“A community reveals what it values not only through what it supports, but also through what it allows to fall into silence.”
Culture rarely occupies the first page of public policy debates. In times of inflation, housing shortages, transportation challenges, and healthcare concerns, cultural funding is often treated as secondary, almost optional. Yet history repeatedly teaches the opposite lesson. Societies are not defined solely by their roads, ports, airports, or economic indicators. They are also shaped by their ability to preserve memory, nurture creativity, encourage critical reflection, and sustain the collective spirit. That is why any discussion about public support for culture deserves careful attention.
The concerns recently raised by the Socialist Party of the Azores regarding the new Regional Support Framework for Arts and Culture (RJAAC) bring into focus an issue that extends far beyond partisan politics or the technical details of grant evaluation. The real question is what kind of cultural future the Azores wishes to build. Do we want a cultural landscape concentrated in a few stronger and more visible centers? Or do we aspire to a model that reaches every island, supports local communities, and recognizes creators who often work far from the main circuits of visibility and influence?
The Azores possess a unique cultural reality. The geographic fragmentation of the archipelago has produced an extraordinary diversity of artistic expressions, popular traditions, philharmonic bands, theater groups, festivals, museums, community organizations, and independent initiatives. Many of these projects survive through the dedication of volunteers, cultural leaders, and artists who devote countless hours to serving their communities. For them, public funding is often not merely an additional resource; it can determine whether an initiative moves forward or disappears altogether.
This is precisely why any cultural funding system must strike a delicate balance between artistic excellence, public impact, and territorial equity. The most important projects are not always the most visible. The initiatives that generate the greatest social value are not necessarily those with the largest administrative structures or the most sophisticated grant applications. Across the smaller islands, cultural life often depends on modest organizations operating with limited resources but fulfilling an essential role in community life.
When projects that enjoy public recognition and community support are excluded from funding, legitimate questions naturally arise regarding the system’s ability to reflect the diversity of the Azorean cultural landscape. Such concerns do not automatically imply unfairness or deliberate exclusion. Rather, they remind us that public policies must remain open to evaluation, adjustment, and democratic scrutiny. No cultural support system should be considered beyond improvement.
Culture possesses a distinctive characteristic: its benefits are often difficult to quantify. A road can be measured in kilometers. A building can be counted in square meters. Economic investments generate visible statistics. Culture, however, produces subtler but equally important outcomes. It creates audiences. It strengthens identity. It fosters critical thinking. It combats isolation. It deepens a sense of belonging. It builds bridges between generations. Most importantly, it provides communities with the tools to understand who they are and who they aspire to become.
In an archipelago scattered across the Atlantic, this role becomes even more significant. Culture has long been one of the strongest forces binding the islands together. Through literature, music, theater, visual arts, and popular traditions, Azoreans recognize themselves in one another despite the ocean that separates them. Every cultural project that disappears represents not only an artistic loss but also a weakening of the dialogue that sustains the collective identity of the islands.
For this reason, the debate surrounding cultural funding should not be reduced to an administrative exercise of counting approved and rejected applications. It should be seen as an opportunity to reflect on the place of culture within Azorean society. The central issue is not simply how much money is distributed, but whether that investment genuinely strengthens cultural diversity, supports all islands, and creates opportunities for new generations of artists and cultural organizations to flourish.
Over the past fifty years of Autonomy, the Azores have built an extraordinary cultural legacy. That achievement did not happen by accident. It emerged through public investment, community engagement, artistic dedication, and the conviction that culture is not a luxury reserved for prosperous times. It is a fundamental element of social development.
Because a region can prosper economically while becoming culturally poorer. And when that happens, something irreplaceable is lost—something no statistical report can adequately measure. A society loses part of its ability to imagine, to create, and to dream collectively.
Culture is, ultimately, the living memory of a people. It is the voice through which communities tell their stories, preserve their heritage, and envision their future. And no community should ever allow that voice to be left standing at the door.
Translated and adapted from a story in Diário dos Açores-Paulo Viveiros, director. Photo from the Government of the Azores.