I have just concluded a series of nine texts on art and society. I composed them over the course of several weeks, each addressing a distinct subject—impact, moral self-satisfaction, heritage, labour, territory, funding, access, recognition, and the digital realm—yet upon reviewing them collectively, I perceive that they all performed the same gesture, and I wish to identify it before moving forward.

The gesture is this: to take a narrative that the cultural sphere recounts about itself with pride, and to examine what lies beneath once the rhetoric is set aside. That culture transforms lives. That good intentions render a work virtuous. That we preserve what merits preservation. That working for the love of the craft is sufficient compensation. That bringing art to a neighbourhood invariably improves it. That our funders do not influence our output. That we open our doors to all. That talent is ultimately recognised. That the digital realm democratises. Nine comfortable certainties, and beneath each, something more uncomfortable and more authentic.

What appeared almost invariably, upon lifting the carpet, was the same: that the decisive factor is rarely individual goodwill, but rather the structure—the capital, the power, the class, the infrastructure—that determines what is visible, what is preserved, what is remunerated, and who feels invited. And that the sector, when it promises more than it can deliver, does not protect itself: it leaves itself exposed. Over-promising is the most elegant method of ensuring future retrenchment.

I wish to be precise regarding the perspective from which I write, as it alters the meaning of the whole. This is not a denunciation from the outside. I preside over a foundation that relies on funding, that activates territories, that engages in mediation; furthermore, I am working to establish a recognisable position for myself within this field. I utilise the very mechanisms I examine. The critique is domestic: I am not pointing to an external sector; I am speaking of the house in which I reside. And one criticises what one values. No one dedicates nine texts to dismantling the alibis of something to which they are indifferent.

For this reason, none of the nine conclude in despondency, nor does this one. Acknowledging the limit does not diminish the value of culture: it is the only thing that renders it credible. Art does not require the guise of social policy, economic engine, or inclusion machine to possess value. It possesses value for what it is capable of doing, and almost nothing else performs this function: opening a fissure in what someone previously deemed possible. This is not measured in attendees or headlines, and there is no necessity to inflate it. One must merely cease demanding that it be what it is not, in order to perceive it for what it truly is.

Remaining, as a thread for what is to come, is a question that these nine texts have refined for me, and which I consider the appropriate one to pose before any cultural project. Not how much it is worth, nor how many people attended, nor what it transformed. Rather: what is being reorganised here that would not be reorganised otherwise. That question is more modest and more demanding than all the promises we habitually make. And it is, I believe, the only honest one.

I have gathered the nine texts onto a single page, in the event that anyone wishes to traverse them as what they are: not nine disparate observations, but a single investigation conducted aloud.