Patricia Ariza: "The war has made us lose our self-esteem"

If politics has something to do with theater, Patricia Ariza - the new minister of culture appointed by President-elect Gustavo Petro - will be its best actress.

Playwright and theater director, Ariza has an exceptional journey in the art world: she was co-founder of the Teatro de la Candelaria, director of the Colombian Theater Corporation, and more recently founder of the Women on Stage for Peace Festival.

She has worked with independent movements of artists and also with the most marginalized communities in the country.

But she has also been a leftist militant all her life, first in the communist youth and then in the Patriotic Union party, whose militants were assassinated by the state and paramilitary groups.

Ariza taught theater 30 years ago wearing a bulletproof vest, but she never stopped participating in politics.

"I have never thought of leaving politics and I have never thought of leaving art," he tells EL PAÍS from his home in the colonial neighborhood of the center of the capital, La Candelaria.

"I am more than anything a cultural activist with a political thought, I am an

He has never been in public office and is just beginning his splicing process, but he arrives with a clear idea of ​​what he would like to do in the ministry: transform the imaginary that Colombians have about war.

"There is a part of society that reads the country in terms of war and violence," says Ariza.

“That has to be transformed, because the country belongs to everyone, they are also part of this country.

So they have to relearn and we have to read the country in a different way.

And in that reading, we artists can help a lot to transform the imaginary.

Art unites society around a movie, or around a song, or around a concert”.

Ask.

Why leave the theater to jump to the government?

What convinced her?

Response

.

I was convinced by the historical moment that Colombia is experiencing, because I believe it is a very special moment, that is, it is now or now, it is necessary to change the course of the country, a country with such high levels of poverty, misery, inequality and of violence.

Being an artist is a privilege because one somehow exercises the freedom of creation, but it is also a responsibility.

So the president has placed that responsibility on me, but also many other people, the people of culture, also from the caucus of The Historical Pact.

That's why I accepted, I accepted because I think it was necessary.

I don't stop being an artist, I'm a poet and my plays at the La Candelaria theater are still staged.

Obviously I am not going to have the same intensity as in artistic work, because the Ministry requires full-time work.

P.

You are a survivor of the genocide of the Patriotic Union (UP) and your appointment was seen as a vindication of this party that was so persecuted.

Do you read it like that too?

A.

Yes, of course.

I am a survivor of the UP and even with Petro's triumph I had mixed feelings.

He was happy and cried at the same time, because it's also like we owe this victory to all of us alive who have been in the campaign, but also to those who died to achieve it.

This is a triumph with memory.

We cannot abandon memory and say 'let's turn the page and enter the era of oblivion'.

The thing is, this is a memory without revenge.

It is a memory that goes for dialogue, for the unity of the nation.

But the murdered companions are in my heart.

Q.

What vision would you like to bring to the Ministry of Culture?

R.

I believe that social change is also a cultural change, because culture has to do with the ways of being, doing, and thinking of people.

My vision has to do with change, of course.

In Colombia we need to unleash the imaginary, change the imaginary of war for an imaginary of peace.

That is a task, hopefully, not for such a long term.

So that?

So that we can be, as the president says, a power of life.

Defending life corresponds to all the ministries, but it corresponds to culture to work hard from social sensitivity.

Also recognize artists, forgotten creators, often from the regions, and look at how these people can be linked, for example, to teaching.

How wonderful it would be for a bullerengue singer to be a teacher in her town's school.

That is a way that these traditions are not lost.

But not only the bullerengue, but also the theater group that is there, the living cultures, the writer of the municipality.

How to recognize them?

We must decentralize culture, although that does not mean stopping doing the things that are done in big cities.

And we are going to see the possibility, of course, of some budget increase, but above all it is the new view of culture, that culture is a recognition of the country and the story of the nation as well.

P.

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A week ago the Truth Commission spoke that Colombia must stop living in a culture of war, that Colombians have lost empathy.

What role can art play there?

R.

I believe that art is decisive.

For example, a peace that is not painted, that is not sung, that is not told, is delayed.

Art enters places other than where other discourses enter, where science enters, for example.

Art enters into people's sensibilities and can help enormously to transform the imaginary.

And on the other hand, it is very important to listen to the voice of the artists.

Artists in Colombia have investigated reality, one could tell the history of Colombia with plays, for example,

by the Matacandelas group, and without false modesty,

by Teatro La Candelaria.

Either the cinema has helped us a lot, or literature as with

.

Here we are used to hearing the voice of the media, the voice of traditional political leaders, and very few listen to the voice of artists.

Very few listen to what art in Colombia is talking about.

Colombia needs a new story of nation.

P.

Just last week the opposition of some sectors of the right to the narrative of the nation offered by the Truth Commission was very clear. There is no national narrative about the war.

R.

All countries have shared epics, a nation's story with which everyone identifies.

In Colombia we have fragmented stories, fragmented by hatred and violence.

This affects our identity, it is difficult to look at ourselves with our whole body, it is as if we were looking at ourselves in a broken mirror.

So giving a very large space to the story, that is of extraordinary importance.

I believe that the great story of Colombia, the national story, can be peace.

Patricia Ariza, a Colombian poet, playwright and actress, poses for a portrait at her home, in Bogotá, Colombia, on July 4, 2022. Colombian President-elect Gustavo Petro announces that artist Patricia Ariza will be the new Minister of Culture.NATHALIA ANGARITA

P.

Regarding the care of cultural heritage, what do you think of the collapse of statues during the protests last year?

R.

The social outburst of unemployment was an outburst, and everything happens in an outburst.

You can't say 'don't scratch the walls because it's forbidden' without understanding in what context that occurs.

What is that talking about?

