Broadening cultural democratisation through the 'Nouveaux Commanditaires' Protocol

The artist François Hers, promoter of 'Nouveaux Commanditaires' analyses the opportunities brought by the protocol that guides the ways of doing of this European network, with which more than 500 works have been produced all over Europe.

A declaration of intent that can be summed up in one sentence: “Anyone who wants to can take on the responsibility of commissioning a work of art and participate in the emergence of an art of democracy”.

Indeed, the conditions are now in place to build a contemporary culture as a great societal project.. All willing members of society, whoever they are, wherever they are, can be agents of such a construction, driven by a desire for democracy and a common recognition of a need to create and to understand, to join a movement of unprecedented transformation in all our forms of relationship and fundamental cultural dimensions: our relationship with others and our identity, with time and space, with the planet and living beings.

To realise this ambition, as well as addressing the fears and debates surrounding a historic movement that could be the birth of a new civilisation, current cultural policies must be supplemented, as they offer society nothing more than access to works and knowledge, whereas society also needs access to creation and research in order to be able to act.. In fact, Today, almost everywhere in the country, the central focus of all cultural policies, public or private, is the conservation, enrichment and enhancement of ancient or contemporary heritage.; We see an increasing number of historical monuments, libraries, theatres, concert halls, museums, art centres, festivals, installations and events in public spaces opening up all around us. These investments respond to our profound need to give form and meaning to our perception of the world, to find criteria of judgement among all the dematerialised transpositions made up of figures, letters, images and sounds, on which we increasingly depend exclusively to live and work.

However, while heritage allows for the transmission of memory, which is essential for the survival of humanity - a child who is not taught to walk will never survive - it is also essential for the survival of the human race. A cultural policy cannot be satisfied with just access to what exists. The movement of which we are a part calls for an investment in the creation of forms in which to participate, as well as in a work of recognition of the reasons for this call for creation and research. In other words, to enable all people to recognise and express the need to appeal to artists, who will have the capacity to bring out new forms, and to scientists, who will develop ways of investigating the reality of the world in all its human or natural dimensions.  

The forms they propose constitute us as a species and characterise the culture of a people just as philosophy shapes thought, education shapes transmission, law shapes justice, exchange shapes economics, religion shapes beliefs, or politics shapes the designs of shared social organisation. In this never-ending construction site that is a culture, allowing all members of a society to engage artists, scientists and scientists in dialogue means putting democracy into practice in a field where it has never happened before.. The people's capacity to act in this field had never before been recognised, not even by the revolutions carried out in their name.

For millennia, political and religious powers have had the exclusive power to ask artists to give sensitive and visible forms to the great common cultural orders.

«In the West, since the Renaissance and in particular since the invention of democracies, it has been artists, with their unique works, who have been at the forefront of the emancipation of our forms of perception and expression, an emancipation for which philosophers, scientists and scientists will also be exemplary figures».»

This centuries-long conquest of a sovereign individuality, which is at the very basis of the idea of democracy whose project is to compose a society with free and equal members in rights, does not in itself provide the answer to this question: how to achieve a composition How can we find ways of working with different concepts and convictions that we are committed to respecting? To this challenge we must now add the challenge of finding forms of action that can help us to achieve an ecological transition in which our destiny is at stake.. Thus, democracy is a work in progress, and developing rules and regulations or accepting violence to manage a coexistence of interests can only be responses, by default, which nevertheless remind us of our need.

To overcome the prejudice of a people's inability to assume its responsibilities, no one is better placed than an artist, since he or she can affirm that it is now up to society itself to take the lead and to reinforce, with the same legitimacy as the artist, the raison d'être of art. This is how this Protocol of the “Nouveaux Commanditaires” was born. A protocol that defines the shared responsibilities of all the social actors and allows them to design a common action and to implement it with the help of a new protagonist who has been given the title of mediator-producer/mediator-producer. The latter, a qualified cultural actor with recognised independence, establishes the link and organises the debates to address the issues and act in accordance with the requirements of the parties involved. An actor who also assumes the role of producer, and who gathers and manages the resources and skills needed to carry out a creation or research.

