Gabriela Ricardes: "Kirchnerism caused tremendous damage to cultural institutions."

The feminine touch is evident upon entering the office of the City's Minister of Culture, Gabriela Ricardes . There is a focus on aesthetics and order . Nothing is pompous. There are details the official brought from home : a black and white photo of Jorge Luis Borges standing with his cane at the door of the National Library, located at 564 Mexico Street, and a sign written in ink: "Ring the bell and wait." On a piece of furniture, a teapot with small porcelain cups sits. The fluffy white rug is perhaps the most striking feature.

Ricardes is a public servant with a long career . This woman, who makes time to travel from openings to awards ceremonies, from meetings with museum directors to tours with neighbors, has 106 cultural institutions under her purview. But before joining the ministry , she worked in the paracultural and circus industries. She climbed stilts and was an actress. And later, she became director of the San Martín Cultural Center. She was active in the national sphere , managing, alongside Hernán Lombardi, now Minister of Economic Development for the Buenos Aires government, the then CCK ( Center for Cultural Development)—now the Palacio Libertad (Liberty Palace)—and Tecnópolis , in addition to public media outlets.

Throughout the interview with Clarín , she tries to be diplomatic and precise when referring to the alliances she forges to secure the resources she needs to manage, as well as those she doesn't forge with the national government or the Buenos Aires province government. She sticks to her own agenda: the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.

She's verbose and enthusiastic when talking about the progress made in her current administration and what she wants to do in the future. But, no matter how much she dodges the question, Buenos Aires isn't an island separate from the country , even though its cultural offerings are far better than in other provinces. Therefore, when pressed, she will accept that Buenos Aires "is not immune to the problems of the country's current situation."

He added: “We're not immune to the general requirements of the law. This is still a fragile, expensive country, and from the city we can't resolve the more macro (economic) issues, but we can influence the more micro ones . That's why we're working hard to enhance the city's cultural offerings to its citizens. This means that culture isn't just another area within the city, but rather a substantial one , where people are so accustomed to their consumption habits that, sometimes, we have to put them back on the table to showcase them.”

That's an interesting point in your narrative, because it's true that the residents of Buenos Aires appreciate the quality of public artistic offerings, but we must consider that they can also be lost in a context of crisis . Ricardes emphasizes: "People are used to things happening, but we should never take anything for granted. We need to talk about that again."

Before concluding the extensive conversation with Clarín , the minister makes two announcements , the kind we're left wondering whether or not they will be the title of the interview. The first: the current House of Culture (Avenida de Mayo 575, which was the headquarters of the La Prensa newspaper, expropriated by Juan Perón in 1951), which currently houses the ministry and some specific areas, will open this wonderful historical landmark to the public. It will be a cultural center in a key location in the city starting in the second half of August.

We were able to tour part of the restored facilities, which also includes a café, El Periódico, which is now open. Visitors will be able to see the courtyard, which will be open to music, and the carriage passageway, which will extend to Rivadavia Street and be accessible, just as the Teatro Colón passageway is today. The inauguration is scheduled for the last week of August.

The second announcement was that the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires will have its own film policy . We'll return to this point later. Part of this project will be carried out with the Ministry of Economic Development. This was the discussion we had with Minister Ricardes.

–You have experience in a wide variety of fields. What's the mechanism at work? Is it thinking about how to allocate the budget assigned to you or going out and finding the money for your projects?

–It's both. Money is one and the same. We never believe something is the way it is just because it is. From there, we decide how it's spent without lowering the quality of the cultural offering or the service to citizens. Ultimately, this is the only thing that will govern us. What motivates me as a public servant is being a public servant. Therefore, in these two forms of cultural financing, we must see if the resources are being used as they should be to impact citizen life. When you manage culture, you manage programs, spaces, cultural creators, content generation, actions, audience development, and artistic training. But, above all, you manage enormous symbolic capital. And within that symbolic capital, we manage the development of citizens. We are convinced that a full cultural life creates better citizens. Sometimes there are things that require an additional budget, and we have to go out and find partners or new budgets. Sometimes it's the Mayor who provides us with those resources, and sometimes they are private, with whom we maintain dialogue. For example, through the patronage program, which now has better legislation and allows the private sector to become part of the public cultural ecosystem. Sometimes our partners are third parties: associations, foundations, or individuals or legal entities with resources who approach us. Our city has incredible heritage, and we are the guardians of that heritage.

–How does the Ministry work with its political forces to resolve specific problems? For example, the retirement of the Colón dancers.

–The example is perfect. It's true, this is a debt the national pension system has owed to the Colón dancers since the city became autonomous and its fund is ANSES. It's a solution the national government must provide. Now, what is our commitment, and are we working on it with Julio Bocca and Gerardo Grieco? We understand this is a necessity, and we've made all the necessary demands as a political space and as a ministry. What we're demanding is that ANSES address it as a priority. We know it's a very minor issue for that organization. So, while we wait for that resolution, we're developing other options provided by the Basic Law. We could have a Compensatory Fund, a specific voluntary retirement plan, and we're working on a bill to take to the Legislature, and we understand it won't be a problem if it's supported by all the blocs. Meanwhile, young dancers, who are the ones Julio Bocca needs, are entering the workforce under better working conditions, with a salary that's not a self-employed salary, with their Christmas bonus, social security, and retirement benefits. And we have a retirement table with the dancers for this new bill that we're going to introduce to the Legislature. We'll have the bill ready by the end of the second half of the year or early next year.

