Revisiting Cultura Viva and points of culture

Abstract

In this article I seek to reflect on the 10 years of the Living Culture Law and the 20 years of the Living Culture National Program. Starting from the debates about the creation of the Ministry of Culture, still at the end of the dictatorial regime in force between 1964 and 1985, I move on to discussions about public cultural policies that could be directed to community groups, peripheral groups and those outside the Rio-São Paulo axis even in the José Sarney government through a more comprehensive proposal to use the federal culture incentive law presented by the then minister Celso Furtado. I bring the debate about alternatives to direct and indirect promotion policies to the cultural field, seeking to demonstrate that the exclusionary nature of these policies is not unrelated to the conservative profile of the groups that privatize the Brazilian state. With this, I seek to demonstrate the innovative, inclusive and expanding role of this same state through the Cultura Viva (Living Culture) Program, without failing to point out the needs to improve the program, which, in 2014, becames a state policy. I conclude these considerations by pointing to the new challenges that are added to the very need to rebuild public policies as a whole, and cultural policies, in particular.