Zone Franche at MaMA

The net­work is orga­niz­ing a round table / debate on Wednes­day Octo­ber 11 at 10:30 am on the Élysée Mont­martre stage.

“ARTISTS FROM MALI, NIGER, BURKINA FASO WITHOUT VISAS : EXCEPTIONAL SITUATION OR SYSTEMIC PROBLEM?”

The Min­istry of Europe and For­eign Affairs issued an instruc­tion on Tues­day Sep­tem­ber 12, inform­ing us of the deci­sion to ” sus­pend all coop­er­a­tion with the fol­low­ing coun­tries until fur­ther notice : Mali, Niger, Burk­i­na Faso “and urg­ing cul­tur­al play­ers to do the same, “. France will no longer [délivrant] issue visas to nation­als of these three coun­tries, with­out excep­tion. “In the face of this, the cul­tur­al sec­tor as a whole react­ed unan­i­mous­ly. Although “clar­i­fi­ca­tions” were giv­en a few days lat­er, they unfor­tu­nate­ly did not dis­pel all con­cerns about the abil­i­ty of these artists to cir­cu­late freely to share their work and their art with us, and to be paid for it : the prob­lems of visas, finan­cial trans­fers and trav­el remain.

Is this sit­u­a­tion unique, giv­en the cur­rent geopo­lit­i­cal con­text with these coun­tries, or does it reveal a deep­er prob­lem con­cern­ing artists’ visas ? Should French cul­tur­al play­ers (pro­gram­mers, pro­duc­ers, etc.) them­selves exclude artists from these coun­tries from their work prospects, or should ad hoc pro­ce­dures be put in place to ensure the free cir­cu­la­tion and remu­ner­a­tion of these artists in a serene pro­fes­sion­al con­text and with­out self-lim­i­ta­tion on the part of the play­ers ? What about the pro­duc­ers and oth­er French oper­a­tors whose economies depend on these artists ?

Note : to date, 53 pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions (unions, net­works, fed­er­a­tions, etc.) from the music, per­form­ing arts and cul­ture sec­tors are call­ing for the open­ing of an inter­min­is­te­r­i­al forum for dia­logue and work with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of cul­tur­al play­ers involved in the free move­ment of artists, in order to put in place con­crete solu­tions, because they do exist.

STAKEHOLDERS

- Anaïs Lukacs, rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Mobi­cul­ture, On the Move and Mips (Mobil­i­ty Info Points)
- Corinne Ser­res, Man­ag­er of Mad Minute Music
- Sébastien Lagrave, Direc­tor of the Afri­col­or Fes­ti­val
- Maël Lucas of the Cul­tur­al Rights Tran­si­tion Lab­o­ra­to­ry
- Olivi­er Bruyeron of Coor­di­na­tion SUD

- Mod­er­a­tor : Sébastien Laus­sel, Direc­tor of Zone Franche — le réseau des Musiques du Monde

LISTEN TO THE CONFERENCE PODCAST : HTTPS://LNKD.IN/E_EJYEXQ