Collboni calls on culture to revolutionize against a "reactionary undercurrent."

BarcelonaIn times of pandemic, culture was a refuge. And in dark times like the ones approaching, all voices turn once again to artists to serve as a beacon, a light at the end of the tunnel. "We find ourselves in a reactionary undertow that we must confront," said Mayor Jaume Collboni this Wednesday at the Ciutat de Barcelona Awards ceremony, "because the path to progress is that of culture, democracy, and the protection of the rights we have all won." The award winners in the thirteen cultural categories They are "those who set the course" for the city, which is why the mayor asked them to "make the revolution against reaction."

The award winners, chosen by independent juries, have rightly shown their freedom and cultural commitment by peppering the gala with demands, claims, and also reproaches. Actress Maria Rodríguez Soto, awarded by Mammal and House on fire, celebrated receiving the award from the city that welcomed her grandparents and gave them an opportunity, a city, however, that has transformed and in which "spaces like Antigua Massana no longer have a place": "We've gone from welcoming grandparents to expelling grandchildren; we've stopped doing something right," she said. The music award winners, Tarta Relena, have denounced "the risks" and precariousness with which they often have to work in the cultural sector—among other things, "with anecdotal maternity leave," they said. The Coordinator of Colles Geganteres, winners of the popular culture award, has called for "firm, structural, and fair support for the groups, which suffer serious differences in aid depending on the district." The first winners in the digital culture category (a new category, like design and fashion), the collective Taller Estampa, which researches the uses of AI, lamented that the administration "goes crazy trying to be the most innovative" but without any depth: "It's not about filling schools with screens but equipping them with screens. One about the cold and another that serves to ask why it's cold."

"Thank you, Barcelona"

The writer Xavier Pla, awarded for his biography of Josep Pla, celebrated having stood "on the shoulders of a giant" and invited people to reread the author from the Empordà because, as Salvador Espriu said, "it's like injecting yourself with mental penicillin." Cristina Massanés defended the language and expressed her gratitude for the fact that "unpredictably, literature can have an economic return," referring to the 9,500 euro prize for each winner. Gabriela Wiener thanked the jury for "having opted for diversity—for a greaser" who emigrated to Barcelona twenty years ago, where she became a mother and a writer - and called on the Socialist Party to approve the ILP (Law on the Right to Legalize) to regularize 500,000 undocumented foreigners. Playwright Victoria Szpunberg also recalled that her family arrived in Barcelona in 1977 "fleeing from a, ence and struggle," she said. She was four years old and always felt "epic, dramatic, melancholic, violent words" that tonight merged with words of gratitude: "thank you, Barcelona, ​​​​the city that welcomed us, where my daughter was born, where she was able to develop her theatrical career." complex dramaturgies, of mediation, often with invisible groups, such as the social educators who yesterday demonstrated at the doors of the Salón de Cent, in Plaça Sant Jaume, to demand better working conditions and greater security. The Barcelona Àliga closed a two-hour ceremony in which all the award winners and the extraordinary talent of the Mallorcan singer Maria Hein.