As a ceremonial offering, the Bogotá Environmental Axis reflecting pool was covered with 150,000 carnations, chrysanthemums or roses on September 20. It was part of a collective intervention that invited people to transform public space and love the city even more. This performance event marked the start of the first Bogotá International Art Biennial, which for several weeks allowed more than a million people to see up close the 250 works of contemporary artists, most of them international, at the San Francisco Palace, the Los Novios and Lourdes Parks or in the Plaza La Santamaría, among 20 other stages. It was an important step in the cultural history of the capital, bringing it closer to metropolises like Sao Paulo, Sydney or New York and their famous biennials. Behind this and other important events, but also behind a cultural policy which today makes Bogota a reference in the region, is Santiago Trujillo Escobar, Secretary of Culture of the Colombian capital.
Trujillo has been thinking, creating and practicing culture for over 25 years. He was one of the creators of the Regional Institute of Arts (Idartes), in 2011, and its first director. There he promoted events such as Rock al Parque and other festivals. He was responsible for programming the Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the Media Torta, the Planetarium and created the new District Cinematheque, the new Santafé Gallery and launched innovative programs and policies, such as the creation of local artistic training centers.
Last year he created and launched the first version of the International Festival of Visual Arts (Fiav), which seeks to fill the void left by the Ibero-American Theater Festival and which included 28 companies from 18 countries. Its second edition will take place next year.
Due to his experience and background, Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán invited him to Trujillo to be part of his team, as Secretary of Culture, Leisure and Sports, with the aim of making culture a fundamental pillar of his idea of rebuilding the trust, pride and belonging of its residents.
“Many forget that we come from a complex cycle of events that have marked the city’s history, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the reception of more than a million Venezuelan migrants, not counting the 70,000 displaced people from all regions of the country who also came because of the violence of recent years. In any city in the world this would have caused a humanitarian crisis, but Bogotá has managed to resist and move forward thanks to the efforts of citizens and public policies that guarantee rights and create opportunities., Trujillo said..
The city, he emphasizes, needed new symbols, milestones like the Ibero-American Theater Festival once was, to transform and recover spaces, create equity, stimulate the economy and tourism, democratize art and allow everyone to enjoy and experience culture. This is how important programs and events were launched, many of which were created by Trujillo and his team, such as Fiav, the Biennale, Bogotá Christmas 2024 – which brought together more than 1,200,000 people –, the International Violin Competition of the City of Bogotá, Acción Cultural Iberoamericana and Gente Convergent, with which Bogotá is the regional epicenter of major cultural and a reference in thought, innovation and public management. culture in Latin America.
Work from the neighborhoods
But while major events have garnered attention, Trujillo’s programs and policies start from the local level, using culture as a tool to resolve neighborhood conflicts, restore the social fabric and provide a greater sense of belonging.
Through neighborhood meetings, the Barrios Vivos program seeks to solve problems or create opportunities for social, economic or tourism development. Since 2024, more than 200 laboratories have materialized, like the one built in the Nuevo Porvenir neighborhood of Usme, where the community decided to solve its serious garbage problem. In association with environmental artist Eduardo Butrón, the BAT Foundation and the Usme Local Graffiti Table, they created two large-format murals with plastic bottle caps. At the same time, the recyclers association organized workshops on waste management.
Another example, from which dozens of viral stories could be made, occurred at Kennedy. To encourage children and young people to enter the public library and not be left behind while playing football, they created a very special championship: it was not won by the team with the most victories, but by the team that read the most books and wrote the best columns in the neighborhood.
“Some laboratories were more successful than others, but it is clear that people no longer spoke, there was polarization, gaps between young people and adults, aesthetic and cultural ruptures. With Barrios Vivos, what we talked about so much comes to fruition: diversity is what unites us,” reflects Trujillo, who cites surveys carried out by the District which indicate that 93.9% of residents in the neighborhoods where the laboratories were developed feel proud of live in Bogotá and 87.8% of their neighborhood, and that almost 60% of them consider that they can participate in solving civic culture problems.
Aged 48 and born to parents from Antioquia, Trujillo was born in Bogotá, but as a child his family returned to Medellín. He studied at the Diego Echavarría school, where the now famous musical director Andrés Orozco Estrada led a project aimed at bringing out a first generation marked by music. “There was an orchestra and I decided to be first violinist. I succeeded. This leadership it takes to be first violinist, the hard work, the effort, gave me a vision and a desire to help. I don’t consider myself a leader who imposes himself, but rather one who helps in a collective project.”, warns.
He returned to Bogota and, at the age of 20, won the competition to become a violinist of the Colombian Symphony Orchestra, which, three years later, was liquidated by the government of Álvaro Uribe. “I decided I had to fight,” he recalls. “I went to the front to protest, to send letters. We decided to play 24 hours straight in Bolívar Square and, all of a sudden, musicians started arriving and gathering: mariachis, rock groups like Dr. Krápula or Alerta Kamarada. It was nice, but the Orchestra was liquidated.” He studied Music and Communication and began a life between music and management.
Those who have worked with Trujillo say he is innovative, a leader who always thinks and works about culture, music and art. He is demanding, but he has shown that he is capable of achieving the unthinkable. His experience as a manager, member of the board of directors, programming advisor of the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Theater and director of the cinema and television program of the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, allowed him to understand that it is necessary to surround yourself with competent, highly qualified, competitive and disruptive people. He hates corruption, inconsistency and neither thinks nor wants to get into anything. “I want to be a great cultural transformer, a potentiator, accompanied by sensible political projects,” he emphasizes.
One of the tasks to improve in Bogotá is that of civic culture. “The time of the mime and the clown is over. 30 years ago it was easy to communicate, because a disruptive leader could sow messages with media of great relevance and penetration. Today, communication and networks have changed. We focus on 668 critical points and on specific problems, because why scold 8 million people for what 10,000 people are doing wrong? But it is happening and there are changes.”
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