STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

4.1. Impact on local development
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Street Artists in Europe
If we look at the question of street arts audiences in terms of cultural democratisation, we must
question the almost exclusive way that artistic genre is promoted in a festival context. As we
have seen, the festivalisation of cultural practices has a strong impact on audiences. If there is no
festival in their town, very few spectators are likely to travel elsewhere specifically to discover
artistic events. Those who do undertake that kind of cultural trip tend systematically to belong to
the advantaged sectors of society. This means that the desire to reach everybody, which is at the
heart of the street arts event, requires performances to meet the people halfway, and to take
place where they live. Because they can be performed anywhere, street arts reveal themselves to
be an effective tool for attracting audiences, if they are offered alternative promotional contexts.
4.1.1. Difficulty of access to street arts
The degree to which the street arts sector in Europe is recognised or has legitimacy varies
considerably by country. Whilst France is at the forefront (although players in the French
professional field rightly consider that the battle is far from won), other countries are only just
beginning to identify the sector given the near absence of cultural policies. In a European
context that is relatively uniform in terms of how festivals are promoted, France offers a fund of
new experiences in that regard, and therefore in terms of reaching new audiences.
Since the 1990s festivals have been a target of criticism. The Aurillac festival (France) is an
example of the recurrent anti-festival polemics within the sector. Hosting a few dozen ‘official’
companies and more than 400 ‘fringe’ companies, the organising team endeavours to organise
the meeting between hundreds of performances and hundreds of thousands of spectators over a
period of four days. Here we will address only two questions, relating to audiences, which is the
subject at issue. Even if the festival broadens the range by offering dozens of events that take
place in the town at the same time, it does not necessarily play the card of clarity for the
spectators. That applies primarily to ‘fringe’ shows. Given that, as we have seen, the public does
not tend to select the performances they will attend themselves, it is difficult to organise an
adequate encounter between the event and its audience. At times, the conditions surrounding
performances are poor. A brass band passes in the vicinity of a performance that has no sound
system, a show meant to be performed in the street is enclosed in a courtyard, and so on. In
other cases, the very fact of opting to attend a particular performance at a festival may become
an obstacle (one that is more invisible than the entrance doors to a theatre) for quite a number of
people.
So we must say that today it is very difficult for festivals to carry out their mission of cultural
democratisation. Yet from the point of view of creation and the promotion of the artists, the
large European festivals are nevertheless pillars of the sector because they are its showcases (in
some cases, Aurillac in particular, at international level) and because they actively support
contemporary production. In France many grassroots actors have addressed this question.
Looking at it in association with the ability of street arts to occupy the public space and, more
generally, a given area, they have considered new forms of encounter between street artists and
their potential audiences. ‘When street arts combine with development’ 356 , new forms of
mobilising audiences emerge.
356 Besnier, Yannick, ‘Quand arts de la rue et développement local se conjuguent’, La Relation au public dans les
arts de la rue, op.cit, p. 105.
PE 375.307