Models of Cultural Infrastructure

Some of the most copied ideas about what culture is for came from Central and South America. Mexico put art on public walls as civic education; Venezuela built orchestras as a social program; Brazil made theatre a rehearsal for changing one’s own life. Each became infrastructure: something a community builds once and many people use. As a creative director working in A&R, I look to these for how a scene develops talent, not only showcases it.

#>cultural_infrastructure_essentials

Models

Mexican muralism

From the 1920s, Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros painted history onto public buildings; Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals brought the model to the U.S.

wiki: Mexican muralism

El Sistema

Founded in Venezuela in 1975, a free youth-orchestra program that treats ensemble music as social development; it inspired programs across the Americas, including in Los Angeles.

wiki: El Sistema

Theatre of the Oppressed

Augusto Boal’s Brazilian method invites the audience onto the stage to rehearse other endings, now used in community work worldwide. See film.

wiki: Theatre of the Oppressed

A zero of their own

The Maya developed a place-value system with a symbol for zero independently, one of the few cultures ever to do so. See number theory.

wiki: Maya numerals