‘Martha Rizzo is not just the director. I am a project of artists and managers who are going to put their knowledge commitment’

This Monday the researcher Martha Fabiola Rizzo Gonzalez will be positioned as the new director of the House of Culture, nucleus of Guayas (CCNG), after winning the elections with his List 1 last Thursday. In an interview with this newspaper, he clarifies that he will not go in to punish, but will reengineer that will seek transparency and the inclusion of all artists. “Any member of the RUAC who wants to be a member of the House is welcome, we will not have a distinction between one and the other. This is very important because it is what creates union”announces Rizzo, who has also tried the boards as a ballet dancer. That is why she affirms that no one has told her about the needs that exist in the world of the arts, she has felt them.

Martha Rizzo is elected as the new director of the Guayas Core House of Culture

His project goes beyond a building, he points out. “When I speak of the House of Culture, I am not only referring to the building that exists on October 9, but also that the House of Culture is in each community.”

It proposes self-management and articulation with public and private institutions. “Martha Rizzo is not just the director. I am a project of artists and managers who are going to commit their knowledge, because my expertise is in cultural administration”he emphasizes.

How will you begin to put your campaign proposal into action?

Once positioned I plan to have a conclave with the staff of the House of Culture, nucleus of Guayas. For me, the human talent that has to be aligned, articulated to the administrative management model, which responds to the needs and dynamics of what is the current time of the cultural artistic sector, is very important. As a second point is the call for the assembly of artists and managers in various disciplines.

What would your development plans consist of?

One thing is a strategic development plan that is the construction of five-year strategic plans, articulated to the Annual Operating Plan (POA). This has its own statutes, aligned with those of the headquarters: its mission, its vision, its principles, its values; how it will work internally. And who is responsible for the different areas, that there is a horizontal organization chart.

While the Provincial Plan for Culture is an extra plan that is included in my work plan, with which we won as a team, which means building the foundations for development through cultural public policies for the province.

But first we are going to put things in order, it will be an Open House.

When you talk about putting the House in order, are you referring to the Anti-Corruption Commission proposed in your campaign?

Of course, because if they, as a public institution, had had the minimum, we would have advanced much faster. Right now we have no information on anything, as a researcher I have been able to obtain, but I am missing super strong details. This commission is extremely important to me, not only because of the previous administration -which is vital for citizens to know what happened in that administration- but also for mine, as a transparency mechanism.

While I manage, while others work on their commissions, this commission is also working and is uploading information from time to time. It is the best way to advance administratively.

How much time do you have planned for this ordering of the House?

We’re going to work full, minimum one month and we are already ordered. Just today (Friday) I met with a group from the CCNG, they are very few, I thought I was going to have a much larger human force. I have asked that this human force that joins this renewal and reactivation look towards this same horizon. When I speak of order, it does not mean that I am going to punish people, order means that we are going to work by processes as it should be, that each one knows what their function is.

One of the important points of your proposal is the promotion of jobs. How would you execute it?

Through permanent training and also through entrepreneurship and fairs. More than anything for young artists or women, who do not have access to public spaces, that is why we are finalizing a cultural cartography in order to build a network of spaces, so that artists can work and that they be donated free of charge because the space of CCNG as a building is not enough for all artists and managers.

What does the social security plan that will apply in the medium term consist of?

It will not only be framed in the affiliation to the IESS, because that will also take a few months, but until then we can have an action with the private company that can help us in a social security plan. That is, the more options and benefits we have, the better.

How will the House bring young people closer?

We will definitely have young guests. We are going to have to do self-management with national and multilateral organizations, through which we can implement a cinematheque open to the world, which is the best link with which we can work with young people. I invite the rest of the candidates, we had some good proposals on the other lists and also youth with whom we have talked and we are going to work together.

What will happen to the library and the care of the memory that lives there?

I didn’t go into the library as such, but I took a little tour (in the CCNG areas) and my heart ached, I almost cried. I hope to enter the library, and for me it is extremely important. I am associate editor of some international bibliographic collections. We are going to digitize the books, because it is a way to bring our young people closer, they will be able to have access to library books from their cell phones and for that we have to enter this digitization. They know that they have to give me an inventory and tell me what needs they have, in order to improve those conditions.

What did you find on that little tour?

Zero art, a fearful staff, not empowered, a building without maintenance at first glance, an obsolete building, an image that does not correspond to a House of Culture that is connected to modern dynamics, blank walls, (pauses) disorder. That was the impression at a glance.

And the budget, how will everything proposed be achieved?

I’m meeting with headquarters to present our need. And of course we are going to do self-management, if there is something that characterizes me, it is my management capacity. So we have the budget of the House, but that does not mean that because of that budget we are going to stop doing things. What’s more, due to the lack of a good previous administration, the budget was lowered to $850,000, which seems to me to be the current one.

This is not about resources, but about knowledge, commitments from the sector, being part of this governance for the first time in an organized way, in prospective planning for the defense of our rights.

It is pure knowledge, what we will invest the first or second year is in the website, as a transparency mechanism to upload all the information.

*Rizzo is a consultant, social researcher, cultural manager, expert and art critic. She has a doctorate in Social Sciences with a specialty in Sociology and another in Art Sciences with a specialty in Development. She is the author of six books. (I)