STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

Street Artists in Europe
Concerning bureaucracy and status of the artists as well as public support and recognition, most
of the operators agree that France is the country where it is easier to work, because the
government supports and funds street arts, festivals have more freedom and a long tradition, and
artists have more guarantees. What characterizes the French landscape is not just a financial
support by the government, but a true investment on artists, companies and festivals: not just
“giving money”, but supporting inspiration and creativity – as well as making it possible to live
on one’s art, thanks to the minimum salaries granted by the “intermittences” system. According
to the professionals, this system granted a huge stability – from the economic and the
professional point of view – to companies, which could develop their creativity and could count
on a constant composition of the crowd, also when touring abroad; but in 2003 the law changed
the way to calculate the unemployment indemnity, and the whole system became more fragile.
In fact, today artists can find themselves forced to work for more companies at the same time, so
the stability of each company is compromised and the mobility is harder – as companies cannot
always count on the same crowd for a long tour, for example.
It has been pointed out during the interviews that other artistic fields – such as dance and
traditional theatre, for example – seem to suffer on this change even more than street arts.
Many professionals agree with the fact that Belgium too is highly improving working conditions
for street artists and is giving a huge support to creativity and production.
Concerning taxation, as already written, differences exist among countries and different
agreements rule the relationship between two countries. Safety rules too vary a lot among
countries as well as within the same country.
For all these fields, what is generally suggested by the operators is an harmonization of laws and
rules within the EU, so as to make it easier to manage an international work: the need for a
“European mindset” is underlined.
Concerning the taste of the audience and the kind and topics of performances, each country has
its own tradition and mindset, but in this case variety means richness not an obstacle: this
diversity must be saved and kept as a value. On the other hand, it is possible that a specific
production is not appealing for foreign festivals because, for example, of the sense of humour 386 .
4.1. Institutional support
As already written, in some countries, for instance France and Belgium, the governments
support very well street arts, not only in financial terms but also supporting inspiration and
creativity. This happens because of a precise mindset which considers street arts as true forms of
art and culture, not as entertainment, and this attitude has an important result on the number of
production centres, companies and festivals held in those countries.
It is to remember anyway that is come countries (for instance, Bulgaria) culture as a whole is not
supported by public funds, therefore the global attitude of each government towards culture
should be kept in mind when considering this kind of problems.
386 From the Arts Council England report on “UK Street Arts and mainland Europe”, 2005: “The Belgians and
Dutch gave the most positive responses to UK based work (citing the British sense of humour as a salient
factor). French festivals seem to have the greatest difficulty with UK based work. ‘The British aesthetic is very
limited - in terms of what we understand by 'shows' in France. Very many animations rather than shows
unfortunately’ ".
278
PE 375.307