The Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, launched on Monday the “rural spring”, a national consultation on the cultural offer that she wants to “open up”, during a trip to the Dordogne.
“The Ministry of Culture must open up. It has to open. Culture is not Paris, even if I am elected Parisian. We have to open up, we have to accept that culture can come from below,” declared the minister during a press point in the Nontron cinema, north of Périgueux.
Rachida Dati was in this town of around 3,000 inhabitants, sub-prefecture of the department, her second trip as a member of the government, after a first outing in the Paris suburbs. On the program, construction site of an 18th century castle transformed into an “experimental center for artistic crafts”; meeting of students from the National School of Decorative Arts (ENSAD) in Paris who are following a decentralized post-master’s program at Nontron, dedicated to “design of rural worlds”; finally, visit to the media library and launch of “Rural Spring”.
This national consultation aims to “generate and share a large number of contributions on the place of culture in rural areas and the role that the State can play in supporting communities”, according to his speech.
Two personalities will soon be appointed to contribute to the reflection and National Conferences on Culture in Rural Areas will be organized in two months to “validate a road map”. “Culture is normally what is most democratic; in reality, it is not that much (…). Exclusion is not only in the suburbs. Rural areas are also the most forgotten,” insisted the minister to the “22 million French people who live in rural areas”.
The Minister of Culture also announced that the ENSAD delocalized study program, co-financed by the State, would be extended to four other territories around the design of mountain massifs (in Puy-de-Dôme) as well as forest, coastal and island worlds in locations yet to be determined.