CCNC 2020 Interview with Mr Ernesto Ottone
Welcome to the Creative City Network of Canada podcast mini series, where we explore the topics and conversations that connect and support cultural leadership, celebrate cultural excellence and nurture cultural development in local communities throughout Canada. I'm your host Annetta Latham. Today, I'm speaking with Mr Ernesto Ottone, UNESCO Assistant Director General for Culture. Prior to his position, he served as Chile's First Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage from 2015 to 2018. As Minister of Culture, he created a Department of First Peoples, a Migrants Unit and strengthened copyright laws and heritage protection during this time. From 2016 to 2017, he also chaired the Regional Center for the Promotion of Books in Latin America and the Caribbean. Welcome, Mr. Ottone.
OTTONE: Thank you so much. It's really great to have me invited for this podcast session.
ANNETTA: Oh, it's absolutely wonderful, wonderful to have you join us for this. Your job sounds like it's an amazing job. And I can imagine during this time that we're all living through, extremely busy as well trying to focus on some things. On the UNESCO website, in the discussion around cities as platforms for bringing urban stakeholders together and the discussion of future cities, you know, it mentions that people need culture now absolutely more than ever. From your perspective, can you discuss the importance of culture and the creative sector, fostering resiliency in our communities going forward? And what does this look like from UNESCO, international and Canadian perspective? It's a big question, really, isn't it?
OTTONE: It's a large question, you know, but now we're going to try to be very synthetic . First of all, it's important to understand that the Covid-19 crisis, as everybody is mentioning, has drastically impacted the culture sector around the world. We are touching it every day. And we witnessed, as you know, closures of heritage sites, museums, theaters, all cultural spaces and institutions. So the funding for cultural and creative institution were either halted or sized down.
And it has also resulted in - and that's the most difficult - in jobs being lost all across the world. That's the first time that we have a global challenge. Many artists and practitioners are now unable to make ends meet. So over more than one hundred and twenty eight countries has entirely closed down their cultural institution. That's the measurement that we have in the first wave of the pandemic. The culture sector is among the sectors that are the most affected that nobody wants to recognize this. But it also has been one of the essential sources of resilience and vitality in such trying circumstances. As we have observed, cities and people around the world, turn to culture as a source of comfort, well-being and also connection. In the last publication that we launched two weeks ago, the UNESCO Creative Cities Response to Covid-19, we highlight the various cultural leveraged practices undertaken by the cities to not only stimulate and somehow strengthen the sector, but also activate social connections and togetherness among the inhabitants, initiatives or many, many events organized by UNESCO. And the most important was this movement that we created, the resiliart movement with more than, right now, we are one hundred, no two hundred and ten projects around the world in more than 85 countries.
So it has been a very large access to civil society and that's a most important civil society that are working in the cultural sector, that the one who are really affected, not only institution, because in other challenging crises that we are living, it was the institution that was brought on the front of what's happening. Right now, we are completely speaking about the whole ecosystem of the culture that has been touched.
So, we understand that there is a direct relationship between culture and social and psychological well-being, and I think that that's something new that we knew some of us who are working in this field for more than 25, 30 years. But right now, I think that people are more aware of the significance of what it means - culture for our daily livelihoods.
ANNETTA: So, yeah, very much. We've certainly seen, like you said, especially in the first wave, the culture of being really a social cohesion thing. And, you know, with the people playing on the terraces and singing in apartments and all of those kind of things, you know, it really brought out the need that we had to connect on that kind of level. And I was watching the interview that you did the other day, and, you know, as you said, you know, eighty nine per cent of heritage properties globally have really shut down. And, you know, that's extraordinary. It has an extraordinary impact on that level of thing, when we think about this as a unique time in our history and it is a unique crisis. And nobody really knows what it's going to look like out the other end. At this point, in your opinion, why is it important to ensure that society doesn't simply slip back into the normal, like you’ve said, culture is now kind of almost more front and present than it's ever been before? So if we slip back to the old normal, will it kind of slide back into the background? So, why do you think it's important that we keep it front and center.
