Andrés Briansó – Culture and Historical Heritage Councillor of Fuerteventura's Cabildo

“We must use other means of communication and programme events as early as possible”

Andrés Briansó is the new Culture and Historical Heritage Councillor. He comes from Catalonia but has lived on the island for over 20 years and in order to find out more about his experience, we met him at his office at the island's Cabildo.

We would like to know how you started in politics.

I started in politics through activism with the housing anti-eviction Platform, this is how I started defending social causes. Then, with various organisations of that same style, we took advantage of synergies, with other social subjects and ecologists also and we showed that all social fights have the same objective: to improve society and fight for true equality. This brought me to participate in this small revolution that was taking place in politics and almost spontaneously to participate with Podemos.

How long ago was this?

Since the previous term and maybe one year before that. It was very complicated because we didn't know each other, no one came from politics, we came from different areas, with different motivations and were all brought together by this project. Soon we found ourselves with three councillors in the Cabildo. This was something new for a recently created party and it was different. Normally, existing members teach the new arrivals, they tell them roughly the way to follow, but this was different, which meant that it was a tough way to learn. People were kind of scared of us and we only wanted to do from inside what we used to do outside when we were demonstrating. With the current government pact with three parties, we have been talking about transversality since the beginning: we accept suggestions, budgets and the opposite. No one can reach objectives alone. For example, recently, we concentrated on environment matters because they are essential and this is what Podemos represents.

The theme of transversality is a difficult one, although we hear this word more and more in politics. But in truth, it would be good if this kind of coordination existed in general.

This is a new mentality and we have 40 years worth of customs on how to do things. We know they are going to look at what we do and at our results with a magnifying glass.

Tell us about the councils you represent and your projects.

In my point of view, the Culture department was quite fragmented because the Museums' Network was not included, nor was the Congress Centre and another few things. The other day, I was told that I was a great negotiator to have brought together so many areas, but I was not conscious of how much work it would involve.

It might be easier to coordinate it all together?

Indeed, but now I have to include it into a system that didn't work that way before. Now, departments are not hermetic. It didn't seem logical to me to have the Auditorium in one area and the Congress Centre in another. The idea is to make it more coordinated and coherent. We want to speed up the presentation of events so that they are announced early and get them out early enough with various communication media. Until now, a lot of the population was either now aware of them in time, or they would find out about them after the fact from comments about them. The Cultural Agenda is good, but it doesn't reach everyone. We must use other means of communication and mostly programme events as early as possible. Furthermore, the defence of Historical Heritage is also linked to society's culture. One of the objectives is to open the Mountain of Tindaya to the public. It has been closed for years and we must create preservation measures. We will do what is required with guides and instructions on where people can or can't go, but we can prepare for it. We must get the Museums' Network to function properly and we must find a way to do it. It is unacceptable that Morro Velosa is closed in August and that Museums are closed at weekends. The idea isn't to commercialise public assets, but we should use them adequately and promote their heritage value. I am not looking for profitability in cultural matters, but services need to improve and we must cover the costs of improvements and maintenance.

Tell us about the councils you represent and your projects.

In my point of view, the Culture department was quite fragmented because the Museums' Network was not included, nor was the Congress Centre and another few things. The other day, I was told that I was a great negotiator to have brought together so many areas, but I was not conscious of how much work it would involve.

It might be easier to coordinate it all together?

Indeed, but now I have to include it into a system that didn't work that way before. Now, departments are not hermetic. It didn't seem logical to me to have the Auditorium in one area and the Congress Centre in another. The idea is to make it more coordinated and coherent. We want to speed up the presentation of events so that they are announced early and get them out early enough with various communication media. Until now, a lot of the population was either now aware of them in time, or they would find out about them after the fact from comments about them. The Cultural Agenda is good, but it doesn't reach everyone. We must use other means of communication and mostly programme events as early as possible. Furthermore, the defence of Historical Heritage is also linked to society's culture. One of the objectives is to open the Mountain of Tindaya to the public. It has been closed for years and we must create preservation measures. We will do what is required with guides and instructions on where people can or can't go, but we can prepare for it. We must get the Museums' Network to function properly and we must find a way to do it. It is unacceptable that Morro Velosa is closed in August and that Museums are closed at weekends. The idea isn't to commercialise public assets, but we should use them adequately and promote their heritage value. I am not looking for profitability in cultural matters, but services need to improve and we must cover the costs of improvements and maintenance.

What do you think of the external management of museums? Is it a good solution for the employment problems in those locations?

I am currently weighing up other solutions. They work in other locations, but I need to choose the one that is best suited.

Can you tell us about something that is essential for you amongst what you are looking after?

I have always been very interested in the use of public spaces. We have many of them and they need to be used. If it cannot be done with our own means, it could be through social or neighbours' associations that would look after them and use them. I also think that we need to work on exhibitions. We are currently working on the creation of an exhibition on Cesar Manrique, amongst others. I believe that once someone has been to a museum, we create an expectation of what will come next. The lack of continuity means that cultural events lack interest.