New Covid-19 and Culture section

**The website of the Cultural Data Observatory has opened a new Covid-19 data section* in order to monitor the recovery of cultural activity in the city**

* Only available in the Catalan version of this website

Museums were one of the first sectors to be analysed, but data was also compiled on the activity of local centres, such as libraries and civic centres, basic facilities for culture in the various areas of the city.

The Barcelona Social Pact was presented on Friday 4 June. As a preliminary phase of this project, a report was produced, featuring a diagnosis of the state of culture in the city (you can see the report at this link). However, the Covid-19 crisis marked a turning point for this diagnosis, and consequently, the various political forces taking part proposed that the work should continue, in order to systematically analyse the evolution of the situation. It is in this context that, in order to present all of this information, you will find a specific Covid-19 section on this website, making it possible to follow the effects of this health crisis on various sectors.

In recent months, the Cultural Data Observatory has been working on two lines: to determine which cultural-activity data could be monitored continually and to monitor it; and to be able to repeat some of the analysis that was initially carried out in the diagnosis, and examine its evolution in 2021.

Museums were one of the first sectors to be analysed. It is important to highlight that, for the first time, the visitors to a large number of centres have been monitored on a weekly basis, and this information has made it possible to monitor the sector’s evolution in real time.

An analysis that goes beyond the figures

The analysis of the museum sector, compiled in the indicators, includes data concerning origin: the number of foreign nationals who visit the museums. This is not only relevant data for the analysis of visitors but also an indirect indicator of the number of tourists arriving in our city.

Another data set refers to the activity of local centres: libraries and civic centres, which are basic facilities for culture in the city’s various areas. In this case, the data are monthly, but they make it possible to see how these centres maintained their efforts to remain in contact with people at all times.

Finally, the data from the new Citizen Culture Office (OCCU) express the change that occurred in the cultural information office in the middle of La Rambla, which is mostly dedicated to tourists. With the onset of the health crisis, it turned its attention to providing support for the cultural network and city residents interested in creating culture.

Diagnosis prior to the Barcelona Cultural Pact

The municipal government and opposition promote the Barcelona Cultural Pact, which makes it possible to agree on measures to meet new future challenges

In November 2019, within the framework of the City Council’s Commission for Social Rights, Culture and Sports, all of the municipal groups agreed –on the proposition of JxCat and the support of ERC– to work together to establish the basis for the Barcelona Cultural Pact.

The emergence of the health crisis caused by Covid19 in March 2020 led to a redefinition of the mission, in order to adjust it to the new realities and challenges in the area of cultural policies. Therefore, in the midst of the pandemic, in July 2020, the Barcelona Cultural Pact was approved, bringing together the country’s main institutions and organisations with the aim of identifying the most important cultural challenges.

This agreement defined various lines of action which would form the basis for fostering the transformation needed in Barcelona’s cultural policy, through the agreement of all the political forces present in the City Council. The result of this work was presented on Friday 4 June in the City Hall’s Saló de Cent:

Presentation of the Barcelona Cultural Pact (June 2021) – external link

As a preliminary phase of the proposed pact, a diagnosis was conducted of the state of Barcelona’s cultural sector, which you can consult in this document:

Preliminary diagnosis for the Barcelona Cultural Pact (December 2020) – pdf

Profile of museum visitors. Survey 2020

The Covid-19 crisis had an unavoidable direct impact on the number of people visiting museums in 2020, and on the configuration of the profile of those visitors.

In spite of everything, the centres taking part in the museum survey, promoted by the Barcelona Institute of Culture since 2011, have maintained their efforts to survey their visitors, in order to find out more about their public during such a different, complex year.

Therefore, we once again present the report on the results of the museum survey, a questionnaire that the Barcelona Institute of Culture has been promoting since 2011, in order to study the profile and habits of the people visiting the city's museums.

