CULTURE BOARD

A BODY FOR CULTURES IN RUIN

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Ever increasingly, we are witnessing the phenomena of ruined nation states, crashing financial markets and bankrupt gov-
ernments. So far, this is only interpreted in the usual journalistic way of reporting the political and financial aspects of the
crisis. But cultural workers should know better by now. The crisis is only perceived as ‘news’. Arts and culture in this sit-
uation are the last to be considered contemporary, sensitive instruments that could express the ‘signs of the times’. The fi-
nancial sector has taken over the role of ‘avant-garde’. Let us face it: culture is a prime target of budget cuts and this has
become the only language in which officials can speak. Art, by definition, is always in a defensive role and is unable to
make demands. So let us quit this culture of complaint. This is not the right time to dream up new utopias. We propose to
radically face current global economic forces. We will intervene in their sphere. Culture should no longer be left out, con-
demned to compensate for and be at the receiving end of this trauma.

The proposal is to form, install and implement ‘Culture Boards’ which are modelled after the Currency Board - the main in-
strument of the International Monetary Fund to straighten out ruined economies. This supra-national body, unaccountable
to the electorate, actually controls the government. It is the result of an agreement between the government and the IMF -
its sole purpose being to control the issue of new bills and manage all foreign Currency reserves. In reality, this body IS
the government because it defines financial policy and steers legislative initiatives. Still, there is little awareness about
the way these boards work. Knowledge about these mechanisms has not been transferred to the field of culture. It is about
time to change this in a radical manner.

The situation is no longer as it was envisioned in 1989. We no longer speak or think of transformation, readjustment, re-

structuring, etc. In a situation of continuous implosions, mass poverty and popular depression it is of little use to come up
with the dream of a ‘normal’ functioning ‘civil society’. Instead, horizons are closing down. People do not expect a recov-
ery anymore. We are now talking about survival. Now is a situation of ruin in which we have to contain, stabilise, and
eventually - rebuild (or not). Take Bulgaria: as a typical example of a country in recent ruin, a Currency Board is already
in place. If the first Culture Board can be instituted effectively, other countries could follow.
A Culture Board should work out priorities beyond everyday party politics and mediate between the global and national or
regional levels. We do not perceive it merely as an advisory body. In that sense, we are playing for real. Think about NSK's
Virtual State, after several embassy openings, performances, discussions, then years later... But this was still a parallel
reality. Culture Boards could be more down to earth, dealing with harsh economic realities. Before 1989, culture was pri-
ily managed as a state affair (and so was its funding). This logic changed overnight in the nineties and step by step
Culture was being run as a business, including sponsorship, self-financing, post-Fordist working circumstances (free-
lancers, etc.). This is now the dominant (‘neo-liberal’) ideology. The Culture Board is both the ultimate expression of this,
flipping into a radical critique. We can no longer speak in the melancholic terms of postmodernism. Nor do we need a self-
imposed (cyber)optimism, selling a future which is actually fading away. We need concrete facts, reports on the actually
existing poverty in museums, artistic circles, closed magazines and missed opportunities, encounters with the migrated
Others and their remembered shadows.

Culture Board should function as a radical mirror, not as an image. It commissions reports on the existing situation, about
complex coalitions, strategic alliances and tactical moves in order to establish new cultural, political and economic links
in a situation where on one hand there is a vacuum, while on the other there is complete stagnation.

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