ANTIC TEATRE COMMUNIQUE REGARDING THE EXPROPIATION OF THE PREMISES AT VERDAGUER I CALLÍS, 12
We at Antic Teatre would like to make known our evaluation of the recent communique from Barcelona City Council announcing the expropriation of the premises at no.12, Verdaguer i Callís street, with the aim of making it into a new, public cultural venue.
We are grateful to Barcelona City Council for initiating this expropriation process for the Antic Teatre premises, a necessary step to ensure its continued public use and preservation as a cultural establishment, and recognition of the value provided by this unique venue within the artistic and community infrastructure of the Sant Pere, Santa Caterina i la Ribera neighbourhood. We hope that this gesture from the authorities marks the start of a genuine commitment to this project that contributes so much to the community.
At the same time, we would like to make clear that there can be no cultural value without the actual project that Antic Teatre has been running for more than twenty years: cultural activities rooted in the community, providing decisive support to contemporary, independent and local performance creation, with a continuous and committed programme of a clear public service character.
We are concerned that the official communique does not highlight the fundamental role played by Antic Teatre in the consolidation of this venue as a cultural reference. It is our project – initiated, managed and maintained by a team of workers and collaborators from the cultural sector – that has turned the premises into an active centre for creation, recognised and loved by the local and artistic communities; it is not an empty building waiting to be filled with content. The risk, we believe, is that the venue be disassociated from the project that gives it meaning.
We therefore request the explicit recognition of the political and cultural struggle that Antic Teatre has carried out for more than twenty years in its efforts to save the venue and obtain recognition of its value as part of the cultural heritage of Barcelona. Thanks to these constant endeavours and two votes in the municipal plenary sessions, we were included in the Modification of the General Metropolitan Plan approved in April 2023. This achievement was not a spontaneous initiative on the part of the authorities, but a direct result of the pressure, constant work and political organisation of the Antic Teatre team. For this reason, we demand the direct and binding participation of Antic Teatre in the future definition of this venue, in order to guarantee a real, and not merely formal, continuity for our project. Without such recognition or commitment, the announced preservation could end up as a form of cultural dispossession.
We at Antic Teatre will continue to defend grassroots culture, independent creation and a live relationship with our neighbourhood. We will not rest until this venue is recognised and consolidated as either a House of Culture or a Creation Factory, with a management agreement that reflects the values and trajectory that have made it possible in the first place. Because saving a venue is also about saving the project that has given it life, and guaranteeing its future needs to be based in recognising its past and listening to those who have built it up from the inside. We are preparing, and will invite you to, our press conference specifically on this subject.
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