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What Future for Festivals?
LESSONS FROM A YEAR IN “PANDEMIA” By: Enrique Avogadro
MINISTER OF CULTURE OF THE CITY OF BUENOS AIRES REFLECTS ON 2020 AND THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS AND WHERE THE ARGENTINE CAPITAL’S CULTURE SCENE GOES FROM HERE 2020 is definitely a year that we will have to work hard to forget. Arts and culture were particularly hard hit by the pandemic. Without open cultural venues and events, artists were left without performing or teaching opportunities and, in most of the world, with no safety net on which to rely during these hard times. Cultural festivals – primary targets in a social-distancing environment – had to be cancelled or postponed indefinitely. Cultural areas in countries and cities around the world struggled to provide some help. The Buenos Aires arts and culture ecosystem usually never sleeps. We run around 10 international festivals, including FIBA (theatre), BAFICI (film) and Tango. We are in charge of Teatro Colón, as well as a very strong network of public libraries, public theaters, museums, art schools and a wide array of programs. We have more than 500 independent cultural venues. It has been a rough and busy year: we provided economic support, we launched a new streaming cultural service, and we drafted protocols in order to get each arts and cultural venue safely back on track. With our great summer season about to begin as I write, while we are still in the midst of the pandemic, we have been trying to understand what will be expected from cultural public policies in the years to come and how we can rethink our tools to have a greater impact. Festivals play an especially important role in bringing us together to celebrate our diversity. In this respect, they help us fulfill communal purposes that will be more important than ever in the postpandemic era. The future of festivals is also the future of arts and culture. Some lessons can already be extracted from this long and hard COVID-19 road that we are still walking that might be useful to help us foresee the challenges and opportunities that still await us.
RECLAIM THE CITY This year we had to completely rethink our relationship with the public realm. Suddenly, parks and other open-air venues became spaces for birthdays, weddings and other celebrations. Art professors, guitar teachers and yoga instructors took their classes outside, while cultural venues spread themselves out onto the sidewalks and streets. New local alliances and networks emerged as a way to weather the economic storm, bringing together independent bookstores, art galleries and restaurants.
