Citizens of Culture is an informal volunteer civic movement to increase spending on culture to at least 1% of the state budget, and to change the principles of cultural management and financing.
This movement has come about as a response to the current state of cultural funding, which puts Poland at the tail end of the countries of Europe. We propose an increase in state spending on culture to make up at least 1% of the budget. To make our demands heard, we would like to collect at least 100,000 signatures on the petition in support of our cause, as is the case in civic legislative initiatives.
A great opportunity for this will be the Night of Museums (15 May), when hundreds of thousands of people in Poland will be visiting museums and other cultural sites, thus confirming that Polish society needs culture. The project begins on 7 May at the Doc Review Festival in Warsaw, and its first stage will conclude during the Culture Night in Lublin on June 5th. Signatures can be put down at the Photomonth in Krakow Festival Bureau (Camelot Gallery & Imago Mundi Foundation Gallery, ul. św. Tomasza 17).
Over four hundred of the most outstanding Polish artists, cultural institutions, associations and civic forums (which emerged after the Cultural Congress) have already put down their signatures for the cause.
More information can be found, along with ways to get involved in supporting Citizens of Culture, at www.obywatelekultury.pl.