The conference Decentralising Funds for Culture took place on September 22, organised by the cultural association RAMPA and co-organised by the Goethe-Institut Portugal, moderated by researcher and curator Paula Parente Pinto. Premised on the fact that Portugal has limited funding for culture; insufficient funds; a bias towards structures close to central power; and that art and culture are instrumentalised by political bodies, the conference examined funding strategies and political intervention actions for a more equitable and democratic approach in the country’s cultural environment, using the different approaches of the guest speakers: Paula Guerra in the field of sociology; Eduarda Neves in the field of politics and aesthetics; and Ana Carvalho in the field of economics and cultural management.

Regarding the issue of decentralising funds for culture, Ana Carvalho’s presentation began by positioning the discussion in theoretical terms, bringing it into line with her areas of work and study: economics and cultural policies. Addressing the distinction between decentralisation and de-concentration, a discussion related to democratisation and cultural democracy followed, drawing bridges with the Portuguese reality.

Ana Carvalho, arguing for the need to implement coordinated and articulated cultural policies, pointed to decentralisation in the political and administrative context, a principle that is enshrined in the Portuguese Constitution, but which needs an efficient and structured definition for its cultural implementation. When it comes to decentralisation, the entities to which powers are transferred have an autonomous legal status, and there is no hierarchy or direct political subordination. In the case of de-concentration, there is decision-making subordination, a hierarchy and political subordination in the bodies that operate these deconcentrated services under direct state administration. Ana Carvalho points out that in Portuguese cultural policy there was a culturally concerted policy from 1995 onwards, with the launch of the Regional Directorates of Culture, whose purpose was to deconcentrate state intervention in territorial terms, not just through functional de-concentration. On the subject of de-concentration and decentralisation initiatives, Ana Carvalho points to the establishment of the Regional Directorates for Culture, the Arts Laboratory Programme, the Portuguese Theatres and Cinemas Network; and the Basic Act on Powers as a turning point for powers that have always been with the central state to be passed on to local authorities, while emphasising that this legislation that emerges from the cultural area, from this transfer of powers, is a one-off piece of legislation, since, right now, it seems to me that the major problem with cultural policy in Portugal is that there is none, nothing is written down, and she believes that these powers need to be devised at regional level.

In parallel with the concept of decentralising cultural policy management, Ana Carvalho finds it crucial to expand on the concepts of democratisation and cultural democracy. Cultural democratisation relates to the involvement of the players at whom the policies are directed, promoting equal access to cultural policies and state intervention to keep culture accessible to the general public. The concept of cultural democracy prioritises plurality and public participation when shaping cultural policies and agendas. Ana Carvalho believes that cultural democracy should be decentralised and that we need to think about how we can incorporate opportunities for cultural democracy and citizen involvement within the existing departments. Citing sociologist J.M. Teixeira Lopes, Ana Carvalho finished by stressing that having audiences at the centre of cultural policies is an important starting point for developing a proper cultural policy.

Eduarda Neves argues that financial demands are not always based on a thorough management analysis of local authorities’ cultural strategies and policies, pointing out that local council cultural budgets and investments are motivated by electoral interests, often without the involvement of citizens and without any strategy or support for the projects. Notwithstanding the transfer of powers to the municipalities, she raises the question of whether the demand for more funding from the central state is aligned with the strictness of local cultural policies or the honouring of their mission as a cultural public service.

In Eduarda Neves’ opinion, many municipalities do not have strategic cultural policy plans and often the cultural activity of a municipality follows the preferences of its mayor. From her perspective, decentralisation policies fail to produce significant centralities in most of the national territory and, similar to the state, these chains of local interests serve as a model of domination, permanently establishing themselves as instruments of cultural control.

Emphasising asymmetries in access to cultural goods, she believes that municipalising culture could be a way of expanding citizens, agents and audiences as instruments of participation and civic engagement, fostering the vitality of the political, social and cultural fabric. Just as the state neglects to prioritise art and culture, Eduarda Neves believes that local authorities tend to use culture as a subordinate practice to embellish political management. Referring to the enormous obstacles that Portuguese municipalities have in defining and implementing cultural policies, while stressing the important role that cultural stakeholders from the private sector have in developing programmes and projects that help to ensure that the right to culture is fulfilled, she believes that the private sector is subject to the public sector through tenders, regulations and juries (…) acts of obedience that reassert the hierarchy and rational order aimed at preserving official culture.

Appropriating culture within a free market economy leads to an authoritarian policy that grants the various powers the moral right to govern. By questioning the role of institutions and discourses that mediate the authority of dominant cultural companies, Eduarda Neves believes that private support and other forms of cultural funding have become tools in the electoral process, both for governments and local authorities, in which museums and galleries are obliged to seek funding that intersect and complement each other. She believes that community art is becoming a category of democracy and that decentralisation, at the service of authoritarian power, is used as a way of stripping the state of responsibility to the benefit of new actors and regulatory models released from its control. Every part between the centre and the fringe becomes essential to the effective operation of the machine, since no city can be a container, as those who live in it must be an active part of its construction and perhaps this is where one of the pressing points of revolution in everyday life lies.

Discussing the new challenges for local cultural policies, which serve as catalysts for creativity and the artistic, recreational and cultural interface, Paula Guerra put forward the case of Lisbon’s local cultural policy, which was developed over the last decade, as an illustrative model.

The new approach to cultural policy, according to Paula Guerra, stems from its coordination with other public policies, particularly urban regeneration, tourism, social inclusion, or promoting the local brands and attracting residents, based on a logic of cultural development leverage.

As for what local cultural policies can currently do, PG enumerates the following: the diversification of local educational and learning resources; the inclusion of marginalised segments of the population; enhancing the competitiveness and cultural development of territories; the promotion of the rehabilitation and regeneration of derelict urban assets; the establishment of a favourable context for creativity and innovation; the possibility and flexibility of active participation and citizenship, reiterating, like Ana Carvalho, that the major underlying issue is the lack of regionalisation.

Using the case of the Portuguese capital as an illustration and based on the Lisbon Cultural Agendas for 2015, analysing cultural artistic activities reveals that music, theatre and dance shows are predominant, highlighting their importance as a source of income and economic growth. The number of classes, courses, workshops, seminars and debates that comprise a network of educational resources aimed at promoting the population’s acculturation and qualification to develop Lisbon as an artopia should be highlighted, as well as the latest statistics on festivals, which reflect the importance of this format within the cultural programming framework.

As a city, Lisbon boasts the necessary conditions to elevate itself as a metropolis, setting itself up as an attractive cultural centre for its cultural fruition. Nevertheless, there are challenges, namely the centralisation of cultural practices in several Lisbon areas and parishes that monopolise the city’s cultural practices and infrastructures – we are referring to phenomena such as urban intervention/rehabilitation, gentrification, rising rents, noise and dirt. Paula Guerra concludes by reaffirming that the ultimate success or failure of all local cultural policies depends on the municipality’s ability to address these factors and avoid culture becoming yet another factor in urban inequality and the challenges are considered in their complexities, in which there are always actors involved in policies, contexts, disciplines and hierarchies.