On Thursday, June 18, Tomás Peters was invited to the X Meeting of Cultural Corporations and Foundations 2026, which took place at the Teatro del Lago in Frutillar, where he gave the presentation “Cultural Democracy: trajectory and new proposals.”

The principal investigator at CMUS explains: “I spoke about the origin of cultural rights (in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and how this legal framework led to the development of cultural institutions in the Western world. From this framework, ministries of culture were created, and from the second half of the 20th century, the democratization of culture was established initially, followed by the idea of ​​cultural democracy. The presentation discussed current debates on both models and established some guidelines for considering a third way of thinking about the issue: cultural democratization.”

This meeting focused on reflecting on cultural history, the democratization of culture, and the future of the arts, with various speakers sharing their experiences, including Eduardo Leiva, Regional Secretary of Culture, Arts, and Heritage for the Los Lagos Region; Fernando Lacaste, Executive Secretary of the Valdivia Film Promotion Cultural Center; and Antonio Altamirano, from the Cielos del Infinito Art Festival.