The Ministry of Culture, the Modernists and Creative Economy

In order to understand the Brazilian experience that inaugurated creative economy within the governmental context, in the beginning of the 2000s, we need to go back in time and visit its inspiration: the Labour Party experience, between 1990 and 2000, in England.

It was stablished that the core fundamentals of the crucial role culture was to hold from then on in the country, and that would be replicated all around the world: culture as a cement for the building of national identity (local or regional), but above all as a mean of promoting political and economic ends.

Just like the party led by Tony Blair, in Brazil the Creative Economy Secretary, under the Ministry of Culture, and created during Dilma Rousseff’s administration (2011–2014), had as focus go further in the public policies for culture.

These policies were implemented during the terms of Gilberto Gil (2003–2008) and Juca Ferreira (2008–2010), who turned the office into a key piece of social inclusion and a tool for job creation and insertion of products and services, in the domestic and foreign markets.

The Creative Economy is linked not only to the namely cultural manifestations (dance, music, visual arts, performative arts), but also to those activities that are sort of industrial, which create and add intellectual value to their “products”: fashion, design, games, and technology industries.

During Gil’s time ahead of MinC, culture ceases to be something within the folkloric universe or even something that had been relegated to the market responsibility, as it had been under previous administrations. It moves on to be a material and intangible good able to foster income, promote inclusion, and create innovation.

Yet, above all, it turns into something that gives sense to the life of the several agents of Brazilian society. A symbolic and potent element that builds bridges, keeps the memory and the meaning of the identities of individuals and their communities.

This understanding of culture as a basic and inalienable right of the human beings, needed for the strengthening of democracy, sedimented by MinC, from 2003 to 2008.

And the following administrations of the office, in a way, it brings back Mario de Andrade’s vision, his Mission of Folklore Research, and the Modernist’s, from the 1920 and 1930s. One of Gil’s first actions to adjust his vision to the MinC was its restructuring. 

Thus, a new institutional, organizational, and managerial structure emerged, by creating, for instance, the National Cultural Plan [PNC, in the Portuguese acronym] and, in 2004, the Department of Immaterial Heritage [DPI, in the Portuguese acronym].

The PNC was the genesis of the institutionalization of cultural public policies in the sector of creative economy, and more specifically of the cultural economy.

Connected to the National Historic and Artistic Heritage Institute [IPHAN, in the Portuguese acronym), an independent body at MinC, the DIP, under Vanderlei dos Santos Catalão, known as TT Catalão, had a systematic acting.

It was able to qualify as intangible cultural heritage the knowledge, techniques, territories, and traditions, especially those of popular culture, indigenous and quilombola peoples.

Some of them were: the graphic expression and orality of the Wajãpi people from Amapá; the clay pan-making craft called Ofício das Paneleiras de Goiabeiras, from Espírito Santo state; The Taper of Our Lady of Nazareth; the Samba de Roda of the Recôncavo of Bahia; the making of acarajé food by women of Bahia; and the Jongo dancing.

And also the Iauaretê waterfalls, sacred land for the indigenous people of the Uapés and Papuri rivers, in Amazonas; the Caruaru Fair in Pernambuco; the frevo dancing, the tambor de crioula dancing from Maranhão; the varieties of Rio de Janeiro’s samba; the artisanal making of cheese in Minas Gerais; and the capoeira.

Catalão was also one of the main characters in the creation of the Living Culture Program, which implemented several projects for the fostering of traditional knowledges, such as the Culture Points, which “are sharp interventions in the depths of urban and rural Brazil.”

The goal was “to wake up, stimulate, and plan what there is of most singular and positive in the communities, the poor regions, the quilombos, the indigenous villages: local culture,” Gil summed up in a speech about the Living Culture Berlin Program, in Germany, on September 2nd, 2004.

Culture as a development factor, linked to the triad of symbolic heritage, citizenship, and economy, able to promote sustainable socioeconomic growth, brought the need to measure how culture contributes to the gross domestic product (GDP).

UNESCO data shows that international trade transactions of cultural goods and services have raised, in average, 5.2% per year, from 1994 (US$ 39 bi) to 2002 (US$ 59 bi).

However, developed countries have concentrated these figures, being responsible for half of global imports and exports. Thus, in 2004, MinC set up a partnership with Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistic [IBGE, in the Portuguese acronym].

The partnership’s goal was enabling continuous researches in order to organize sector data and create “cultural indicators to foster studies, researches, and publications, providing both government and private entities with support for planning and decision making…

And, to general users, data for in depth sectorial analysis,” as per the description on the IBGE website. With that, the Culture Data and Indicators System (SIIC, in the Portuguese acronym] was created.

In the audiovisual sector alone, there had been an increment of 8%, between 2009 and 2019. “It is still hard for people to see culture and creative activity as being part of the economy, a huge mistake that lead to the waste of one of our largest economic assets.”

This statement was given by the former minister of Culture and then-secretary of Culture of São Paulo State, Sérgio Sá Leitão, in the Creative Economy and Culture Forum, in 2017. He had been chief of staff and secretary of Cultural Policies at MinC (2003–2006), during Gil’s term.

According to IBGE, in Brazil, the cultural sector employed 5.2 million people, in 2018, with transaction figures of R$ 226 billion, in 2017, according to SIIC 2007–2018, a research that consolidates indicators of the sector.

One of them is the Culture Prices Index [IPCult, in the Portuguese acronym], which had an increase of 1.7% in 2018, below the Extended National Consumer Price Index [IPCA, in the Portuguese acronym], which had increased 3.8%. Despite its potential to foster employment and income, the sector does not escape from the turbulences affecting world economy.

However, under the administrations of presidents Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro, the institutional entities of Culture in federal, state, and city levels, with no exception, have been weakened through budget cuts. Not to mention the extinction of the Ministry of Culture itself, in 2019.

Opposed to the setback and from a historical point of view, MinC’s administration under Gilberto Gil and Juca Ferreira is perpetuated as paradigmatic and innovative in the mission of ensuring and promoting visibility and appreciation of the large, rich Brazilian cultural diversity.