Her arrival at the Bar is received reverentially, both for her incredible life and professional trajectory, and for her legendary culinary skill, which prompts special care in the kitchen. Anna Cabó, a pioneer in cultural management in this city, settles at a table.
--A green tea, please--, she asks with a smile.
--Right away. Will you eat something?
--While I prefer savory, with a green tea or a matcha, a sweet is not bad at all.
[subscribe_newsletter_esp]Trained as a librarian and documentalist, and seasoned in public equality policies in public administration, Anna defines herself as "a woman committed to justice and human rights, which includes feminisms, the right to culture and education." She dreams "of being able to soon see a woman directing the Liceu or MACBA," while lamenting the cultural sphere's reluctance to incorporate a gender perspective: "In Barcelona's cultural centers and companies, there has been no generational replacement. There are no women or immigrants; those at the top have been the same for 30-40 years. The world has changed a lot, but they very little."
--This is not London, huh?
--No, this is not London and it's not just a budget issue.
Cultural Precursor
In her days in public administration, Anna was, among many other things, the initiator of reading clubs in the city's libraries. "It's a time I remember with special affection. We designed the project together with the librarian, Rosa Nuñez, and the writer and teacher, Jaume Martín. We started with three or four groups and now, more than twenty years later, there are more than thirty reading clubs, some thematic on African culture or crime novels, in various languages, such as English or German and, of course, there are also those with a feminine focus."
Before that, in 1994, she had been invited to present a paper at a conference on women's libraries and documentation centers at Harvard University. "There I met people from all over the world and discovered what would become the Internet, when at my job we didn't even have a computer, not even a fax. It was a shock! The contacts I made there opened doors for me to participate in European projects and end up fully involved in equality policies and cultural programming with a gender perspective."
That same year --"very special for me--, she met her husband, the Norwegian Svein, "and I discovered that Norwegians learn to cook and do laundry at school; that feminist men exist. Nordic countries play in another league!"
--Hello--, a voice with an unmistakable Scandinavian inflection is heard.
It's Svein, entering the Bar to meet Anna; pleasant, parsimonious, somewhat absent, as befits a good professor. He comes walking from the beautiful house they share in Poblenou.
"I lived in Ciutat Vella for a long time, until I couldn't anymore. The invasion of people who didn't know the meaning of respect was my passport to discover a great neighborhood to live, work, walk, and go to the beach in winter."
Reinventing oneself without an instruction manual
Active to the point of existential uproar, unswervingly committed to equality policies in the cultural sphere, Anna was forced, six years ago, to put on the handbrake.
"I underwent surgery to implant six screws and a couple of titanium rods in my spine. Suddenly, I became disabled, unable to work in what I had been doing until then. I was invited to reinvent myself, without an instruction manual for it, and that's how LaGroc was born, a consultancy specializing in gender and diversity." A vehicle to highlight all her knowledge and experience.
This new stage has allowed her, among many other things, to analyze Barcelona's cultural activities from a gender perspective, and this is where Anna, with full knowledge of the facts, once again gives us a chilling and paralyzing dose of reality: "Culture is always thought of as a friendly environment for women, surely because, de facto, we are the majority consumers of culture, but the reality is that decision-making positions are still off-limits to us. According to studies I conducted some time ago, and I don't think the panorama has changed much, only 30% of decision-making positions in the ICUB are occupied by women. The same happens when talking about museum directorships." A situation that, in her opinion, prevents Barcelona from being more cosmopolitan.
--The lack of diversity makes us provincial--, she states.
In the background, Mopo, a vibrant Finnish trio led by a young saxophonist named Linda Fredriksson, blares. Bony and forceful Jazz. Anna and Svein enjoy it. They like it.
--This sounds very good--, she observes with affection.