In the Mexican United States (hereafter “Mexico”), art and culture embody an essential and inherent piece of the identity of the Mexican people, which is reason enough for the Government to constantly aim to meeting the needs of artists and general public; therefore, this issue is included in Article 4 of the Political Constitution of Mexico, the supreme law in this country.
The State organized a system for democratic planning of national development by creating branch, special, regional and institutional programs that manage public policy in all the country. In a cultural domain, PECA [Special Program for Culture and Arts] 2014 – 2018 aims to broaden access to culture as a means to integrally educate citizens, place culture amongst basic services for the population, provide an adequate infrastructure, preserve national cultural heritage and link investment in this domain with other productive activities.
In this regard, the National Council for the Culture and the Arts (CONACULTA) was a government agency from the Secretariat of Public Education in charge of coordinating the Cultural and Artistic policies sector, during the reference period of this report, and encompasses public-sector entities and decentralized agencies destined to perform activities that promote and distribute cultural and artistic diversity in various forms of production and creation, and monitoring the PECA contents.
It is important to mention that, since this report covers the term of 2012 – 2015; throughout the text, we refer to the Secretariat of Culture as CONACULTA, as on December 17, 2015, the aforementioned Council (CONACULTA) was elevated to the Secretariat of Culture in Mexico, which aims to create and lead federal policy on culture. Transversally with other public sector agencies.
Mexico has made an effort in setting culture as a means of transformation, unity, social inclusion and violence prevention; protecting intangible and tangible cultural heritage, and providing an adequate infrastructure for cultural accessible events to everybody; boosting universal access to culture, its goods and services, as to encourage cultivation and integral education in every body; mobilizing cultural resources, stimulating creativity and the economic potential of culture for the nation’s development; enhancing Mexico’s foreign image and encouraging national and international tourism through culture.
Regarding production, promotion and distribution of goods, services and cultural industries, governmental agencies from the cultural branch have focused their efforts, mainly in educating and promoting culture and the Arts. However, the public sector has encouraged the emergence of the following cultural industries: Estudios Churubusco Azteca S.A., Impresora y Encuadernadora Progreso (IEPSA), S.A., Fondo de Cultura Económica, Educal, Canal 22, Radio Educación, and the Auditorio Nacional.
Several actions focused on creating, strengthening, distributing and protecting cultural contents for events, objects and services in this matter are being performed regardless of the cultural policy not being directly linked to the creation of policies boosting the cultural industry and its commercialization. Said measures are implemented through different programs granting professional, formation, training and financial support services.