We at Museum Lolland-Falster are positive about the government's proposal to set aside DKK 140 million for cultural passes for particularly vulnerable young people, but we doubt that a cultural pass and free access to cultural experiences alone will make any significant difference. It is not the price that keeps them from seeking out cultural offerings. If you simply give a free ticket to culture without getting to know what the young understand by culture in particular and what they expect, then you run the risk that the effort will fail if the desire is to make culture relevant to them. In order to succeed in this, we must approach the effort on their terms, based on their reality and seen from their perspective.
Therefore, the cultural passport should not stand alone. The Government and Parliament should earmark some of the funds so that museums, theaters and venues can develop and tailor activities and courses for young people based on their reality and on their terms. In this way, we can give them an extra dimension to their encounter with the culture, which becomes more than just an experience and perhaps gives them the small push to break out of their situation.
Museum director Ulla Schaltz and museum mediator Rasmus Thorup Kildegaard have written a debate article about this in Kulturmonitor.