OTTONE: The Covid-19 pandemic somehow has highlighted various urban issues that city dwellers have faced and that we were talking about before the pandemic, but it has, it has shown us that it has increased social inequalities, Covid-19 has disproportionately affected the most vulnerable and marginalized sectors, and the urban that we call urban poor, where the most affected, are the most affected right now when we're talking.
So localizing urban emergency response and recovery are quite important, not only for this pandemic that we are living, but the preparedness for what could come in the future. So for city authorities, for example, which tend to be closer to people than national level, this task poses particular challenges to reach the entire population, to obtain their cooperation. And that's very important. But also when thinking about solutions for the future and this has affecting the investment in public services, the Covid-19 highlighted the importance of all these public services in cities. But urban residents depend much more on public service, the cultural facilities, the transport, the green spaces, the leisure, than those that are living in rural areas, who have been more able to not as we say in French, enfermé very how you say it, very indoor situation.
So I think that the many, many problems that had rapid and unbalanced urban growth are looking right now as an opportunity to reshape the way that we were discussing all these subjects and inclusive link, inter linkages between cities and the globalized economy, the focus on economy based urban design and functioning rather than a people first approach. When you hear today all the speech about building back better, yes, the only way to build back better is with people, with community. You will not achieve it without to put it in the center. What are the real needs and the people should be allowed to participate, should be dialog and individuals.
So I think that what we were trying in the last 10 years, since the UNESCO Creative City is very important for the management of cities as a pillar of sustainability. And now we are additioning one word. It's not only about sustainability, as you know, we have the 17 goals of the Agenda 2030. It's also about the resilience capacity of those cities. Don't assess how we learn from the past, how we are able to do, preventive measures to understand what we are building.
ANNETTA: And I think you've really highlighted the fact that prior to Covid, there was very much a conversation around regeneration. And, you know, there was a very strong dialogue around regeneration and for the lower socio-economic communities within cities that was kind of the goal. And like you said, Covid-19 has really flattened that dialog. And now it's about how do we actually make our cities resilient and make every corner of our city resilient, so that the most vulnerable don't get attacked. But it takes that urban regeneration dialogue into a whole another trajectory. Just for our listeners, could you explain what the 2030 agenda actually is - just very quickly.
OTTONE: Well, that's the goals that has been challenged by the UN system for the member states, for all the governments, to try to achieve this agenda 2030, that is 17 goals, you can fight poverty, education. There is no goal for culture, and that's important to understand. When these goals were put it, you can find culture everywhere, but without mentioning it.
So right now, with the pandemic, I think that we should reinforce the idea that when you are talking about how to get out improving education for all and now with learning, distance learning, also education, how you ensure that you are putting all these aspects of cultural needs. When we are talking about hate speech right now, I was in a discussion. Well, how do you do it? Only by education. No, you have to be facing the diversity of culture. And to put it together and show the young generation. I have three little girls and I do it every day when I can, to try to achieve this point. How it's not about acceptance of the other, its to share with the other, it’s to understand where they come from and how you want to exchange.
And at the end, the goals are these, how we are able to exchange about good practices, about indigenous knowledge that are so important for climate change right now, and not just suppose that there is some magical potion that we've got a solution, because it doesn't exist. Right now when we are talking and you are using this podcast, when we were hearing the last, the first months of the first wave of confinement, that finally digital will be the solution for art. No, it's a means, when you know that forty six percent of the population, the world, doesn't have the access to technology, because they don't have it. For financial issues or for its infrastructure. Well, you will not replace anything because half of the world will not be able to access by this means. No, it's not a solution. It's us.
It's a tool that we should have ethical regulation that they should participate in, in the financing of the culture for sure, more than they are doing it, because the content are coming from the sector. So the agenda is more global. You will find it. And we have one target that is the 11.4 about urban reshaping or reorganization.