–How could Buenos Aires exploit its heritage through audiovisual production, given that the country is so expensive?

–(Laughs) I'm going to have to spoil it… It's true that INCAA is producing far fewer films. But, to be clear, Kirchnerism caused tremendous damage to cultural institutions. We all need to see that, to know what not to do. And also to be careful with certain things, so as not to make mistakes. As the City of Buenos Aires, we believe that the audiovisual industry is one of the engines of creation and development, and of job creation, in a very strong way. Within audiovisual culture, the Ministry of Economic Development, together with the Ministry of Culture, are going to implement the Cash Rebate, which means that up to a certain amount invested in audiovisual production in the city, you get a refund. This is one of the mechanisms. But the city is also a huge film set and a filming location. BASET, which is the Buenos Aires Film Commission, and the Bafici Independent Film Festival, depend on this ministry. We realized that we have many policies linked to film. For example, we have nine movie theaters: La Lugones, the Teatro 25 de Mayo, Mataderos, the Museo del Cine, Recoleta, etc. Furthermore, over the past 26 years, Bafici has become an international benchmark for film creation. Our Museum of Cinema, in a country that doesn't yet have a National Film Archive, preserves 9,000 films in different formats... The only film presented at this year's Cannes Film Festival in the Cannes Classics section was Más allá del olvido (Beyond Oblivion), by Hugo del Carril, which was restored with the support of the City's Patronage Fund, in addition to a documentary collection. Now we believe we can work more strongly with Argentine cinema based in the city. We are launching a new economic line of subsidies for the film industry in the near future and a program that will unify creation and production, as well as the release and distribution policy, because the release of Argentine films is a major issue. Cinema has a very important cultural component, in addition to being a very broad industry. We say that cinema matters, but it also builds our identity as a city. One sees the City of Buenos Aires reflected in many films, and we tell ourselves we can't leave it solely to those already established and that the industry will support it. There's a lot of talent concentrated in the city, so we decided to network all of this to have a film policy for the City of Buenos Aires. City-to-city agreements are increasingly being made because cities have incentives to develop and film their city as many times as they want. We're already connected with 25 Film Commissions around the world, but in cities, not countries. We have several Spanish cities with very strong productions. We're going to do part of the Cash Rebate with Economic Development. We're betting that the City of Buenos Aires not only serves as a setting, but as a protagonist. Because the subsidy lines tend to focus on the city, its customs, its identity. We'll announce it in a few weeks, but the fact is that we're going to have a film policy.

–In the last legislative election in Buenos Aires, PRO, your political party, came in third. The ministries should ask themselves how much responsibility they had for that result. What impact do you think the Culture Department had on that outcome?

–According to surveys, citizens greatly appreciate the public offerings of the City of Buenos Aires. It's true that the offering is very diverse: public, private, and independent. It's a cultural ecosystem that interacts and functions very well. What we've found over the last year is a much higher demand for our providers (Editor's note: cultural creators). We believe that, at a time when the crisis is impacting the pockets of Buenos Aires residents, who have a habit of cultural consumption, the Government of the City of Buenos Aires is providing a quality and accessible offering, which is very attractive and much needed. That's why, throughout last year, we carried out a massive update of our library network with a massive purchase of books, especially new releases. Why? Because today a book is expensive for an avid reader. Last year, we doubled the number of subscribers to public libraries. Furthermore, we introduced a major initiative that never ceases to amaze us: the creation of the Digital Library, which last month added 40,000 new users to the 150,000 it already had. The Borges Library, as we call it, has truly democratized access to books. But libraries today are also more general spaces, where you go to listen to a talk or network. The other huge consumption was our workshops in neighborhood cultural spaces and the neighborhood cultural program, which celebrated its 40th anniversary last year. We had huge waiting lists. We had to expand our offerings. The same thing is happening in theaters and other cultural establishments. We're approaching 98% occupancy across all spaces. This means there's a need for cultural activity, for cultural and artistic action that the City of Buenos Aires provides, at affordable prices, because not all activities are free. We're not just discovering that we have to charge admission to museums for foreigners because we've been doing that for a long time. We don't give away theater tickets, but they are subsidized and affordable. We understand that the people of Buenos Aires have embraced their DNA in a global cultural city, where access to art and culture isn't something that comes as an add-on, but rather an intrinsic part of everyday life.

–A few months ago, during the Book Fair, the Mayor said that half a million people in the city had engaged in at least one public cultural activity. What about the rest?

