“We’re going to take risks, we’re going to make mistakes.
We´ll allow others to take risks and make mistakes.”
From the ACARTE programme, prepared by Madalena de Azeredo Perdigão

At the end of last year’s conference (where we reflected on leadership in the cultural sector), several of those present suggested that this year’s theme would be the error. We accepted the suggestion and chose risk and error as the theme. At the same time, there is the happy coincidence that 2023 marks the centenary of the birth of Madalena de Azeredo Perdigão, who was director of the Music Department and ACARTE – Entertainment, Artistic Creation and Education through Art Department at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

During the pandemic, we organised several online debates, to support each other in a confusing and uncertain period. In those meetings, several people expressed the hope that something would change in the way we work in the cultural sector (the time, the pressure, the required productivity). What we see today is that, with few exceptions, nothing has changed. On the contrary, the pressure is even greater (and the mental health of culture professionals is deteriorating).

In this context, error is no longer seen – in an area that considers itself to be creative – as something desirable, necessary, comething that can feed our imagination and creativity. Associated with this fact is the aversion to taking risks. Thus, we verify a stagnation in the sector, as well as disillusionment and discouragement among professionals.

But even before the pandemic, the co-founder of Belarus Free Theatre, Natalia Kaliada, issued a warning in her speech at the State of the Arts Conference No Boundaries 2015:

“Creative conformism is blooming in democratic countries and so you have to ask whether the only way to secure funding today is to create safe art? How many Shakespeare plays are staged in London every year? How many Chekhov plays are staged in Moscow every year? These two writers were highly critical of their own society and yet today they are considered ‘safe choices’ for theatres, for audiences who can’t be disturbed or provoked and what is more, for funders who want to support only what is safe for their strategies.”

A day to discuss the risk of making mistakes and the mistake of not taking risks. “What’s missing?”, would ask Madalena de Azeredo Perdigão.