Through the website laculturaemtoca.cat, the campaign encourages citizens who love culture to buy, disseminate and / or give back to culture everything that has contributed to us in the extremely difficult times of the pandemic. The health and economic crisis unleashed by the coronavirus endangers the survival of the cultural sector and that of thousands of its workers, now that culture has proven to be more necessary than ever.
The culture sector is experiencing an extremely complicated time in this time of pandemic following the covid-19. With the closure during confinement, subsequent capacity restrictions and other measures that condition the usual programming, the sector suffers from a serious economic crisis that endangers both its viability and the promotion of new projects and the survival of thousands of workers in the sector.
For this reason, the Cercle de Cultura and a group of fundraising professionals in the cultural field of Catalonia, members of the fundraising.cat network, have decided to promote and launch a campaign to support the Catalan cultural sector. The Auditori, the Temporada Alta Festival, the Fundació Catalunya Cultura, the TNC, the Teatre Lliure, the TR3SC club and other cultural projects and organizations from all over the country have already joined the campaign. The campaign has the support of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Damm Foundation, the Ferrer-Salat Music Foundation, Coca-Cola and REDI. The start of the campaign was this Tuesday, October 27, with a performance by Mireia Portes and David Olivares at the Terrassa del Teatre Lliure in Montjuïc.
The vice-president of the Cercle de Cultura, Jordi Pardo, emphasized in his speech that this campaign “is part of the collaboration agreement with the fundraising.cat network and in one of the points of the manifesto ‘More Culture, more Europe’ which is promoting the Cercle de Cultura on a European scale ”.
The president of the Cercle de Cultura, Segimon Borràs, also present at the presentation of the campaign, recalled how it connects with others that have historically supported culture from the direct action of the citizens: “the ‘accounts in participation’ that made possible the newspaper Avui, or the Arc de Berà or Edigsa. Or the creation of Òmnium Cultural which made it possible to maintain the IEC, the promotion of Catalan teaching and teacher training through the DEC, the promotion of the book and the album in Catalan with ‘Cultura en Ruta’ , the shelter for organizations such as the Obra del Ballet Popular. And so many others. Like the subscriptions that made it possible to publish works of cultural infrastructure such as the Bernat Metge Library, Els Nostres Clàssics or the Enciclopèdia Catalana ”. Borràs emphasized that “these and many other examples of initiatives that, although they have originated in a person or a group, have been successful thanks to popular financial support”, and made a final appeal: “For a cultured country now is the time to put everyone’s neck in it ”.
Oriol Alsina, spokesman for the campaign, stated that “we want the public to get involved, react and act in favor of culture. We encourage and ask citizens who love culture and understand the importance of everything it gives us in crisis situations to take a step forward. Public administrations have opened up helplines, but they are not enough. It is the people who will save the culture ”.
How does the campaign work? Through the laculturaemtoca.cat website, the campaign encourages citizens to lose their fear and buy culture again, to give in to culture and to spread their love for culture on social media.
BUYING: The easiest way to help culture is to pay for everything it has to offer. Through the laculturaemtoca.cat website, citizens are encouraged to buy tickets for a theater show, an exhibition, a book, a concert …
SPREAD: The campaign also encourages the public to spread the initiative through the recording of a short video where each citizen explains “why he / she touches the culture” and what he / she will do to help it . Under the hashtag #laculturaemtoca, it is encouraged to spread it through social media.
WOMAN: One of the most direct and useful ways to help culture is by making a financial donation to organizations or projects that are struggling to survive. Through a repository hosted on the web, each citizen can select the entity or project they want to support, and make a financial donation. This is a very common practice in other countries but little known in our country.