Some of the challenges set by Consuelo Sáizar for the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (Conaculta), an institution she has been chairing for over eight months, are: to establish its legal character, to avoid duplicating efforts, to equip cultural infrastructure, to formalise international projects, to digitalize cultural richness and to conserve and promote Mexico’s cultural and artistic heritage.
Among her projects there are some which are very ambitious such as the creation of international cultural institutes following the Spanish Instituto Cervantes model to promote Spanish in the United States, as well as to digitalize cultural infrastructure in order to bring Mexico’s cultural heritage within everybody's reach. Consuelo Sáizar’s main and immediate challenge is to provide Conaculta with a legal status, something that has not been done since its creation in 1988.
An Institution without a birth certificate
“The lack of legal status is an institutional weakness; Conaculta needs it because it safeguards heritage. It is as if a person did not have a birth certificate; this is why it is urgent and indispensable to provide it with legal status”, affirmed Consuelo Sáizar.
The Mexican editor assured that they have completed 80% of this task and that they are arranging details, which is a difficult thing to do because it requires the establishment of agreements with many institutions: “I can guarantee that this administration will be very careful not to break general guidelines”.
During the first press conference given by Consuelo Sáizar since she took up her post on 3 March this year, she admitted that it is not easy to find the right legal status. “It is quite complex; it is a legal construction that requires many agreements and to reconcile many different agendas. Every day, we take two or three hours dealing with this matter: first we think about it, then we make proposals and then we come to an agreement”.
She did not inform us on this matter’s current state, but she let us know that the present circumstance of the Ley de Acceso a la Cultura (Access to Culture Law) is favourable and that “the high authorities are conscious of this need”. She also emphasized that her proposal intends to end the duplication of functions between Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Arts Institute), the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National Anthropology and History Institute) and Conaculta. She indicated “There are legal, administrative and publishing areas in the different general departments that can be joined together to convert them into service areas”.
International power
Alongside the legal status matter, there are other long-term ambitious projects, like the creation of an international culture institute, that in its first stage will promote the Spanish language in the United States. The former Fondo de Cultura Económica’s General Director stated: “It is time to teach our language, to promote our artists and creators in an articulated manner and with a well designed and strategic international project”.
After 8 months heading the organization, Consuelo Saízar has a clear idea of Conaculta’s structure and knows its needs and weaknesses. A weakness that must be corrected is that faced by the Dirección General de Publicaciones –DGP– (General Publishing Department): it has no graphic identity. “We must define what the Mexican State should publish. The DGP does not own publishing rights, does not reprint (only publishes first editions), but has a budget similar to that of the Fondo de Cultura Económica”.
The cultural promoter has many plans. Next year she will publish the Cultural Infrastructure Atlas 2010, she will continue digitalizing cultural institutions heritage, and she will explore cultural administration models. “We are making all the necessary changes to design Mexico’s cultural policy for the XXI Centry”, she concluded.