A series of nine texts that confronts, from within the sector itself, what culture can and cannot do for society. Each takes a narrative that the cultural world tells about itself—that it transforms lives, that it includes, that it democratises, that it recognises talent—and examines what lies beneath once the rhetoric is stripped away. This is not an amendment to culture: it is the conviction that it is best defended by speaking the truth about its reach. One criticises what one loves.
The nine texts may be read separately, yet they form a journey, from the producer to the recipient and from the physical workshop to the screen.
- The impact we claim to have — The distance between the effect that cultural mediation documents and the transformation it proclaims.
https://juanesteban.art/el-impacto-que-decimos-tener/ - Art and a clear conscience — Why the social good intention of a work does not substitute for its value as a work.
https://juanesteban.art/el-arte-y-la-buena-conciencia/ - What we decide to remember — Preserving heritage is always a matter of selection, and selection is a decision with those responsible.
https://juanesteban.art/lo-que-decidimos-recordar/ - Working for the love of art — How vocation is used to cheapen cultural labour, and whom it excludes.
https://juanesteban.art/trabajar-por-amor-al-arte/ - The art that raises the rent — When the cultural activation of a territory benefits it and when it opens the door to displacement.
https://juanesteban.art/el-arte-que-sube-el-alquiler/ - The hand that funds — How the structure of funding conditions what a cultural organisation can say.
https://juanesteban.art/la-mano-que-financia/ - Who feels invited — Why access to culture remains unequal when the barrier is not price, but the feeling of not being invited.
https://juanesteban.art/quien-se-siente-invitado/ - How a name is manufactured — How recognition is manufactured and why it is advisable not to confuse visibility with value.
https://juanesteban.art/como-se-fabrica-un-nombre/ - The access promised by the screen — Why digitisation is not, in itself, democratisation.
https://juanesteban.art/el-acceso-que-promete-la-pantalla/