all indicators, except for the number of concert halls. Camp de Tarragona also faces a deficit in art galleries and concert halls.
Conclusions of the Report
The majority of the country’s cultural infrastructure is concentrated in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, although it is also the district with the highest population density: 63% of Catalans live in the 8% of the territory that corresponds to this metropolitan area. This high concentration means that the number of facilities per 100,000 inhabitants is lower than the Catalan average in almost all categories despite being the area with the highest number of cultural facilities in the country. In summary, the report concludes that “Catalonia has an adequate number of public cultural infrastructures, although the territorial distribution is not always balanced.”
Proposals for the Future
To address all the “legislative, structural and financing inequities” detected in the report, Vinyet Panyella advocates the implementation of a National Plan for Culture that establishes a framework for action with the necessary strategic objectives, regardless of who holds key positions. in the cultural field and the actors responsible for the sector. This plan should go beyond the administrative and “place citizens at the center of cultural policies.” For this reason, the CoNCA demands the approval, as soon as possible, of the Cultural Rights Law that the Department of Culture was preparing before the elections were called.
Priorities of the Cultural Sector
In 2016, CoNCA carried out a survey that collected the perception of professionals about the state of culture and cultural policies in Catalonia. This year, the questionnaire has been repeated, updating its contents, and the results have been compared. 88% of those surveyed consider it a priority to approve the Cultural Rights Law and 86% support the National Pact for Culture. Among the sector’s priorities are also continuing to implement the Statute of the Artist (92%) and carrying out the Promotion Plans approved for each cultural sector (91%).
Access to Culture
From the perspective of those surveyed, guaranteeing citizens’ access to culture should be the priority for the cultural policies of any public administration. The educational aspect of culture also occupies a prominent place compared to other instrumental objectives, such as using culture as a tool for social cohesion, reducing territorial imbalances or promoting a more equal society. It is also worth highlighting the agreement between those responsible for public administration and cultural agents regarding placing access to culture and the development of its educational aspect as priorities in cultural policy.
Education and Culture: A Strategic Alliance
For this reason, CoNCA has been working to strengthen the union between education and culture. In recent years, it has promoted the Fòrum de les Arts a l’Educació and has compiled a series of recommendations in the “Charter of Arts in Education” that calls for progress in its implementation. The CoNCA considers it essential to incorporate the arts into compulsory education within the school schedule, and to achieve this, it defends greater interdepartmental collaboration within the Government of the Generalitat, particularly between the Departments of Education, Culture and Universities, which this year has begun to bear its first fruits with a three-year program of universal territorial coverage to promote local alliances between culture and education.
Confusion over Cultural Rights
However, the report also reveals, based on the survey of cultural professionals, that “there is great confusion regarding cultural rights.” Panyella is very critical when stating that, currently, “the population is deprived of the enjoyment of the country’s cultural offer due to the lack of artistic and cultural education in schools, in addition to the insufficient dissemination of the cultural offer in a way broad and continuous —not limited only to Barcelona or festivals— from public and private media. In general terms, the country’s main cultural agents consider that “citizens have little knowledge about what rights they can exercise in the cultural field.”
The Catalan Challenge
For some time now, all indicators have pointed out that the social use of the Catalan language is experiencing a decline. The CoNCA defines the situation as “serious.” To address this issue, the immediate implementation of the agreements reached within the framework of the National Language Pact is required, in addition to the linguistic political action being transversal to all departments of the Generalitat, so that it is not limited only to the Department. of Culture. Panyella also emphasizes that, in terms of language policy, it is necessary for “all administrations in the country to get involved at all levels, since it is not just an issue that depends on the Generalitat.”
Actions to Strengthen the Use of Catalan
Likewise, the need to provide more resources to training programs in the Catalan language for different audiences is insisted upon. The good work carried out in the audiovisual field is recognized, where we must continue to focus on the production and dubbing of strategic products to strengthen the use and social presence of Catalan. The CoNCA also defends the Catalan language as a vehicular language in all spaces and areas of school education and, in any case, is committed to “valuing the broad parliamentary agreement on the language in schooling.”
The Future of Catalan
Philologist Teresa Tort Videllet warns that “if we look at the figures for 2023, we realize that the new population that arrives in the country’s own language is not being linguistically welcomed.” It is essential to reverse this situation. In general, the report highlights the importance of “having a sufficient supply of products in Catalan to satisfy existing demand”, as well as encouraging “the choice of the Catalan language by cultural users.” A forceful figure cited by Panyella exemplifies this: in 2022, the loan of books in Catalan in the country’s public libraries represented only 39% of the total. Despite this situation, a slight improvement is observed, since in 2019 the percentage was 32%, and there is also exponential growth in loans of comics in Catalan, which in just five years have more than doubled.
