Maria Marighella directed the ‘sensational outrage’ of Brazilian culture at the Avignon festival

2024-07-12 14:28:31

The president of Funarte, the National Arts Foundation of Brazil, Maria Marighella made her “Undebut” at the Avignon Festival, the largest art event in the world, in its 2024 edition. She spoke with RFI about the missions of the Brazilian cultural representative during the Event Program that is directed by the Portuguese Tiago Rodrigues, and explains his vision on public policies designed for the international integration of artists, in anticipation of the year of Brazil in France, in 2025.

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RFI: What is the mission of the Brazilian cultural representative at the Avignon festival in 2024?

Maria Marighella: The missions are huge. The beginning of the Ministry of Culture comes with a mission. Funarte, in this resume, has the institutional mission of managing the group that will oversee the national arts policy. It is part of the Ministry of Culture of Brazil, a ministry restarted, reborn, and has, in its first initiative, to build and deliver to the Brazilian people a comprehensive national artistic policy , the strength and diversity of Brazilian arts. And, obviously, the internationalization of art is among the creations of this policy construction. We know the importance of Brazilian art around the world, and the expectations the world has in relation to Brazilian art production. This is what I have called “responsible sin”. Brazil has an ethics, an aesthetics, a poetry, a leader in the way that expresses itself artistically. This is power, that’s the word. And this experience is alive, celebrated, requires public policy areas, that is, weight-giving institutions, brings returns to Brazil, to those who create culture, but above all to Brazilians, to Brazilians who see in art the expression of their identity, their uniqueness and even their unique strength in the size of their economy.

Maria Marighella, president of Funarte, and Tiago Rodrigues, director of the Avignon Festival, after the exhibition “Hécuba, não Hécuba” at the Avignon Festival, on May 30, 2024. © Oswaldo Carvalho

RFI: What perspectives will public policies have?

Maria Marighella: I think that this new political cycle brings a new political culture that says: the artist, the representative of culture, the representative of art, is not the interest of public policy, it is the way that policy is materialized. There is a Brazilian scene, like here in Avignon. But I can also talk about the Venice Biennale, I can talk about the cooperation agreements made in Latin America, in Africa – where I am, in Mozambique -, in other words, the Ministry of Culture of Brazil is also approaching right now. to Asia. So it is Brazil returning to the world scene, with its works of art as the property of Brazilian diplomacy, as a place for communication, government, recognition, that recognizes artists as an important part of this construction, not as the representative who arrived later. Having these experiences as parts of, yes, returning to your question, will guide the construction of a clear independent practice. Therefore, when we talk about international policy, we have to talk about many elements from development, that is, the facilities we put in, and the opening of the markets, the distribution of the market. Therefore, we have a cultural general policy based on production, but we do not have a policy for the distribution of Brazilian artistic products, and this cannot be done alone.

RFI: What do you think about the initiative by Tiago Rodrigues, the director of the Avignon Festival, to create the event “Avignon Night”, “a civil initiative against the extreme right”, following the results of the first elections of the legislative elections in France?

Maria Marighella: It was a beautiful gesture. It is a call for joint construction, of course. It creates a “moving” city, I think that’s the effect of art. In other words, we talk a lot about cultural rights and less about freedoms. We really need to address the role of freedom, the free space that artistic agents need to have within society. Our imagination, our experience in times of crisis. In other words, even before the actual construction, we need to activate the field of imagination. (…) It is through art, culture, that people who are under systematic and exploited areas are able to express themselves, therefore, culture is the wealth of the Brazilian people, the asset of our history. And like every word, it has to be shared, and I think that’s what we did here.