I wrote recently an article on support for cultural action in the Algarve. I focused on some issues that seem to me to be troubling.
One of the documents I used to support my article was the regulation that was in effect last year and that was recently updated by DRCALG.
As this is a very important document to support the Algarve's culture during this year, it seems to me that a recast of the regulation should be an opportunity for a thorough update, not only of its administrative nature, but also of everything else, including the types of support.
The regulation now published, as far as a strategic, informed and innovative vision is concerned, leaves aside all the necessary changes, reformulating only a few procedural issues.
The big news this year, in an initiative that seems right to me, is the separation of support for publishing in a competition with its own regulation. But if, on the one hand, this factor is innovated, on the other hand an assessment structure is maintained throughout the year, without a predefined jury and without the obligation to disclose the minutes of granting support in the assessment process . Thus, the perspective of a shielded and internally adjusted process, without public knowledge, is maintained.
We continue to have a contest launched without a credible opening notice. In other words, the data available on the website only indicate the information in the regulation and application form, omitting essential data from any opening notice, such as the global amount that will be distributed and the breakdown of a planning methodology for this amount by Support Areas .
There is also a regulatory change that could pave the way for the questions I raised in the last article to be repeated again. In the new regulation, the item that excluded from this program disappears projects that “Have support from other organizations in the area of culture of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, unless there is a higher order”, thus allowing a professional structure that receives support from DGArtes, can now receive support from this program, even when we know that it is and has always been intended to support “non-professional, non-professional, local/regional associative agents”.
But if these points of an administrative order are worrisome, the specific issues that concern the types of action should not only concern us, but also reveal that whoever wrote that regulation did not know how to keep it up to date.
Without realizing why, we continue to have a program that, between the lines, negatively discriminates some artistic areas, thus reducing their intervention capacity. I speak, for example, of the fact that typologies do not give the same rights to all areas and do not include Visual Arts in creation/production. It is implied here the most conservative way of analyzing the work of visual arts, enclosing its function in the walls of a Museum or Gallery.
Here, a profound ignorance is revealed regarding the relationship between the production of the artistic work and its presentation. It's just that the two things are distinct, and although most of the time they are related, it is necessary that both are not confused.
Confused also continues the boundary between this program and that of DGArtes. If, on the one hand, it is defined that it is intended to support cultural action in the Algarve, on the other hand, the vision of culture here is once again reduced to the domains of artistic creation and presentation. All other creative areas are left out, such as Design or even actions to support manifestations of a popular character.
Once again, it gains a vision that excavates the gap between first-rate creatives and second-rate creatives, and a regulation that values technocracy at the expense of the democratization of the means of cultural production.
Author Jorge Rocha
Amsterdam, May 2014
Independent Artist and Producer
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