This year, the report places special emphasis on the change in the profile of museum visitors (pre-Covid versus post lockdown), which saw the almost total disappearance of foreign nationals, and an increase in the percentage of local residents.

The 2020 report also contains a preview of the results of some questions on Covid-19 and visiting museums, which were first asked at the beginning of 2021.

The survey was presented on Friday 14 May. At these links, you can see the video and the analysis document presented during the session:

Presentation session (1 h 4 mins) - Youtube link
Document presented during the session - pdf

Evaluation of the Caixa d’Eines [Toolbox] and EducArts programmes

In May 2021, the Evaluation Report on the Caixa d’Eines [Toolbox] and EducArts Programmes was presented. It was initiated in the 2017-2018 academic year as part of the Barcelona Neighbourhoods Plan, with the support of the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB), the Barcelona Education Consortium (CEB) and the Municipal Institute of Education (IMEB).

These two programmes were carried out as part of the government measure “Towards a Public Policy for Culture and Education” and they share the aim of introducing and reinforcing the arts in schools, considering them to be socio-educational and development tools.

The report, produced by Ivàlua, the Catalan Institute of Public Policy Evaluation, assesses their level of implementation, the effects and achievement of the initially-proposed goals, and shows the results of a survey aimed at the managing bodies of educational centres.

Covid-19 and Barcelona

Barcelona City Council’s Municipal Data Office has launched a website for monitoring the scope and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the City of Barcelona. It shows the evolution of various indicators relating to people's health, the economy, the job market, mobility, education and culture.

This website is conceived as an analytical tool that offers a global perspective from various areas of what the city was like, what it is like now and how it will recover.

A new set of data was recently included. with the monitoring of the total number of visitors to eleven city museum centres (either municipal facilities or with strong municipal connections).

The aggregated data corresponds to the following centres: Born CCM, Montjuïc Castle, the Design Museum, Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del Món, the Frederic Marès Museum, MUHBA Plaça del Rei, Monestir de Pedralbes, the Picasso Museum, the Natural Sciences Museum, the Botanical Garden, the Music Museum).

The series was initiated in January 2019 and is updated every week, with the aim of observing the trend and pace of recovery with regard to visitors returning to museums, a process that we expect to accelerate in the coming months.

We believe that including cultural data in the monitoring of the city is good news, and that this is the first step towards incorporating more data.

Covid-19 and the Casteller groups

HOW COVID-19 AFFECTED CASTELLER GROUPS IN BARCELONA

In January and February 2021, the Centre de Prospectiva i Anàlisi dels Castells (CEPAC) produced a survey –with the support of the Institute of Culture– to evaluate the impact of Covid-19 on Barcelona’s casteller (human tower) groups. 952 group members from the city’s eight groups (44.4% men and 54.6% women) responded. Here is a sample of the responses received (you can view them in detail in this document).

Assessment of the 2020 season

Most people (68%) missed the social relations inside their group as much as the human towers.
Over half of them felt connected to the group and the world of human towers and the vast majority took part or helped in the group’s activities, either in person or virtually.
Seven out of ten positively valued the efforts of their group to keep the organisation alive in spite of the situation.
Nearly three quarters of the people surveyed believe that the Covid-19 crisis will have a serious negative effect on their group.

Prospects for the 2021 season

69% discounted the possibility of getting back to human towers during the 2021 season.
In general, they are really keen on getting back to casteller activities, but 84% think that people’s health is the most important thing and prefer not to put people’s health at risk.
A coordinated and simultaneous return to activity for the whole casteller community is positively valued.
57% reject the idea that rehearsals in smaller groups in enclosed spaces will continue for a long time.

Returning to the activity

60% of the people surveyed recognise that they are concerned about returning to rehearsals.
Approximately 70% believe that people taking part in rehearsals should be vaccinated or undergo a prior diagnostic test.
However, 60% of them are not prepared to assume the cost of those tests.
Nine out of ten people intend to return to their group when things get back to normal, and of these, half intend to do so with the same degree of commitment as before.