François Matarasso

In 2020, working from home in a locked-down world, I was asked to draft a new charter for cultural democracy conceived by the then Vice-Mayor of Rome, Luca Bergamo. From the beginning, it seemed to me that such a document would be just another piece of paper unless it was meaningful to the people of Rome, and so I thought of it as a sort of promise from the municipality to the electors.

My starting point, as so often before, was article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that ‘everyone has the right to participate in the cultural life of the community’. This is a vital right, but what does it actually guarantee? I doubt there is a state in the world that says it doesn’t respect that, but the reality of participating in cultural life is very different in France, Russia, Japan or Uganda.

So the Charter I wrote tried to define that right in the form of five cultural capabilities: the right to discover, enjoy, create, share and protect culture. I like the idea that you can distill cultural policy to five words – and a promise that is still too often unmet.

To read more about the charter and download a copy, please follow this link: the 2020 Rome Charter.