Friday 26 September 2025
How many times have we heard the phrase that gives the title to this conference?
When we talk about social rights, it is not difficult for us to identify how they are realised in our daily lives. We know what it means to have the right to work, to education, to decent housing, to health: we don't need to be experts on any of these issues to be able to say whether we are enjoying these rights or not. However, things change when we talk about cultural rights. It's not just that we don't know what they consist of as citizens: it's that as artists, as managers, as cultural professionals, we don't know what they consist of either. We are all in favour of cultural rights, but do we really know what they are? What do they imply?
The purpose of this conference is to ask ourselves about these questions, and to understand to what extent the cultural fabric and cultural policies are reproducing practices, behaviours and attitudes that are contrary to the enjoyment of cultural rights by any person. To bring cultural rights down to earth, to situate them and to analyse whether we are encouraging a democratic or elitist view of culture, whether we are inviting people to enjoy them through our daily activities, or whether we are pushing them away? From these questions, perhaps we will discover why culture understood as a right for everyone is beneficial for our future: as a society, but also as professionals who want to dedicate ourselves to it.
MORNING SESSION
Aragon School of Design
10:00 h. Welcome and presentation. Why cultural rights?
ESDA, PROCURA and the Unizar Cultural Rights Laboratory
10:45 a.m. Nicolás Barbieri
The right to participate in cultural life - are we talking about inequalities?
12:15 h. Situated experiences. What is the role of cultural professionals?
Conversation between Virginia Martínez (Teatro Comunitario), Cecilia Casas (DESISLAB), Kira Rivarés (Orquesta Escuela) and Nicolás Barbieri
AFTERNOON SESSION
Faculty of Philosophy and Arts
16:00 h. Nuria Salvador
The Recartographies project: custody of the territory and popular culture in Mas Blanc.
17:00 h. Situated experiences. Practices against inequality in culture
Conversation between Sámar Ahmad (Andar de Nones), David Giménez (Enlatamus) and Nuria Salvador (Recartografías).
18:45 h. Presentation of papers developed by the students of the Master's Degree in Cultural Heritage Management