ANNETTA: So you talked about so many things in that and what you've just said, and so I just want to kind of pick a couple of things out of that. And I like what you were saying about how critically important it is that culture actually is in every conversation, because culture actually, you know I passionately believe culture is the core of who we are. And it is important to us as water and food. It matters and it matters. So when we're thinking about that in relation to building resilient and sustainable cities, really, and making sure that our culture is sustainable, how do you think are our next steps forward in relation to urban development post Covid, to creating sustainable and resilient cities?
OTTONE: Well, I will use a quote from Director General Audrey Azoulay when she mentioned that the global nature of Covid-19 crisis is a call for the international community to reinvest in international cooperation and intergovernmental dialog. I'm completely agreed with our DG. It means that the Covid-19 pandemic affects smaller cities as much as megacities, richer and poorer countries in, as I say, in all regions. So that's why a dedicated program as the platform of cities, that is where I include that right now, the Creative Cities Network of UNESCO, should provide countries and cities, platform of exchange, exchanges, sorry, but also bring together everyone to cooperate as well to learn from each other within various thematic dimension and the thematic and not something that we are inventing right now. We are talking about education, about culture, about social and natural science and about communication, and that's the five core elements of the mandate of UNESCO. So we are we are right now, the organization, I think, have found that there have re-entered in the mandate that for which it was created after the Second World War, World War two, and to be a specialized agency that can right now work at the local level should give us the opportunity to find innovative solutions. And in this document that we launched, as I said before, you will find excellent more than 80 examples how by culture, by cultural means there was a tackling about Covid and how solution in Brazilia Santo or in Shenzhen, in China, there was a proposal using culture as a tool, as an enhance to come to innovative solution, how to resolve problems that were confronting communities during this pandemic. And when we shared this experience with other countries, they can also learn from, not only the good experience, but also the bad experience it is affecting.
For example, I had meetings four months ago with the four biggest museum, National Museum in Argentina, in Buenos Aires the capital, and they created a network with the more than a thousand twenty two museums in the whole country. They never spoke together because the four National Museum are somehow in on some level with also own museums to have financial issues that they had support, they have subvention or whatever, and right now that were all closed. So for the first time, they had time to rethink modalities about geography, about loans of artworks, how they can work together. And it was great because at the end of a catastrophe like the one that we are living, obliged them to reflect about the dimension and importance, how they can present a new way of working for the communities, allowing to work together.
And that's one example, I have 100, but I see how institutions that never work together because they were not meant to work, because I know normally they're normally we never saw that it was possible because they have there were private or public or local. And at the end, when they are confronted to the same situation, they have to fire people. They don't concretize the planning for the two next years. Yeah, that's the prerogative of culture to reflect society and how we get that. And for education, a system right now, when you see the content, as I said before, for distancing learning. You are obliged to put so many cultural content because you have to put in the context of what we are living, because if you show the reality to our youth. It's catastrophe. At the end, how do you explain to, in my case, I have one of my girls is six years, how do you explain the pandemic. How do you explain to the school that she's learning French and she doesn't see the mouth of the teacher? Imagine this possibility when we were a child. You know, we have to find new ways to rethink and reshape the way that we are doing it, and for the cities, it's so important to learn from them at national level to beat this experience, to beat it forward. Yeah, to share it.
ANNETTA: I totally agree with you, and I think one of the things is, like you said, there is some wonderful modelling going on out there and your example is a perfect one because, you know, one of the experiences that I'm seeing in the city that I currently live in, in Canada and you know, I'm a New Zealander who lives in Canada, which is a little bit of an odd mix. But in a city that I am in, what I’m seeing is our cultural community all still working independently of each other and they've all got the same problem happening, but they're not in the room together talking and supporting each other. And like you said the minute they start doing that, the strength of that there is empowerment in that and there's also that ability when they all get together to go, how do we actually move this forward?
