The generative power of collaboration in cultural enterprises

Cultural and creative enterprises are urged to embrace collaboration over competition, as the pandemic's aftermath reveals new fragilities and awareness. The article, authored by Maria Francesca Melis for Artribune Magazine, outlines the benefits of a collaborative approach: fostering innovation through free idea circulation, building social and relational capital, overcoming fragmentation and hyperspecialization, and encouraging lateral thinking and co-responsibility. Collaboration can take various legal forms—networks, conventions, partnerships (including public-private under the updated procurement code), agreements, alliances, protocols, or mutual aid pacts. The author emphasizes that the specific legal framework matters less than substantiating collaborative values. Co-planning (co-progettazione) is highlighted as particularly attractive and challenging because it embodies a vision. The piece draws a historical parallel to medieval banks and early companies that used discretionary criteria and shareholder agreements to divide profits and losses, choose collaborators, and make decisions—governance models adaptable to a changing context. The article warns against using collaborative tools as last-minute escapes, reductionist paths, or borderline choices to bypass regulations. It concludes that collaboration ranges from co-programming to sharing to co-planning, with the latter being the most visionary.