No more subsidy logic, culture task force needed. Massimiliano Zane's proposal

Immediately create a task force for culture, to go beyond the logic of subsidies and instead give life to a true “industrial plan for culture” capable of overcoming the fragmentation of the sector and ending the rhetoric of culture as the “Cinderella” of our society. This is the proposal of cultural planner Massimiliano Zane, who outlines it in an open letter sent to institutions.

“Between the folds of this increasingly widespread pandemic crisis and the consequent crisis of the cultural sector, further shoved by new restrictions,” says Zane, “what clearly emerges is not so much the right concern or the ’buffer’ interventions put in place, what is missing is a horizon, a perspective, a look that goes beyond crisis, especially for the cultural sector: on the one hand, there is the political response, which is basically one of emergency care, but which still does not grasp the (urgent) need to strengthen and harmonize the management of a sector (and its supply chain) that to date is still too fragmented, exposed to unpredictable tertiary contingencies, assimilating its sustenance to general interventions, often overlooking its specific differences and peculiarities. Culture is an important economic and productive asset (we like to call it this way) for our country, yet still volatile, uneven in its lack of an economic connotation of its own such as to allow it to enjoy, both in good times and in times of emergency, a true and specifically defined ’plan’ within the national framework, which provides for suitable actions and supports, as for any other productive sector that is asked to actively contribute to the national GDP.”

“The second perspective,” Zane continues, “instead concerns internally the cultural sector itself, today forced to move in apnea in a landscape that is in some ways bleak, turning its few energies in a spasmodic search for oxygen (sometimes compulsive and in any case rhapsodic). A motion of emergency in the emergency that means that something before the pandemic was not working (in ways, in proposals, in systems, in networks, in communication, of ideas and how to apply them) but above all it means that something is still wrong now. Perhaps often too closed in on itself, the sector has ended up by self-marginalizing itself from the common and political imagination, to the point of self-limiting itself by getting lost in a thousand disunited proposals and appeals, and thus by ultimately making itself ’expendable’. Thus confusion and disorientation increase, and feelings of discontent and mistrust take root across the board in all places of culture and especially among those who with their commitment even today, in a situation now at the limit, all in all have kept them alive.”

According to Zane, therefore, it is necessary to act resolutely, “setting right away a new response that is just as strong and incisive, and no longer only supportive but that goes beyond lemergency, that gives a horizon and a perspective, that overcomes internal divisions within the sector and harmonizes its thousands of voices, that proposes a few and clear shared and implementable objectives.” And in the face of an increasingly uncertain future, “an unprecedented effort is needed, we need to go beyond the auspices by opening a new phase of planning and design that looks to the future, to recovery, a recovery that is perhaps difficult to see today, but precisely for this reason necessarily to be imagined and pursued with determination, so as not to give in to discouragement.”

What it would taketo take this road is, according to Zane, "a substantial change in the objectives, goals and reference perspectives for culture, and we need to start doing this immediately, today, if we really want to save what is left of culture in Italy: starting first of all by making the state agree to play the role of entrepreneur’, and do so without hesitation, because it is no longer enough just to have bonuses or subsidies, sacrosanct but still limited, we need to put in place immediately a real Industrial Plan for the national cultural sector. We need investments and interventions that have a long-term idea and course, we need to identify not only budget items but appropriate policies to ground them. So here is the reason for the pressing need to set up today, immediately, a real ’Task Force for Culture,’ which would act fully in support of the Ministry to make it more effective in its programmatic choices and which on the one hand would overcome the cacophonous fragmentation of the thousands of voices in the sector and on the other hand would crumble the political rhetoric of culture as a poor unfortunate ’Cinderella.

Here, then, is Massimiliano Zane’s proposal, which, the professional stresses, is not meant to be an appeal, but a request for willingness and responsibility as much to the Minister of Cultural Heritage Dario Franceschini, "as to the different souls that make up the marvelous mosaic that is Italian ’culture’: if they really want to get out of the impasse in which we all find ourselves today, it is necessary to act differently, according to a common and shared development plan, truly national, that defines new actions, a new course, that shows a new way forward. We need to open an operational table, which acts with measure, simplicity and speed, having as its sole objective the definition of an ad hoc ’Strategic Plan’ for our culture; which has and disseminates a clear vision of the role we want to entrust to our culture and provides the means to implement it from here and for the next (difficult) years; that identifies and offers new guidelines to the sector, new policies, new calls, new opportunities dictated by the times and new needs, beyond protocols (including health protocols), and helps reinterpret the sector in the time of crisis. Above all, what is needed is an operational group to take on the fears of an entire sector relegated to a limbo imposed by the pandemic, giving it security, references, helping it overcome discouragement and fatigue. I am not talking about a research and study core (for that there is already the work of the Higher Council and the entire core of officials within MiBACT) but a technical group of third parties outside the ministerial mechanics; a small planning group whose objective is to identify, among the many proposals that have emerged in recent months and among the few available folds given by the current situation, a real Industrial Plan for Culture from today and for the coming years both in the short term and in the medium/long term, not only to keep the sector alive today, but to concretely rethink it for tomorrow and to give a powerful signal of restart even in the emergency, urging new processes, offering cultural places new ideas and resources. This is also in view of the next upcoming challenge that will affect the sector and that will be the allocation of Recovery Fund funds."

“Hoping for the widest possible acceptance,” Zane concludes, “I launch this proposal of mine inspired by the principles of civicism and participation, far from partisan interests, aimed exclusively at the common good, of all, remembering that this state of crisis must be overcome, but it cannot be done according to old dynamics and past mechanics. It must be redesigned, that cultural system, even in the collective imagination, laying the foundations for new practices today and responding to old demands in a different way. Paradoxically, Covid19 could become an opportunity to do all this (and do it in a truly constructive way), but it will take the determination and courage of all of us to face and overcome these dark hours.”

Image: the Collegio Romano, headquarters of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage. Ph. Credit Windows on Art

No more subsidy logic, culture task force needed. Massimiliano Zane's proposal

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