“A demand for agency” | Culture Action Europe’s State of Culture 2026 is out
“If this report amounts to one finding above all the others, it is this: recognition was never the finish line, only the starting condition. Culture’s value has rarely been stated this clearly or this often by European institutions and, yet, it still has not been matched by the funding, protection, or governance necessary for it to be realised. Two years ago, the question this report asked was whether culture could be heard at all. This edition asks a harder one: now that it has been, what is it actually allowed to do with that recognition?”
— Lars Ebert, State of Culture 2026
The central contradiction running through State of Culture 2026 is that culture is praised more than ever and protected less than ever. It is a public good in every EU institution’s vocabulary, yet still funded and evaluated as though it were an industrial output, measured in projects, KPIs and short cycles.
For Culture Action Europe, advocacy is more than making noise until someone listens. It means turning the knowledge and lived experience of our members into something institutions can act on. That takes coalitions, like the 150+ organisations that came together around the future of culture funding in AgoraEU. It takes campaigns, like Ask, Pay, Trust. And it takes years of dialogue with decision-makers. Sitting close to the process has a catch, though: it is hard to judge your own progress honestly. That’s why every two years we commission a critical friend.
State of Culture 2026 was conceptualised and written by Elena Polivtseva, who works at the distance of an external researcher rather than an interested party. Her task is to hold the line between consultation and analysis on one side, and the freedom of a subjective, journalistic approach on the other, edition after edition. The result checks our account of ourselves rather than simply repeating it, and mirrors the sector back to itself.
What you will find inside
1. The Value of Culture: From Narrative Exhaustion to Policy Change. Culture is increasingly described as part of the infrastructure of collective life, and as a public good. But funding is still built around short projects, set outcomes and measurable impact. The chapter asks why what policy says it values and how it actually supports culture keep drifting apart.
2. Culture and AI: Human Agency on a Tightrope. Two years ago, the sector’s question was whether AI could be trusted. Now it is who decides what AI is for. The chapter looks at why audiences prefer human-made work even when they can’t tell the difference, and why policy should focus on the people and conditions behind creation, not only on the outputs.
3. Artistic Freedom: From Legal Principle to Lived Capacity. Freedom is eroded by more than censorship: funding pressure, ownership concentration, platform power and self-censorship all play a part. The chapter makes the case for a European Artistic Freedom Act, and argues that law alone is not enough. Freedom also has to be exercised collectively, like a muscle.
4. Europe: A Continent of Culture? Culture is becoming more geopolitical just as the space for genuine global cultural collaboration is shrinking. The chapter explores two competing ideas of European culture, one as a fixed heritage to preserve and one as something constantly remade, and asks whether openness might be Europe’s greatest cultural strength.
If the report has one message, it is that recognition was never the finish line, only the starting condition.
So is this report advocacy? We think it is.