Artists say State must support them and protect their creation

The State is obliged to support the artists and protect their creation, consider the participants in the roundtable meetings held as part of the project “Visions on Cultural Policy for Moldova: from Changes to Viability” implemented by Soros-Moldova Foundation’s Cultural Policy Programme in cooperation with the Amsterdam-based European Cultural Foundation, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the participants, there should be formulated legislative initiatives to support the artists, especially by adopting the package of laws on the Artist’s Status tabled by the Union of Plastic Artists, but which did not go further than the Ministry of Culture. The participants expressed their concern over the fact that Moldova does not have a functional arts market, which could be internationally viable by enabling access to the European networks. The period of transition from the centralised system to the market economy created a number of problems in the area of plastic arts. The number of orders has decreased, especially for the Plastic Fund of the Union of Plastic Artists (UAP); the costs of maintaining the workshops have increased; it is difficult to obtain a workshop because no new rooms are being built. The lack of a market has led to a mass migration of the plastic artists and of their works abroad, the number of works sold and the earnings being ridiculously low. In such a way, the professional art came out of the deep-rooted ideology but got into the economic area. At the same time, the participants said that the liberalisation process, the disappearance of ideological censorship and the administrative bans contributed to the diversification of the association forms of the plastic artists. Although UAP continues to remain the largest public artists’ organisation in Moldova, it modified significantly its activity and from guild association became an association of groups of plastic artists united by their ideas and creation platforms. The associations of plastic artists “Papyrus-studio” and “DOR” and the association of young plastic artists “Oberlicht” manifested themselves rough different cultural activities. The artists stressed the importance of the role played by the Soros Centre for Contemporary Art KSA:K in the artistic life. The centre promotes the contemporary art at local level. It contributed essentially to the improvement of the international relations in the area, to the development of the advocacy activities for defining and strengthening the position of the artist and of the cotemporary art practices in the society, to the diversification of the commercial contemporary art product, to better access to the market and to the sale of the product. The Plastic Arts and Decorative, Architecture and Design Arts divisions work as part of the Academy of Sciences. Artistic education in the area of visual arts can be obtained at institutions with a rich history and great accomplishments such as the Academy of Music, Theatre and Plastic Arts, the Department of Painting and Graphic Arts of the Pedagogical University, the College of Plastic Arts “Alexandru Plamadeala”, the Lyceum of Plastic Arts “Igor Vieru” etc. The participants said that another problem is the lack of real social protection. The graduates of the institutions of culture and the persons that already work in the area cannot find a job according to the qualification. The meeting participants also said that Moldova does not have a legal framework for the visual arts. The standards and values of the Ministry of Culture were and remain secondary to the ideological system of the socialist period and need a fundamental revision. During the debates, the participants underlined the necessity of restructuring the Ministry of Culture, of defining its role in the cultural sector and its responsibilities that result from this relation. The cultural administration does not manage to implement projects nationwide and the country experiences an acute shortage of cultural managers. The participants in the roundtable meetings also highlighted the necessity of carrying out a separate study to assess the situation regarding the artist’s status and the conditions under which the freelancers and professional artists work at present.