Regarding the visual arts sector, at the end of 2011 a Strategy for the Visual Arts was launched by the Ministry of Culture, via its Directorate for Fine Arts and Cultural Assets. The Strategy examines participation, contributions and the consensus of the main professional associations in the field. Some of its main lines were included later on in the General Strategic Plan 2012-2015 of the State Secretariat for Culture and more recently in the Culture Plan 2020.
The voice of contemporary visual artists is represented by the Institute of Contemporary Art. It claims for better social recognition of contemporary art and a better access to public funding via the 1,5% of Cultural funding (for more details of the 1,5% Programme see here, and here for the 2018 call).
Outstanding initiatives in this area are the following:
- the new project of Tabacalera, the art centre in Madrid, as a venue for artistic production, research investigation and training, and for the dissemination of new forms of art and industrial creation;
- Tabacalera which opened its doors in 2015 in San Sebastian (the Basque Country) as an International Centre for Contemporary Culture with the aim of fostering and disseminating creation. Besides the cultural project, Tabacalera is also a cultural ecosystem of private initiatives and institutions, as well as a public venue for citizen enjoyment; and
- Medialab Prado in Madrid is a citizens’ laboratory that serves as a place of encounter for the production of open cultural projects. Activities are structured around work groups, open calls for the production of projects, collaborative research and learning communities that address a very wide range of topics.
The Spanish Association of Restorers and Conservers of Cultural Goods (ACRE) gathers professionals in charge of the preservation and restoration of cultural heritage. They claim that the professionals that make interventions over cultural goods should be highly and specifically trained. Regarding the crafts sector, since 1981, Fundesarte is the organisation of reference in the promotion and development of Spanish craft companies. Currently, it is part of the EOI Foundation (School of Industrial Organization), an entity linked to the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism (MINCOTUR) of the Spanish government. In July 2015, it published a report on the situation and competitiveness of the crafts sector in Spain.
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