That we need other symbols.

Where are the statues of women?

You look at the Bogota statuary and almost all of them are men.

Where are the indigenous or Afro leaders?

There is only one type of statues, white, of the conquerors.

That offends the culture of all these people.

It offends me too.

I want other statues in Colombia, other heritage.

I would love to see a statue of an Emberá indigenous woman somewhere in the city.

We see them in the streets, abandoned, sometimes barefoot, terribly cold, and I think we should make a statue of them.

Not just a statue, of course, in the first place,

some social programs.

But also a statue, because the symbolic universe is also very important, it is a demonstration of affection, of appreciation.

Q.

How can the culture administered by a left-wing government differ from the previous ones?

R.

From the institutional framework, interesting things have been done, of course, but not what the country needs as a whole, because there is a very great inequality.

The number of people who endure hunger every day is very high, and that cannot be alien to culture or art.

Culture has reached some places and cannot stop reaching those places.

It is not that we are going to remove the culture from here and we are going to take it there.

You have to expand it.

Then you have to reach the forgotten, abandoned places, the most remote municipalities and especially the places that have been victims of war and violence.

You have to arrive with art.

Culture also depends on non-stigmatization, building a culture against homophobia, against machismo, against violence against women, a culture against racism.

Now,

With the presence of our vice president, the best of Colombians has come out, because we have understood what she represents in such a vital way.

But the worst has also come out, because racist, excluding voices have come out.

That too must be eradicated and not eradicated by bullet.

It must be eradicated at the point of songs, of graffiti.

We want to involve young men and women a lot, because there is an extraordinary cultural power in them.

P.

Give a boost to popular art?

R.

Sure, but popular art is already there, what you have to do above all is recognize it.

The first thing to do is recognize, tell the flute teacher over there in Sucre, that what he does is very important, that we need him to teach us through the children at school.

Look, many ladies who sing bullerengue often die and we don't know their songs.

Colombia is a power, not only of life, because life is not just breathing, it is a power in culture.

A country of amazing cultural diversity but the war has made us lose our self-esteem.

P.

What do you think of the orange economy of President Iván Duque that sought to promote the cultural industry?

R.

That's a pretty high point.

The cultural industries exist and the State has to regulate them, of course.

But what has to do with the market, that could be in the Ministry of Commerce.

The problem there is that the culture of a country as complex as Colombia has been reduced to an economy, rather to an aspect, to the orange economy.

That can be a program of the ministry, but it cannot be the whole ministry.

There is a company culture and that has to be supported, of course.

This is not to say that now there will be no cultural industries, in any way.

But you cannot reduce the culture of Colombia, which is so powerful, to the cultural industries.

That has to have a place, but the most important place is how we turn cultural and artistic expressions into a power in Colombia.

Patricia Ariza, Colombian poet, playwright and actress, during an interview at her home, in Bogotá, Colombia, on July 4, 2022. Colombian President-elect Gustavo Petro announces that artist Patricia Ariza will be the new Minister of Culture .NATHALIA ANGARITA

P.

If I understand you correctly, you do not want culture to be subject only to the logic of the market

A.

Sure.

If we get something good out of the pandemic, it is that it undressed the terrible neoliberal model that reduces everything to the market.

That model, which is also a perverse model, is a model that has led humanity to the possibility of its own extinction, because everything was given over to the voracity of the market.

And the concept of culture was reduced to goods and services: how much what you know is worth, and what you have to sell.

And that is not the culture, that is a part of the culture.

But culture also has to do with values, it has to do with life, it has to do with desires, with utopias, with traditions, with what we want and also what we reject.

Q.

Has the cultural sector recovered from the pandemic?

R.

I think there are people who have recovered and who have become rich, like the banks.

Recovery is where you look at it.

If here there are more than 20 million people who endure hunger, where is the recovery?

The recovery cannot be measured only in technical terms of how much money is moving at the moment.

Banks are moving a lot of money.

But how much money is moving to mitigate inequality in Colombia?

P.

But have the artists been reactivated?

R.

I have seen rather amazing acts of courage, people who survived.

Many theater groups closed, forever.

Some independent venues were lost because theater was perhaps one of the hardest-hit arts, because we had to keep them closed for more than a year.

There have been some reactivation gestures, but they are absolutely minimal things.

I value the acts of heroism of the people who, despite the pandemic, continue to maintain their works, their repertoire, their songs.

P.

You are a feminist and Petro has been criticized by the feminist movement at various times.

How do you see your role in gender issues within the government?

R.

Well, the first thing the president told me was that we had to think about the gender perspective in all cultural policies.

In the joint team, in culture, more than half of us are women.

In the list that was made in the electoral campaign [for Congress], the Historical Pact was the only party that made a zippered list [that puts women and men interspersed].

Of course, machismo exists everywhere, that is, that is a pandemic.

We are in the era of the return of patriarchy and equity policies can help a lot with that.

That's what I'm there for.

I am a feminist and that has to enter the Ministry, that there be a gender perspective.

We are going to find out, for example, how many prizes men have won, how many prizes women have won, or how to make special calls for women.

P.

Politics is, among many things, aesthetics and imagination, like theater.

Do you feel stepping onto a new stage?

A.

Yes, of course.

I have a lot of tension, but I also have the satisfaction that I have dedicated my life to thinking about culture.

At the same time that I have been a systematically dedicated artist, I have also been in politics and activism, especially for peace.

This is a historic moment, so if I have to sacrifice some things in my personal artistic practice, I will do it to make it easier for many others to do it in a better way than I have had to.

I belong to a generation that had to break through very hard to be able to create, to be able to have a room, to make a movement.

We want that to be better for the people, for the young men and women.

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