what will "tradition" mean in a few years?

Helder Guimarães, a Portuguese world renowned magician, says that Portugal is not a country for magicians, "it's a cultural issue", he says, "cultural programmers see magic shows as secondary, inferior (to other performing arts)". He was voted by 3.500 people for the second year in a row, as the "world greatest magician", nevertheless there's no interest in buying his shows in Portugal, so he moved to the US... 

He's right, there is little tradition in Portugal of attending magic shows but there's also little tradition of attending performing arts in general. Should we just stop thinking about this, because... there's no tradition? For whom are we "creating" these countries (yes, plural, there are many other European examples) where culture is just what people are "familiar with". 

When I read these news of people going overseas (or abroad) to seek the recognition they can't get "at home", of cultural policies being made based on economic statistics only, I always remember Churchill's remarkable words when asked to cut down cultural funding to help the war effort: Then what would we be fighting for? We keep cutting and mending and struggling to "go on", get trough these hard moments, but what will we have to show for as "tradition" in a few years?

Maybe we'll need more then Helder's Small Miracles...

the "if only I could" museum

David Walsh became a millionaire by inventing a mathematic system to gamble in horse races. Then we was bored, then he made his own museum – The Museuam of the New and theOld – MONA. To put it in simple terms, according to its founder, it’s a “perverse Disneyland” where he gets to call all the shots based on “because!”, “because I want to” and “because it’s fun”. But make no mistakes, it’s not a joke, it’s an amazing building, in a fabulous location, with beautiful and rare art pieces, very well managed by a professional team of experts. Besides the museum, there's also a restaurant, an hotel and... you can also be buried there!

I want to go there! Don’t you? 

the liquid life

can we still find room for beauty?

photo Rebeccah Dean

Look for the numbers!

How come brilliant Swedish health students know less of the world than chimpanzees? It’s easy: chimpanzees have no pre-conceived ideas of the world or of human beings! So… maybe we should look for the numbers to know the world better, we should look at people without our personal “filter” of what we think of “them” – and by doing so we could at least know the same as apes do!

This is a 2006 Ted Talk on Health and Economy, but if we were to do the same questions related to culture, would our answers be any different? 

The State allows you to sponser yourself!

Francisco Camacho, founder and director of Eira posted an open letter to Mr. Jorge Sampaio, president of Guimarães 2012 European Capital for Culture.

He speaks of a situation that has become quite "normal" these days... besides not having any public funding or having suffered serious cuts, Portuguese (as Spanish and others) creators are now "sponsoring" the State by taking on loans and paying for expenses that the State should have paid for in the first place… How did this happen? When did the State lost all liability before its citizens? Are they allowing the cultural sector to sponsor the country's image, society and cultural action? How kind of them!

The cool, digital Queen

For all of those that don't have time to be on facebook or twitter or Youtube: well... if the Queen does it, so should you! For the Olimpics she invited James Bond to pick her up, thus leaving the dream of many queens and princesses all over the world! But, she is the Queen, the real one! She doesn’t NEED to do this, or does she? You can draw your own conclusions; follow her everywhere if you want! 

Facebook – Gin O’Clock 

Twitter - @Queen-UK 

I leave you with the video (going on over 1 bilion views) and some digital consequences… the impact was huge, of course! 

If even the most famous, rich and powerful celebrity in the world is going digital, it makes you think why so many cultural institutions aren’t…

Património que fala

Estava à procura de um víseo sobre os monumentos e museus portugueses... e nada! De turismo, sim há muita coisa, mas dos musues e património só feitos por turistas e curiosos. Parece-me... estranho que não se comunique em vídeo, que não se "explique" porque é que é bom visitar o património português.

Sabem porque é que se deve ir ao Louvre? Eu também, mas mesmo assim, explicam-no! E muito bem! Dá-me mesmo vontade de ir ao Louvre passar um dia inesquecivel e romântico e aprender imenso sem esforço nenhum. Já sei, já sei, os franceses têm muito dinheiro para a cultura! Mas se é exemplos baratos que queremos, vejamos este do Centro Nacional dos Monumentos (Franceses). Pois é... foi barato e é cool, moderno, agitado e vivo! Sim, sim, é sobre monumentos, palácios, igrejas e outras coisas velhinhas!