 |
| Paula Sá Nogueira on the TV programme "Inferno". |
The discussion that was generated after
the announcement of the allocation of subsidies from the Directorate General
for the Arts (DgArtes) made me think once again about the way this sector
communicates with the public, citizens and taxpayers. There is a larger issue,
of course, that of the subsidy itself: the system of application, the
evaluation of the proposals, the monitoring of the entities, the purpose and
duration of the subsidy. But today, here, my reflection focuses on
communication.
Paula Sá Nogueira (PSN), from
the Company Cão Solteiro (which, for the first time in 20 years, did not get a
subsidy from DgArtes) was interviewed earlier this month by the TV programme
"Inferno". When the presenter asked het to try to explain to
"the majority" her claim that the State has an obligation to fund the
arts, PSN explained:
"The arts promote
thinking; thinking promotes the evolution of man; so there must be investment
in thinking and the arts. (...) Maybe the arts are what prevents us from giving
a shot in the head in the morning. So either you invest in the arts or in
cemeteries." (video)
PSN’s interview was shared
and commented by people in the field, especially by other artists. The general
opinion is that she spoke very well. However, for me, the issue was the
message, the language and their suitability for the medium (in this case, the
television). I also thought about the choice of the person who should speak to
the public, to “the majority", at a moment like this. How did the ordinary
citizen, the taxpayer who supports the work of Cão Solteiro and others, receive
PSN’s statements? Was he clarified? Angry because Cão Solteiro did not receive
the subsidy, even if he had never heard of this company before? Did he consider
giving a shot in the head?
I do not mean to be ironic. I
also liked PSN’s interview. But I work in this field, I understand what PSN
means to say, I know the context, I know the specificities of operating in this
sector. And in that capacity, I would say that the message does not come across
and that we should show a greater concern when addressing the
"majority". Our arguments, when it comes to mass media, can not be
those used for internal consumption, appreciated and understood by our peers,
but ineffective with many other people, who are also stakeholders. And maybe it
should not be the artist himself speaking; at least, not always.
In 2012 I had written about
another interview, conducted shortly after the announcement of a 100% cut in
annual and occasional subsidies (Ministry of Culture: Which culture? Whose Culture). At that time, the interviewee was Jorge Silva Melo (JSM) in one of the
morning TV news programmes. He said: "I, as a spectator, will not be able anymore to discover young talents.
(...) The subsidies do not support the artists, they support the spectators.
Because if I want to see a play by theatre company Truta, and if they don´t get
a subsidy, I´ll have to pay approximately 100 Euro per ticket and I haven´t got
that money. But I have the right to see what young creators are doing, what´s
preoccupying them, what they are thinking about. It is this kind of support
that has been taken from me, as a spectator. (…)”..
I considered, and still
consider, JSM’s response to be very intelligent and, more than that,
appropriate to the context in which it the interview took place. He put himself
in the shoes of the spectator, he tried to explain how the cuts affected him,
as a citizen, and others. He set aside the usual, somehow egocentric, argument
of the artist, whom many people see or hear once in their lifetime, when he
loses the support of DGArtes, an intervention that might only serve to
reinforce the idea of subsidy-dependence.
It is urgent to think the way
we communicate with the outside world more strategically, choosing the most
suitable speaker, message and language for each context. The British campaign
"I Love Museums" shows a possible way: it allows for the voice of
ordinary people to be heard, those who will be affected by the cuts (read the testimonials). I think that makes sense, considering that the message is supposed to reach
the government and the political parties and that politicians evaluate
everything based on the votes they can lose or gain. The campaign also
encourages people to write directly to the MP of their constituency and graphic
materials are made available online in various formats to facilitate spreading
the message on social media and other platforms. I must also say that the fact
that it is organized by the National Museum Directors' Council was a pleasant
surprise for someone who lives in a country where the voice of national museum
directors is not heard publicly, regarding the impact of the cuts on the
functioning of the entities for which they are responsible.
This type of feedback, a
qualitative indicator of our impact on society and on people's lives, is not
unknown to us. But I think that we don’t actively seek it, we don’t register it
and we don’t know how and when to use it. I Love Museums reminded me of the
case of Casa Conveniente, which in 2011 was the first Portuguese theater
company, if I remember correctly, to resort to crowdfunding, with the campaign
"Be a patron of Casa Conveniente for €12". When in November 2011
Mónica Calle and Alexandra Gaspar participated in a conference on financial
sustainability, organized by ICOM Portugal, they shared with the participants
wonderful and powerful testimonies that people who wished to support (many with
more than €12) sent by email, along with their donation. Several times after
that I wondered if those testimonies were later used in some way. I didn’t see
them when the company renewed its request or in promotional materials or on
Facebook.
However, these are examples
involving people who, a priori, like a certain cultural or artistic
project, who are already related to it. I return to my initial concern, that of
"the majority", as the host of "Inferno" put it, which also
includes those who don’t know or don’t relate. How to talk to ordinary people
about the need to support with public money work that they might not enjoy or
understand or even know about? How to make "the majority" consider
that this support goes to a common cause, an indispensable cause, one that
brings benefits to those who enjoy and those who don’t directly enjoy it? It
would be easier, perhaps, if we were talking about a school or a hospital, but
we are talking about the arts. Our task is quite complex, we know it. What are
we going to do about it?
More on this blog:
No comments:
Post a Comment