I always like to agree editorially with the deputy director of La Vanguardia Miquel Molina. In fact, it is very common for me to share his accurate analyses of Barcelona's cultural sector and the need for the metropolitan development of the Catalan capital. A week ago, in my debut in The New Barcelona Post, I wrote, regarding two exhibitions about vampires, about culture as a key and strategic axis for the economic reactivation of the city after the pandemic. And a few days later, Molina elaborates on this thesis in a debate on Barcelona's cultural projection organized by the Societat Econòmica Barcelonesa Amics del País.
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I felt even more comforted by what the rest of the speakers expressed, as the writer Carme Riera; the cultural promoter Carlos Duran, and one of my great literary references, Eduardo Mendoza, also share this reasoning. In fact, reading El misterio de la cripta embrujada back in high school was, seen now with perspective, decisive for me to dedicate myself to writing. All of them highlighted the idea that Barcelona must define a future cultural strategy through a grand pact that repositions the city as a reference also in this field, attracting investments and talent.
The coronavirus will leave many economic sectors very weakened. Culture will be one of them. Molina, Riera, Mendoza, and Duran agreed in foreseeing the extremely critical situation in which many cultural facilities and venues in the city will be left, some of them historical. A rescue operation will have to be designed, and for that, it will be necessary for administrations to get involved and respond to the explosion of creativity that will undoubtedly occur from the sector due to the "retained energies" during these months, in Molina's words.
Carme Riera opened a stimulating discussion by stating that "sympathy is culture," and then went on to argue that in Barcelona there is a lack of "culture of sympathy." For this reason, she encouraged "making Barcelona a sympathetic city," even to look for a slogan in the style of the very successful Barcelona, posa't guapa. Mendoza highlighted that one of Barcelona's great assets is its variety of offerings. In the morning you can go to the beach, in the afternoon visit a museum, and at night have dinner in a magnificent restaurant. This is entirely true; few cities are as complete in this sense as Barcelona, and that is one of the hooks of its great tourist appeal, which it will undoubtedly maintain when all this is over. However, she regretted that Barcelonans do not make use of culture in its broad sense and the absence of investment for the future.
Duran insisted on this aspect, pointing out that Barcelona comes from an "exhausted system," the post-Olympic one, and that now we are "disoriented." The Barcelona of before will not return, he added, and the bill that covid-19 will leave us will be "very expensive," so he advocated for the need to generate a "common" and "exciting" project. In this sense, Molina advanced that at this moment he believes the circumstances are right for a "cultural pact" in the Barcelona city council. Mendoza called for greater involvement of the university in culture and a patronage law.
We must put words and music to the cultural pact and promote a set of actions, such as boosting Barcelona's literary capital status and generating investments that consolidate the cultural axes of Rambla-Paral·lel and MontjuïcThe moderator of the debate, also the deputy director of La VanguardiaEnric Sierra, put on the table the controversy about the project that theHermitageit was installed in the port. All speakers agreed to a greater or lesser extent thatit is not understood that Barcelona misses the opportunity for a branch of this emblematic museum from Saint Petersburg to come to Barcelona. Although there appeared the discordant vision of Miquel Roca, president of Amics del País and former president of the MNAC, who until then had limited himself to presenting the debate as host. Roca said he was "personally against" public money being invested in this Hermitage experience when the city's museums are "impoverished."
The conclusion of the meeting was that culture must stop being a María and take advantage of the effects of the health crisis as an opportunity for the reactivation of the sector to be part of the political agenda. It is necessary to put lyrics and music to the cultural pact and promote a set of actions, such as promoting Barcelona's literary capital and generating investments that consolidate the cultural axes of Rambla-Paral·lel and Montjuïc.
This is undoubtedly what many of us desire, but another thing is what actually happens, according to the sentence that Miquel Roca uttered at the end of the event: "In politics, sectarianism is bad; in culture, it is horrible."