While the citizens of Kosovo have moved past the frenzy of the election campaign, for almost four months now, we have seen elected deputies failing to elect the Speaker of the Assembly — a prerequisite for forming a government. In the meantime, essential sectors of life in Kosovo continue to face longstanding problems as this parliamentary deadlock becomes the new normal.
This includes culture, a sector that has long been ignored. The most recent election campaigns were defined by construction projects and the promise of hundreds of millions in investments in cultural parks. Throughout these campaigns, not a single word — at least not a meaningful one — was aimed at redressing the systemic problems that have plagued our cultural sphere in the last two decades.
The rhetoric of these campaigns once again proved that politicians have not listened to cultural workers and have refused to recognize the cultural sector at its core. In doing so, they have maintained the same attitude that has suffocated this sector in the last two decades, leaving it on inconsistent, unstable, and uncertain ground, always on the edge of survival.
Successive governments have not shown any interest in changing this climate. Instead, by continuing to ignore the matter, they suggest that they would much rather remain at the periphery of this debate and the sector at large. When you keep yourself removed and at a distance, as they do, no one expects anything from you, and there is no accountability for your failures.
In this way, they have shaped public opinion on cultural production, fostering a belief that culture is but a luxury.
Now, the new government, whenever it forms, has the opportunity to change the course of things: to place itself at the center of the discussion about culture in the country, not as its owner, but as its promoter and uncompromising supporter.
It must be freed from the grip of ad hoc and spontaneous decisions that do not even cross the basic administrative threshold of carefully addressing cultural policy-making. Spontaneous decisions that are merely responses to acute problems, ones that fail to address the systemic issues that cause them.
The new government must instead learn from good practices and adapt them, creating an administrative and legal framework that paves the way for new approaches, ones that respond to the practical needs of cultural workers in the country. Essentially, it must establish an institutional foundation that gives culture a boost and real support, a foundation that takes on a new form from the current one, which mostly poses obstacles and challenges.
A series of emergencies
In every election, we are promised projects and initiatives that are either already completed, in the process of completion, or, in the worst case, flawed from the start. When the ease with which these promises are made is contrasted against the experience of cultural workers, like myself, who, every time the government changes, must repeat the same demands and problems from scratch, it becomes clear that those who aspire to lead the cultural sector are not primarily concerned with institutional well-being. Instead, they are often driven by personal ambitions and megalomaniacal legacies: “I started this process,” or, more practically, “I initiated work on this other project.”
Governments should therefore first ensure that their initiatives, those that are worthwhile, have longevity beyond their mandates. At the same time, they should become aware of what has been accomplished before their tenure. The constant upending of reforms between administrations is felt daily, and there are no guarantees that the reforms — or more accurately, the practices introduced by one government – will be carried over to the next.
Let us take the example of the subsidies allocated for culture by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports (MCYS), one of the most important ways in which the government provides direct support for the independent cultural sector in the country.
In recent years, several attempts have been made to reform the subsidy scheme. For projects in the fields of art and cultural heritage, the budget for open calls has been increased. This has been a positive development, seeing structural support introduced for organizations with experience in the independent cultural scene. These include support for three-year and one-year programs.
However, it remains unclear how sustainable this practice is and whether it can be meaningfully considered a reform. For a reform to be called such, it must be preceded by a series of preconditions: the autonomy and financial independence of institutions, the strengthening of administration, and a well-considered legal and administrative framework that ensures that this intervention and others like it, however small, endure beyond the political parties in power. These changes have not yet been made.
In the absence of institutional memory and continuity, we are stuck in a vicious cycle of launching initiatives for this or that strategy, for this or that object, from government to government, from minister to minister, ad infinitum. Thus, we must learn and forget every new mandate.
This cycle must be broken. To achieve this, public administrators should be guaranteed political independence. An independence that is capable of maintaining transparent documentation of processes that is transferable, so that cultural institutions do not suffer complete disorientation with each political transition. Policies, good practices, and multi-year strategies must be preserved and carried over from one political administration to the next, because they should be informed by the cultural community which they serve and not subject to the political or megalomaniacal ambitions of this or that minister.
Strengthening public administration in this way could also offer a solution to another problem: the deep bureaucratization of culture.
Here, we must begin with the absolute urgency of restoring the financial and creative autonomy of public cultural institutions.
Public cultural institutions should be firmly and sustainably supported by the budget of the Republic of Kosovo. However, the administrative environment in which they currently operate is stifling. The lack of autonomy in managing their budgets and the absence of a rolling budget are incompatible with the way these institutions actually function.
Take, for example, public theaters, which, although they have their own budgets, face bureaucratic obstacles when it comes to using and managing these funds.
In 2017, the accounts of public theaters were closed, placing them in a restrictive environment and a deeply dependent position. When theaters want to spend their budgets, they depend on other institutions — the National Theater of Kosovo (NTK) for those under the MCYS, and municipal directorates for culture for city theatres.
Whoever devised this harmful policy should reverse it as soon as possible. In practical terms, the nature of theatrical production often requires quick and spontaneous purchases. These include costume repairs, buying elements for the set, props from old antique shops, various theatrical products or effects from websites outside Kosovo, and even purchasing food from a neighborhood bakery.
