The European financial crisis of the last ten years also had a great impact in my prospects of future: we witnessed the arousal of a gross merchantilization of the public sphere in our societies. The contempt with which culture was treated in my own country, Spain, in administering tough austerity measures to counteract the crisis, bluntly making off with everything and anything (including museums, research institutions, universities and their teachers, etc.) truly hurt me deep, while a country like Iceland, which had previously been devastated by the same crisis too, proved its love and care for culture to a moving degree (the firm decision to continue, not halt, the construction of the Harpa music hall in Reykjavík in middle of the crisis’ impact is but an example of that kind of attitude of determined sustainment of culture).
Deeply frustrated with the coarse course our world was taking, so dramatically exemplified by my own country, I arrived to one conclusion: culture is the only thing that should matter to me from now on. I want to devote the rest of my life to culture only.