And they can almost in some way drive the narrative in the community if they get together. And, you know, your example of the museums is a perfect one, where they are driving the narrative moving forward. And, you know, I, I like you when I hear that. And please don't ever go back to being the separatist operation because this, you know, this way forward is so exciting. And, you know, I'm aware that UNESCO's has done the UNESCO city platform. And, you know, I think it's a great initiative. So, you know. Why did UNESCO set up to the platform, create the platform, was it a Covid-19 response? Was it kind of in the pipeline. And what's its principal objectives?
OTTONE: No, no, no, it was not, it was created when I arrived two years and half before, when I discover at the end, because I came to this institution knowing that in the culture sector, we had two of these networks: Creative City and also the Historical City of the World Heritage. And somehow I was looking for the first wWorld Cities Day We had four sectors organizing different events. It was not online. It was presential. So it was one room, the room one said, what is happening? It's not possible to think about cities only with one perspective. So we proposed to the Director General how we can enhance all these different networks because you have megacities for water and climate, disaster, risk reduction and resilience, media and information, literacy cities.
You have also the learning cities and the International Coalition for Inclusive and Sustainable City. And the platform was to bring together more than thousand five hundred cities that somehow are part of this inter sectorial interdisciplinary approach. And so that, you know, between all these networks, these programs and networks, there was only one in all cities that were in each one of the programs. And nobody knew. So when we took all these cities, that's Mexico City. Oh, yes, they fit. And what we are doing right now is a pilot project to showcase how in a city when you have all these programs, because in the city at the mayor levels, it was seven different, how you say, focal point. So, yes, the cultural sector speak with one and you have the changing of authorities of major, and everything, you have to rebuild the relationship. And right now we are doing this experiment to know, how can we leverage when you are looking all these different network working together. Yeah, and we are waiting to have the results to showcase this and to show when you are talking about biodiversity, when you are talking about inclusively, about learning, about creativity, about innovation, it's the only way to understand we and we are coming back and will be very short, but we are coming back at something that I'm trying to lead here with the teams is that when you see I'm very respectful about our indigenous, about the indigenous community and the knowledge, but when you see that for one reason, they never, never separated the intangible with the tangible heritage.
One, it's one. It's the same coin and two faces of the coin. But the second. Yeah. And I think they are the same. You cannot fragmented because you will never be able to understand how complex it is to manage a city with communities that are so different and with some different level of exigence that you have somehow to give answers. So that was the reason. Apart from that, right now with disaster or with the Covid-19 have found finally a way to give globally, global solutions for the sustainability that we are looking for.
ANNETTA: And I think what you're saying really resonates, because I think everything that we should be doing and even I would even be so bold as to say some of the current research that we're part of, needs to be a future forming research. It needs to have where are we going? What direction are we going in moving forward in the future? And, you know, so it has some of that connection with the intangible and intangible. And like you say, that they are the same thing. They are enmeshed together, and I don't see how we can pull them apart because, you know, one connects, know, if someone says, oh well, I felt really that made me feel really good. It was like, well, if that piece of public art made you feel really good, it's a tangible, intangible, and you can't you can't separate those two. And so moving forward through that is really, really interesting. One of the things I think in the cultural sector worldwide and especially in Canada is happening and in many of the municipalities in Canada that we are trying to re-address some of the concerns in the museum collections, the memorials, the public art, the street names, the neighborhoods to ensure that we're telling the true story of the history and addressing some of the inequalities in the narrative and the stories and street names to acknowledge the first peoples, and acknowledge the journeys that people have gone on. In April, UNESCO announced support to cultural industries and cultural heritage due to Covid. How does culture and creativity contribute to nurturing social cohesion and inclusiveness in that kind of framework? You touched on that a little bit, but could you expand on that for us?
