Arts management courses to empower local artists

 

Marcela Jiménez López: The main idea is to visualise the economic value of arts and culture, besides its symbolic one. The programs aim is to overcome the view of arts and culture as something unprofitable. It is important for the artists to learn that you can charge for your artistic work. The second main idea is to show the cultural and artistic community of Mexico-City new ways to manage their projects. The program teaches them about the monetary value of their work, how they can make it profitable, and eventually how it pays their bills.

 

 

MJL: Basically, it comes from the artists themselves. Without basic knowledge about arts management they are dependent on governmental and foundation grants. Thereby, the artists are forced to work on certain topics, they cannot chose the content by themselves. But the artists here in Mexico-City believed that they could get out this dependency, they just needed a basic education about project management, finance and marketing.

 

When Marcelo Ebrard was governor of Mexico-City (20062012), they undertook some research about programs abroad to get an idea of how it could work and looked for possible professors and a coordinator. At this time I started working for the program that we developed all together, based on the needs of the artists. This dialogue between the artists and the professors is still an important part of the program. We always orientate the contents of the courses towards the artists questions and support them as good as possible.

 

 

MJL: The program offers courses for about 35 to 50 participants and is structured in a one-week basic course and a four-week specialisation course. During the basic course, the participants present their projects and phrase a project description. In the following specialisation course, they are taught in subjects such as copy right, trademark registration, public training, fundraising, cultural marketing and social media. Also, they write the business plan for their project, including the next one to five years. If they already realised the project, the specialisation course can also be about how to build up their own legal business.

 

 

 

MJL: The program is part of the cultural secretary of Mexico-City, so it is only open for artists who are local residents and over 18 years old. It focuses on participants with at least three years of work experience, and although we began to open it for artists who just finished their university degree, over 70 percent of the participants already have work experience. They participate at the program because they never learned how to manage themselves in a professional way. They do not know how to do a quotation or a business plan or how to develop a professional marketing concept.

 

 

MJL: The professors and teachers of the program are experts in various areas of arts management. Most of them run their own company and have a profound knowledge of the cultural sector in Mexico. They have a lot of experience, maybe failed at some point in their career and learned from their mistakes. For me, as a person in charge of the program, it is important that they want to share their failures as well as their successes, their experiences and their knowledge. They have to know what can work and why, what you need as a young artists and how you can reach it.

 

 

MJL: In addition to the established subjects, we orientate the programs content on the needs of the participants. Depending on their questions and their profile, we change the topics given during the specialisation course. Also, we offer personal accompaniment and tutorials to include detailed information one artist may need. In two occasions, the program got prolonged by a month and a half because the participants wanted to get more education about copy right, marketing and show production. Additionally, after finishing the program, the artists get further support by the cultural secretary. We help them to promote their projects, to reach publicity and to get interviews or attention by the press.

 

 

MJL: Sometimes, there are participants who calculate 2 + 2 = 8 (was will sie damit sagen?). Also some of them negate to charge for their work as it might loose its intrinsic value. They do not know how to or they are ashamed of charging. Mexican artists are very noble. So it is our goal to show them the monetary value of art and culture. We have to teach them how to measure the effort to create their work. They have to learn that their work has a monetary value, even if it is calculated different from living costs or services. But, after they experience the utility of the whole process, they do not negate to do it anymore, but are very glad that they learned how to think and act more managerial. These are some of the challenges we have to fight.

 

 

MJL: Over the long-term, there have been almost no failures of artistic businesses. Among all companies that passed our program, only two failed, but for personal reasons. Obviously, some are more successful than others. For example, there is a girl who offers art and trade workshops for blind people. Before starting in the program, it was a small project, but today she runs a whole non-profit association. In almost all cases, the program helps to improve the life standard of the participants. The tools they learn help them to become more successful. There are also participants that do not follow their business plan. They do not change their work routine, so we cannot help them. But in most cases, when they start to follow their business plan, they see the results and get ambitious. The participants say that there is a before and an after. That is very satisfying. In Mexico, we say you changed my chip. They always have had this certain idea, but after their chip got changed, they know how to make it happen.

 

 

MJL: It is financed by public resources from the Cultural Secretary of Mexico-City. We pay the professors and teachers and support them in the coordination, the content and the development of the materials. For the artists, the participation is free of charge.

 

 

MJL: This program only exists here. It is possible to offer parts of the program in other states, because Mexico-City is a leading city in the national Agenda 21 for Culture. That allows the Cultural Secretary to collaborate with other states, but one of their institutions needs to send an official request. Normally, the responsible person in the ministry for culture, the secretary of culture or a university invites us to share our experience with them. Until now, we already offered courses or workshops in about ten other states. To amplify the coverage of the course, we are also thinking about offering virtual classes, but that is still in process.