Under the current operating circumstances, theaters must undergo several rounds of requests and approvals. Requests to the management of the NTK might end up in the offices of MCYS, only to return again to the NTK. This makes the process arduous and inevitably affects the creative workflow.
From a developmental perspective, this lack of financial and managerial autonomy prevents — or, to put it more mildly — makes it extremely difficult for — theaters and their managements to access funds and opportunities that come from various regional and international networks. This, in turn, affects the possibilities for exchange and the mobility of artists and the artistic works of these institutions.
This legal infrastructure makes public cultural institutions completely financially dependent on the state budget, which can fluctuate. In addition, it prevents them from supplementing the budget allocated by the state, which is almost always smaller than the institutions’ actual needs, through access to other funds and financing opportunities.
Therefore, cooperation with, for example, the independent cultural scene through joint projects is also hindered. This brings us to another urgent value and principle: the need to encourage collaboration between this independent scene, the public sector, and academia. Currently, these three vital components of the country’s cultural life function largely in isolation from one another. Establishing state mechanisms that promote communication and exchange between them through funding calls that prioritize cooperation among these three pillars is highly needed.
But this cannot be achieved without ensuring the functional and budgetary sustainability of all these sectors, which would see our public cultural institutions significantly improve through budgetary and managerial autonomy.
When it comes to the independent scene, another urgent issue arises: the status of independent artists. They must have access to official recognition as artists, a status that should be regulated according to the average salary in Kosovo and include a review of the tax rate that independent artists are obliged to pay to the state.
There are many models for this in other European countries, one of them being the Dutch Fair Practice Code. This code, designed to “design and maintain a healthy labor market in the cultural and creative sector,” serves as a framework for sustainable working conditions in the creative and cultural industries, aiming to promote ethical practices and fair compensation and treatment for cultural workers.
Individual artists in Kosovo operate in a completely precarious work environment, without a stable standard of living, which makes them reliant on sporadic engagements. This precarious environment became particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many artists were left without any support in the face of restrictions and the inability to create their art and generate income from it.
A code of practice that takes into account all the practical, administrative, and legal specificities of artists’ work would ensure a comprehensive approach for both independent artists and those engaged in public cultural institutions, helping to reduce the inequalities and insecurities faced by the independent scene.
In addition, one of the longstanding issues that remains unresolved is access to public spaces. Effective inter-institutional communication between local and central authorities must be ensured to facilitate the access of independent cultural institutions to public spaces, with the aim of repurposing them for cultural use.
A number of independent and other non-governmental organizations have carried out advocacy work by offering solutions to governments while challenging them through claims on the use of public spaces. However, little has been done to translate these practices that cultural workers have confronted governments with, into sustainable institutional policies.
Thus, despite the fact that some organizations have taken the trouble to navigate this difficult administrative terrain and fight battles for the use of public spaces, every time a new organization or collective enters this process, they are faced with the same uncertainties, obstacles, and challenges.
This continued marginalization of culture — especially the independent scene — which keeps it on the verge of survival, also fuels a climate of rivalry among cultural workers themselves.
Firstly, there is rivalry between independent artists, who, in the absence of financial stability and access to opportunities, often feel at odds with artists engaged in public institutions, who generally enjoy a more stable source of income. Secondly, leaders of public cultural institutions compare eachother on the success they have achieved within this legal, administrative, and physical infrastructure — a success that ultimately reflects who has been more skilled at navigating an impossible system filled with obstacles.
Instead, the problem should be clearly articulated, it is our legal, administrative, and physical infrastructure that is outdated and harmful. Yet, somehow, despite this difficult environment, and the government’s negligence — cultural workers, especially those from the independent scene, have excelled. Unfortunately, this success is not thanks to the government.
Culture and art require policy-making, not politics
These issues outlined above are supposed to be addressed, in one way or another, by the new Law on Art and Culture, which repealed a series of pre-existing laws related to culture. But, no matter how promising these laws may be, without securing and investing in fundamental structural changes, it is difficult to envision a secure and sustainable future for culture in this country.
When a systemic, legal, and administrative infrastructure is created that acknowledges the dynamics of culture, it paves the way for capital investments and targeted interventions. A stable — but not rigid — system must be established. One that recognizes and responds accordingly to the fluidity of cultural production and its development in the country.
When such stable foundations are secured, we will be able to solve dozens of other problems that we have not covered here — including, establishing an open mobility fund for artists and cultural productions; providing health insurance for artists that takes into account its occupational hazard; developing state archiving systems for audiovisual artistic works which are made accessible to all; digitalizing the subsidy scheme; and many other measures that would make the functioning of the cultural sector easier.
Before anyone responds that politicians do not have a magic wand — yes, if there is one truth that has repeatedly made clear to us as cultural workers in Kosovo, it has been that politicians do not possess any magic wands. But, it precisely for this reason, that we advocate for the systemic institutional stability and continuity, which would lessen the need for magic solutions. This would enable the cultural sector to function without being disrupted every time there are political changes.
Let politicians be politicians during election campaigns — but let expect them to become policymakers once they enter government.
Feature image: Majlinda Hoxha / K2.0.
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