OTTONE: We came to the conclusion that if we don't get in touch with the human part of what we are talking. In all the matters that we are talking and all the subjects. But for sure, in the culture, its own, it's always the human part of the creation that somehow led to the heritage that we don't know yet because we are creating right now at this moment, this heritage that is created for next generation. Yeah, but if we don't take the time to acknowledge our past for the construction of what we are doing in a respectful way, we will lose momentum for a new generation and right now only to give you a new example. Last week we were celebrating 50 years of the 1970 convention about illicit trafficking of cultural goods, 50 years of a convention that is ratified by more than 140 member states. The campaign that we launched was completely different of what we have done in the past, because what we wanted to do is to do advocacy. Yes, to ensure that the last buyer of an artifact or a cultural goods, that he acquired without knowing the provenance, is affecting not one people, if it was stolen in our archeological site or whatever it was in a museum, it's affecting communities because their identity was stolen. And that is the discussion. It's not the economical value, it is the symbolic human value that we are not acknowledging. And when we're talking and one of the most, I would say, beautiful experience that we have lived, I lived when I was minister is when you receive the restitution of these artifacts that was stolen. Yeah. Because it's like, well, I don't know for North American, but it's for us. It's soccer. The football, when you are winning something very big is the same feeling when you see an art work that it's giving you the understanding of something that it's unimaginable, beautiful. And that's the same thing. Recovering for a community symbol. Yeah. When you are trying to achieve that, people can discover that at the end it's not the economical value. That's something that is part of the illicit trafficking, that there are people that are winning money and that are using these for other unspeakable things like terrorism that you know very well that during the Syrian and Iraqi process, it was one of the financing of terror for buying arms. So, but right now, it's more confusing because you have all the digital platforms. So it has increased, and we have to do this advocacy because it's the only way to ensure that if you buy something, you have to know that the history of this artifact, of this subject, and it's the same in the nature, in everything that we are doing to recognize the cultural value is to recognize part of our history. And we have to share it with new generation to ensure that we are respecting it, that we are valuing it somehow, that we want to protect it for next generation, not only for us.
ANNETTA: We definitely put us more in the frame of we are stewards, not owners. And, you know, in our stewardship, we are accountable for our stewardship, know moving forward. And when we have something in our hands, we need to be good stewards of what we have and good stewards of the narrative that we're talking around something. And like you say, we're stewards on behalf of a community, whatever that community is, whether it's a First Nations community, a settler community, we are stewards and we need to be mindful of that as we do any work moving forward. So for those who work in the cultural community, what opportunities do you believe that they have going forward in the spirit of working as a network? How should they be supporting each other locally and nationally?
OTTONE: Well, it's a very complicated question because right now we are only putting towards old information that we are receiving. In the next month, we will have a document that will, from all these experiences and all the debates, will have a compendium of what are also the proposal of the civil society, the cultural sector, for public policies. So that's very important because I don't have memory of having the opportunity to give voices to the cultural workers, to do this bottom up, to ensure that our leaders can also receive this information and put it in the policies. And what we see is that we have to differentiate two things. One, is everything that we knew that was in the new normal, whatever normal was all, about how we have to reappropriate or cultural organization or museum, or whatever you can imagine. And the second is to have a very fair discussion, on the digital platform. How they have to reinvest in those contexts that are somehow created. And that's a discussion that we have not in all countries have this discussion. But when you are receiving this content, somebody is creating it. And they should be part of the solution. You cannot continue only to ask in some countries with the bénévolat or whatever you asking of the fundraiser with private sectors and the other one, the national subvention or local subvention? We all should participate in this value that we are putting in the culture sector and to share responsibilities and also share the financing of this because it will become more and more stressing for artists and thinkers and creative knowledge to continue to produce without having ensured their livelihoods. And it's becoming in some countries where they don't have social security, where they don't have health care, where they don't have they are really in the last level of the society right now, and that's something that if we are talking about humanity, you cannot leave them aside, they are giving hopes for people that need right now not to become crazy because you have more than three, four, five months locked down. So please, the society and the city have to play a role is revalue our creators, revalue our culture, our goods, revalue our institution, because they are part of the hope of a better or more humanitarian way of society.
