“We come to the Avignon Festival to experience the debate that prevents us from fighting,” says Tiago Rodrigues

“Europe is centuries of cultural diversity, of different bodies meeting, of ideas brewed in the happy confusion of translation”says Tiago Rodrigues, director of the Avignon Festival. “It is important, a few days before the European elections, to remember the importance of culture and the arts as tools for building an idea of ​​European democracy and European projects,” continues the playwright and director.

“There is a feeling of helplessness among Democrats regarding how to dialogue with this evolving anti-democratic threat. If the artist wishes, art is the space, the antechamber, of the “action. But theater is not enough.”

The forgotten culture in this campaign

Tiago Rodrigues signs a column in the newspaper Libération to criticize the lack of debates and ideas about culture in this European election campaign. “We are perplexed by this deafening silence from candidates in France, Portugal, Germany, on culture and the arts, at a time when the defense of the values ​​of a European project is necessary. It is important to invent new stories for Europe.”

What can art, theater and culture do in the face of the rise of extremes? “The Avignon Festival is an antechamber of debate for society”replies Tiago Rodrigues. “We come to the Festival for the pleasure of discovering the arts, but also to experience the debate which prevents us from fighting, that is the key to culture and the arts. It is this link where the we can speak differently, with poetry, fiction, the way we organize ourselves in society.”