Marx, Culture and the Arts – Importance and Role in Class Struggle
Panayiotis Neufelt, Raija- Sinikka Rantala, Minna Henriksson, G. M. Tamás and JP (Juha-Pekka) Väisänen open debate on “Marx, Culture and the Arts – importance and role in class struggle” at Vastavirta-festival 25.-28. August in Helsinki, Finland.
Culturalising Democracy – Democratizing Culture
– Neoliberalism canalizes people into the struggle for unrelated and unconscious profits, to trade in productions of goods that will never enter in a production line, to trade goods that will never be used, while billions of people worldwide face food shortages, at the expense of the weak. It has caused social disorientation, poor education, de-acculturalization, and de-moralization with the assistance of the modern social media trend. Today, citizens of all countries are desperately seeking education and culture. Instead, they get entertained. People, along with their given acquirable problems, which they must face, within an existing problematic capitalist environment, living an unbearable everyday life, inevitably become themselves the problem to be “solved” for the markets of culture, the creative industries and by the corporations. Then the field which needs to get managed and developed is this conceivable environment of cultures, in which borders, rules and regulations play a key role in the control of the masses, where totalitarianism, abstraction, abolition of human rights, thrive, says Panayotis Neufelt
Panayotis Neufelt is theater director and producer. Neufelt is also founder of the Cultural Left, Chairman of the International Independent Arts Council and the Arts Council Greece.
Panayiotis Neufelt, has a dual academic background both technical and creative, from Culture to Aviation and vice versa. Panayiotis is the Founder Cultural Left and its satellite production line organization the Creative Left, and also the Founder and Chairman of the International Independent Arts Council and the Arts Council Greece. Artistically, Panayiotis is a Theatre Director and Producer. Panayiotis’ contribution to the aviation is a system entitled as: Maintenance, Evaluation and Survey System for the Airside (MESSA-CIS). He is a member of the organizing committees for three international conferences held in Greece (International Cultural and Creative Economy and Development / Aviation / and Infrastructures Developments). Previously contributed as a left winger advisor to Greek Ministers and MP’s, as well as at the PanHellenic Socialist Party – President’s office, working on party productions, promotion design and image making, and on cultural as well as on aviation management and economy matters. He is also a speaker, radio, TV and social media commentator and a member of the European Left.
Vastavirta-festival in Helsinki
The Vastavirta (countercurrent) Festival is a collaborative concept of varied civil society organizations. The festival has been held roughly every second year for the last ten years. It is facilitated by the Democratic Civic Association (DSL), the European Left (EL), and the Communist Party of Finland (SKP)
Vastavirta Festival is an European open and political forum for radical activity, progressive collaboration and advocacy by those doing the doing.
The Vastavirta festival will take place from 25 to 26 August 2018 in Arbis, Dagmarinkatu 3, Helsinki.
Marx, Culture and the Arts – importance and role in class struggle
panel discussion Sunday 26.8 at 12-14 in the main hall (juhlasali)
Minna Henriksson, Chairperson of the panel, visual artist
G. M. Tamás, Marxist philosopher
Raija-Sinikka Rantala, Writer and Theatre director
Panayiotis Neufelt, Founder of the Cultural Left, Chairman of the International Independent Arts Council and the Arts Council Greece.
JP (Juha-Pekka) Väisänen, Conceptual artist, Chairperson of the Communist Party of Finland
There is an English story published on Vastavirta-festival at party page