ANNETTA: Absolutely. I want to just touch very quickly before we wrap up on something you mentioned earlier and that you've just mentioned around things going digital and also around, you know, when we're valuing our artists, because some of them, you know, I have a number of friends who are fantastic artists and they're not interested in putting things in a digital platform. And, you know, and as you mentioned, there's real digital poverty out there. And that's not only in access, but it's also in knowledge of how to even use the digital, even if you do have access to it. You know, I guess, on top of what you've just said, what do you think are also those kinds of challenges? As you know, culture is being pushed more and more into a digital platform because of Covid. But like you mentioned, you know, there is real digital poverty out there. So what do you think are some of the challenges and opportunities that we need to focus on this community, cultural community workers, and changing the dialog and being aware of the digital poverty that exists?
OTTONE: Well, there is always this discussion. To know right now, we are looking at making digital content is more and more available online, but it helps because it's a tool, give more diversity, to give more. But what we see at the same time is that those institution who has the financing possibility, who have invested in the past to have ebooks or whatever content they can give it are prevailing in the digital space, and somehow it is affecting the diversity. Without willing to do so because they are doing something that we have been asking them for the last 10 years. So they're really doing what is in the recommendation of Museum 2015. They are doing the job. But the problem is that at the same time, if it's not inclusive, it is not somehow ensuring that all institutions have the same possibility to go there. You will make them poor, you will make more, less rich in content for the diversity that are the same things that we are trying to push more way of understanding the world, more possibility, you have not to get in such places where the difference is seen as something bad. And we are trying to push to have this. So it's the same when I'm telling you that half of the world doesn't have access what it means to go digital if half of the world will not be able to get this content of the digital supports.
So that's a discussion that we should have. And it's not us to have it alone. It's also with the giant of the platforms, with internet regulators, with national level of ministry of communication and technologies, because we have to find a solution of how should be these tools accessible to all communities.
ANNETTA: Thank you for a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful conversation, there is so much that we've touched on, so much that we talked about. And, you know, we could come back and talk again and again. It was just wonderful. I really, really appreciate your time. Is there any kind of other pearl of wisdom you'd like to give us before we finish? Is there anything you'd like to add to what we've talked about?
OTTONE: Yes. No, that is not such a thing Annetta. I need to be very frank.
But what I see and what I have learned over all these years and that right now is coming back to me is that somehow we should both be more all the people that are working in cultural sectors and have or had in the past some responsibilities to be aware that much of the way that we think we were thinking that culture or the cultural sector will grow and will go in some direction. We should be a little bit more autocratic and say it works in a normal situation. But we were never placed or we never had the imagination to try to push it and to strengthen it so much to be sure that we were able to find a solution in our global situation of stress. And right now is the moment where we should all put us for this reflection to ensure that the next time we will be more prepared.
ANNETTA: Wonderful. Thank you so much for your time and I really appreciate it.
OTTONE: Thank you. Bye Annetta.
Today's episode of the Creative City Canada podcast has been made possible through a partnership between Creative City Network of Canada and MacEwan University, and with the support of the many members of the CCNC.
Thank you Mr Ottone for sharing your thoughts and time with us today, and thanks to all of you out there, who took the time to listen.
Continue the conversation online, and see more resources and links from today’s guest on the CCNC Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.
Join us on the Creative City Canada podcasts for other interviews with Ken Lum from Monument Lab and Nancy Duxbury Senior Researcher and Co-coordinator of the Cities, Cultures and Architecture Research Group at the Centre for Social Studies, from University of Coimbra, Portugal. If you’ve found this useful and interesting please comment, share and subscribe. Until then, continue being creative.
Latham, A (Executive Producer and Host). (2020, 20 November ). Creative City Network Canada Podcast Mini Series [Episode 2]. Ernesto Ottone. Podcast retrieved from: www.artfulcoversations.com/ccnc-miniseries-1/2021/2/6/episode-2-ernesto-ottone