Future Arts Manifesto
The current pandemic is not just disrupting daily life and economy. It is creating a hiatus in artistic creation, as an unacceptable blank page left in the course of human civilization.
Even in major crisis, such as world wars, artists kept creating their works essential for humanity to understand itself. Today is not different.
We don’t want money to stay at home. We need money to keep producing the culture of our time. That’s why we propose that European institutions, governments, city councils, foundations, private sponsors, engage in an extensive and ambitious program of prepaid commissions covering all artistic fields to be presented publicly when the crisis is over. Such an endeavour would result in an explosion of creativity. It would also improve the much-needed artistic adaptation to the digital realm, since most of the old routines are not suitable in the current situation. Imagine, for example, the effect in such artistic areas as theatre, dance or music forced to rehearse in the digital environment.
Artists are not made for inertia. Artists are made to endlessly explore creativity and innovation.
Leonel Moura