Bogotá artists bring music, dance and puppets to protest culture budget cut

Hundreds of artists, students and cultural workers filled the pavement outside Colombia's Ministry of Culture in Bogotá on 21 September 2026, dancing, drumming and working giant puppets to oppose a proposed 30% cut to the culture budget for 2027.

The crowd included performing arts students with instruments, masks and handmade puppets. They sang and danced in the street rather than chanting from behind barriers, turning the demonstration into an open-air performance that passers-by could watch.

The protest had two targets. The first was the 2027 budget proposal from the government of President Abelardo de la Espriella, who took office about a month earlier, which would take US$90 million from the culture ministry while the overall national budget rises by 14.2%, according to The Art Newspaper. The second was the suspension of the country's national arts awards.

That suspension concerns the national prizes and recognitions strands of the Programa Nacional de Estímulos, the national grants programme that gives cash awards and public recognition to artists, writers, musicians and cultural groups. The ministry halted evaluation and selection of winners for those two categories for the first time in 27 years.

The timing stung. The decision was announced the day before the winners were due to be named. It left 1,308 eligible applications without judging, made up of 351 entries for national prizes and 957 for recognitions.

In a statement published on 19 September, the ministry said it lacked roughly US$270,000 to pay jury members and US$2.75 million to fund the awards themselves. It said the pause applies only to those two categories and only for 2026, not to the wider grants system.

The same statement said the current government inherited a serious fiscal crisis caused by the administration of former president Gustavo Petro. The government has also acknowledged that unpaid debts are affecting 4,162 beneficiaries across various cultural programmes.

What gave the Bogotá march wider weight was who backed it. Colombia's Peace Tribunal, the court set up to hear cases from the country's armed conflict, joined artists in rejecting the funding cut pushed by President de la Espriella.

Culture Minister Paola Holguín now faces calls from protesters to reverse the cut and restore the prize money. For audiences, the row matters because prizes and grants decide who can afford to make new work, tour it and keep small companies going.