This mediator-producer/mediator-producer will also be at the service of legal entities such as administrations, organisations or companies, which can thus participate in these shared responsibilities by initiating projects that take into account in a significant way the cultural dimensions that are always linked to their technical actions.. A reference example is that of the DATAR Photographic Mission, carried out by a governmental body in charge of the balanced development of territories and whose action has transformed landscapes in France. In fact, by making this call for creation and research possible, the Protocol makes it possible to deal with all kinds of questions relating to society or the environment.

This field-based implementation, which began in 1991 with the support of major foundations and public partners in France and in several European countries, has enabled thousands of projects in all kinds of conditions and in all kinds of contexts to be carried out today, with several hundred extraordinary works in all fields of creation and research. These works help us to see that the Protocol of the “Nouveaux Commanditaires” was an adequate response to the current expectations of all social actors.

Thus, citizens increasingly eager to participate are finding ways to enjoy their right not only to assert, but also to do; to not having to settle for the role of mere spectator or consumer, but to become, if they so wish, active agents in commissioning work or research through which they become independent citizens., They also create a partnership.

«Is there a better way to exercise a cultural right and a better training in art and science than to define oneself the need for a creation or to contribute to the definition of a research protocol?»

Artists, in an economy of creation that no longer consists exclusively of supply or assistance that brings them back to their own concerns, can finally take into account all the cultural issues of their time, regardless of their complexity and diversity. They thus reveal the historical importance and give a common sense to this freedom of creation that they have won after arduous efforts. Beyond its intentions and its works now emancipated from an advertising or financial function, it is art itself that achieves the full power of its role thanks to the perception of an era that is its own right..

 Researchers can anchor their work in real-life situations and make it effective and accessible to a wider audience by giving their society a better understanding of why they believe in science. The new fields and perspectives opened up by the commissions justify giving more researchers more means to revalue the knowledge and skills they already have or have acquired in order to develop the intelligence and mastery we lack to tackle the problems we face..

For those whose vocation is to establish, in one way or another, in art and science, a link between the works and the public, their role is enhanced to become that of a new key player in a democracy founded on the initiative of people who take on an action of general interest in their own name. This fundamental role complements and consolidates that of the elected or appointed representatives who adopt, within this Protocol, The political mediation essential for the success of this initiative in the community, whose good is the ultimate goal of the project.

As for the elected representatives and major patrons, they can do their job to the full: to establish a link between the hitherto unanswered problems of society and the people and modes of action that have been recognised as the best way to address them. For it is our elected representatives and patrons who must decide on the use of the financial means our society has given them to ensure the common good in culture, the future depends on their commitment..

In order to achieve this, they can now count on the collaboration of a network of qualified mediators who, as in other European countries, have joined together in an association known in France as the “Société des Nouveaux Commanditaires”. Its mission is to make the existence of this project and its results widely known, through appropriate means of communication; to train, taking into account the numerous requirements and the methods adopted, new actors involved, be they individuals or institutions.; and to provide, where possible, the tools and know-how needed to achieve a production that meets expectations.

In terms of financing, this implementation requires investments, but with the advantage of hardly falling into recurrent operating costs that most public groups or foundations cannot or do not intend to cover on their own.

«An investment that we can achieve by redirecting existing resources or in the framework of the proposed shared responsibility with the companies and administrations whose activity is involved in an order».»

Moreover, we no longer have to worry about the expense of an eternal preservation of works because they are the highest expression of an individuality when it has become sovereign. The future of the works is not defined and maintaining responsibility is something that is learned. Arising from the involvement of society as a whole, the works acquire a social life and a use value which, once they have played their role for a community, will again allow them to live or die, like millions of other works and research in history, without fear of diminishing the richness of the memory that is passed on to us.. We thus encourage the investment of an entire society in its ability to consider a situation and reinvent it, as well as in its ability to perceive and formulate the challenges of its time, and thus to master, as far as possible, the movement that transforms it.  

The The “Nouveaux Commanditaires” protocol lays the foundations for an exercise in democracy based on trust and the decision to take the risks of expressing oneself freely, of depending on others, and also those inherent in research and creation.. Democracy is thus able to respond to the questions that arise within society, which are being called for in it, and this Protocol provides Europe with the cultural policy that it was lacking in order to build itself and remain an example.

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