–It can be anything. For example, in our workshops, we found that we ran out of spots on the first registration. This wasn't the case. An after-school workshop has a cost that not everyone can afford right now. Our occupancy rates in our theaters aren't going down, and admission is paid. There was a decline in commercial theaters. People are still going to the theater, but they're seeing fewer things. We want our program to be complementary and to engage with the entire public, private, and independent ecosystem.

–How is the cultural offering balanced in the city's neighborhoods?

The city's entire area of subsidies and fund transfers—Patronage, ProTetro, ProDanza, etc.—is weighted differently in the evaluation, especially when projects target neighborhoods with fewer providers. It's an incentive we have to bring cultural offerings to places where they aren't yet established. But we also want to work with the network of what's working in each neighborhood, collaborating with the cultural creators who are there. In Villa Ortúzar, the bookstore that opened on a corner of the neighborhood wants to develop a literary festival project, and we're going to collaborate. We're not going to set up shop there, but we'll help it flourish, and with other resources. It's important to see who these neighborhood organizers are who are also starting to operate, and see how we can run, for example, Bookstore Night and incorporate other circuits. With Economic Development, we're working on a bookstore program outside of Corrientes Avenue so they can also host workshops and talks. This entails the work of an urban explorer, right? Discovering what there is to revalue, as we did just now with the work of revaluing the historic centers of the neighborhoods. Because the concept of a historic center was very much tied to San Telmo, but there's also the historic case of Flores, which is incredible, and the Agronomía with its physiognomy, we created Pompeya, and these are foundational spaces that, together with the neighborhood bar and the nearby cultural enterprise, form a circuit with guides who are the same people from the neighborhood who give them visibility. And we promote another attraction for tourism, because there are many saturated circuits. Now is a difficult time for tourism because we are an expensive country, so we are working with the Tourism Authority and Economic Development to strengthen the sector with the Buenos Aires public and with the people of Buenos Aires who consume a lot of culture in the City of Buenos Aires. We also have to meet that public's avidity, that desire to learn, to explore, to get involved. This is typical of Buenos Aires society, which also enjoys community experiences like the Night of the Museums, where more than 1.1 million people gather until 2:00 a.m. And without a single incident. These virtuous experiences make us better citizens.

–When you took office, where was the Ministry of Culture most needed?

–I'm fortunate that the Mayor is very interested in the area, and that's no small feat. We found, on the one hand, some programs that were duplicated, a lack of cross-cutting approach from the Ministry's perspective, and small, medium, and large building deficiencies. There were operational issues ranging from small projects to larger projects, like the one we're currently undertaking at the San Martín Cultural Center, at this La Prensa newspaper building, and at the Film Museum Laboratory. What I've emphasized most since I arrived is cross-cutting the areas. You can look at the Colón or the Neighborhood Cultural Center, and they're all included in those guidelines.

–Are you coordinating any actions or programs with the National Secretariat of Culture, which is more politically aligned with the government of the province of Buenos Aires?

–There's no dialogue with the Buenos Aires Department of Culture, and they don't have very clear or defined cultural policies either. They did some things in the summer in Mar del Plata, but we don't have any common lines of action. We're at very different points with the national government during the two administrations. As I said before, the city has been managed in an orderly manner for a long time; there are discussions we've put aside, like when they said during Mauricio Macri's administration that we were going to privatize the San Martín. That wasn't the case. We want the money to go where it needs to go. These discussions have been resolved today, and we're a space that can reclaim its cultural policy after so much time. This is different from what's happening with the national government, which has encountered other chaos and complicated situations. We have good dialogue and a very good relationship with the National Secretariat of Culture, but it's sometimes difficult to find common programs. Of course, we have the Night of the Museums, but it's difficult right now to propose any common policy. We implemented the issue of charging admission to foreigners many years ago; the analysis of the facilities for cultural venues has already been resolved. And we have two major advantages: on the one hand, a head of government like Jorge Macri who says that "culture is an investment, not an expense." That's a mantra for us; I believe we make a conscious investment. We're not a state with a clown's pocket; we plan and design effective policies. And on the other hand, there's a lot of work already done. We've made significant progress. We have an open, popular, organized, and high-quality culture. We reach 5 or 6 million people a year with our cultural products.

–What good does it do the city to invest in theaters, cultural centers, or libraries? Shouldn't we be using that money for other needs?

–The first thing I believe is that access to culture can't depend on the family you come from. Democratic access to culture shouldn't be at odds with or conditioned by your economic status, by your socioeconomic situation. Whether one subsidizes supply or demand is a long-standing discussion that countries have resolved with different styles and different histories. Whether through supply or demand, countries subsidize their inhabitants' access to culture; countries and cities, always. That's not up for discussion. It may be the most Anglo-Saxon system, it may be the most European system to which we are heirs, but it's not something up for discussion. That culture will be an investment means not only in the possibility for all citizens to have access, but also to be able to benefit. Even that they can develop vocations based on that access because in today's working world, no one has anything earned. And that is achieved through a cultural fact. Many people decide to become artists because of the impact a painting, a play, or a concert has on them. With this approach, we know that the impact on people must be enormous. Everything we do generates countless direct and indirect benefits for the economy. This has been proven and can be seen in every small, medium, or large business.