The manager of “Creative Connections” scolded the chairman of the LKT: you forgot a few things together with the LKT | Culture

A strategic program (or, to paraphrase you, a non-harmful program) must have a clear concept and vision of how funding creates an impact in strategically important directions of cultural policy, what is the path of the support provided to a specific organization, how it begins and how it ends (this is called “Exit” strategy”).

These questions are not the first time. During your meetings with strategic organizations, we, representatives of at least several organizations, have constantly raised questions about the improvement of expert evaluation, about the need for feedback, and most importantly, in general, dialogue about strategic changes and how we, LKT together with strategic organizations succeed in achieving them. It’s a pity that neither for the last three years nor now you want to hear, try to understand and talk more deeply.

No one expects that LKT can work perfectly and that there will be enough money for everyone. The essence is an effort to listen, research problems, use all possible knowledge and institutional resources, in order to achieve the best functioning LKT. The point is to be in an open, critical, constructive dialogue, not bureaucratic back-and-forth ping-ponge.

A separate language is the strategicness and balance of LKT’s choices. The difference between the funded and at least 4 organizations left behind (their competitive scores are very similar) shows that LKT focused more on the creation and dissemination of art products, forgetting that its strategic directions are Accessibility, Education and Diversity.

All this is just the tip of the iceberg. Articulation of LKT strategic directions, priorities and criteria, awareness of the cultural field ecosystem, funding (especially for strategic organizations!), LKT topics need to be deepened, discussed, resolved. But the damage caused by this decision is not (only) for non-selected organizations. In my view, the harm is primarily related to questions of cultural value, because such a decision creates an imbalance of those values. Because you forgot a few things together with LKT:

• You have forgotten that the cultural field, in order to produce its best creations, needs to be consistently developed, and that this requires very different types of processes and products and cultural field actors who purposefully develop them.
• You forgot to look into what deep long-term activities and processes would not have an alternative source of funding after the termination of strategic funding, and what would be required at least minimally to ensure the sustainability and long-term impact of multi-year LKT investments (!).
• You forgot that the council is cultural (art is a component). As for the direction of strategic support for organizations, in the context of the LKT decision in question, for the sake of fairness, the name should be clarified: write “fields of art (especially some)”. And somehow insert the word “festivals” (but UPS!, there is also a separate strategic direction for festivals!).
• You have forgotten the geopolitical environment we currently live in and the complexities we can only change through inclusive, active, participatory cultural and creative processes. And here you missed the opportunity to at least symbolically support the two organizations that were deliberately left after the dash, whose activities are strategically aimed at strengthening the resilience, inclusiveness, and dialogue of our society by mobilizing the cultural field.

You, dear LKT chairman, have forgotten that you are the head of a democratic state institution that distributes public finances, which is subject to the highest criteria for decisions, transparency, reasonableness, and public interest. The questions regarding the quality and circumstances of the decision in question, which have been raised to you both publicly and in formal ways, are very serious. They are related not only to the quality of LKT’s activities, but also to its reputation.

We all make mistakes, but the democratic way is to openly admit, analyze and solve them, rather than belittling the issues they raise and shifting the responsibility to others or “the future”.

Strategic, long-term funding as such is one of the most important things that happened in the field of non-governmental funding of the cultural field after the fact of the LKT itself.

I firmly believe that it is in the interest of the entire field that you strengthen and grow the direction of strategic finance, and not discredit it, as you have done so far with your public comments.

I invite the LKT to commit to a public, detailed, open discussion about the accumulated problems. Everyone’s common interest is a well-functioning, constantly improving LKT. No one knows the right answers, there is no one best perspective, but the most important thing is to never stop talking, listen to different voices, analyze problems, be critical, find solutions and respect each other.