Secretary of State for Culture of Portugal

Jorge Barreto Xavier

He studied Law, Political Science and Arts Management in Lisbon, Amsterdam and Baltimore. Between 1986 and 2002 he was founder and head of the Portuguese Club of Arts and Ideas, and between 1997 and 2003 he founded Lugar Comum, the first Portuguese Integrated Centre of Artistic Experimentation. In 1987, he created and coordinated the 1^st Portuguese Exhibition of Arts & Ideas, a pioneer initiative to showcase contemporary art in Portugal. In 1992, he creates the Paideia program, which takes contemporary art to 180 Portuguese high schools. In 1994 he directed the 7^th Edition of the Lisbon Biennial, with more than 500 artists from 20 Mediterranean countries, and three years later he created the Biennial of Young Artists from the Portuguese-speaking countries. As member of the National Commission on Education, he is the co-author with Emília Nadal of Educação Estética e Interiorização dos Saberes, published in 1998. From 2003 to 2005 he was Deputy Mayor of the Municipality of Oeiras, in charge of Culture, Youth and Consumer’s Protection, and he led the Interministerial Commission on Education-Culture. In January 2006, he began his collaboration with Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, where, until April 2008, he led the project Reintegration through Arts. From 2008 to 2010 he was General Director for the Arts, having created the program Inov-Art, the greatest program of international apprenticeships in the culture area promoted by a public entity in the EU. In the past 25 years, he founded and joined several international networks in the field of Culture and taught at various universities. He teaches cultural policy and creative industries’ management at ISCTE — Lisbon University Institute.