19 October 2026
Goethe-Institut, Lisbon

There are several initiatives and reports at an international level that highlight the role of culture in promoting people’s wellbeing and strengthening their mental and physical health. At the same time, there is a huge deficit of care and lack of attention regarding the teams of cultural organisations. The reality we know points to disrespect for labour rights, the normalisation of long working hours and requests arriving at any time, unfair remuneration, moral and/or sexual abuse, precariousness, discrimination, imbalance between personal and professional life, and countless small daily gestures that contradict the culture of care.

Relevant factors in the construction of this reality may be gender, parenthood, type of contract/working relationship, transparency and effectiveness of labour relations control systems, the performance evaluation system, and the more or less professional management of human resources. Less healthy work environments, in turn, result in high levels of anxiety, mental health problems, prolonged absences, feelings of fear and insecurity, dissatisfaction with one’s own performance, and a lack of personal fulfillment.

Why care? How do you build and maintain a culture of care? What factors should be considered? In this context, what do transparency, fairness, and solidarity mean in practice?