Since arriving in March, Bernardo has been at the forefront of cultural and educational cooperation between Brazil and Germany, working to bring the richness and diversity of Brazilian culture to German audiences. From exhibitions on Indigenous art and Amazonian heritage to musical performances and language promotion, the Embassy’s cultural sector plays an important role in strengthening bilateral ties through soft power. In our interview, Bernardo shared his insights on cultural diplomacy, ongoing projects, and the importance of presenting a more diverse and complex portrait of Brazil that goes beyond well-known cultural symbols, highlighting the country’s regional diversity and contemporary artistic expressions.

 The following excerpts explore how culture is a key component in strengthening Brazil-Germany relations:

What is Cultural Diplomacy for you?

I think cultural diplomacy is a way to bring countries and their peoples closer together, fostering exchange and better mutual understanding. From a Brazilian perspective, I'd say that cultural diplomacy has three main axes: an economic axis, a so-called citizenship axis, and a symbolic axis. This is one of the ways cultural policy is structured in Brazil.

The symbolic axis refers to what we usually associate with culture itself—bringing cultural products abroad and showcasing how Brazilians think about art and culture. The economic axis focuses on encouraging cooperation between creative economies, which is essential because the business side of culture provides sustainability for both political and cultural policies. As for the citizenship axis, it means that people—in this case, Brazilians—should actively participate in shaping public policies related to culture.

Another way to answer that question is to say that cultural diplomacy is not only about culture, but also about education and, of course, language. So we also promote Portuguese in its Brazilian variety, as well as initiatives in the field of education. Brazilian cultural diplomacy is carried out by the Guimarães Rosa Institute, an entity directly linked to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty). The Institute is the Brazilian counterpart to institutions such as the Goethe-Institut, Instituto Cervantes, or Institut Français. In Brasília, guidelines are formulated for cultural promotion, dissemination of the Portuguese language, and educational cooperation. These guidelines are then implemented by Brazilian diplomatic missions (embassies and consulates), which are familiar with local realities and priorities.

Could you say what are the main achievements the Brazilian cultural sector has achieved here in Berlin or the whole Germany?

Yeah, sure. I haven’t been here for very long—I arrived in Berlin in March—but I believe there are always key areas where we work to expand and promote Brazilian culture. One of the main ones is music. There’s a strong emphasis on Brazilian music, which is, of course, incredibly rich and diverse.

There are also lesser known connections, which we were able to highlight recently. Last year, for example, we celebrated the 200th anniversary of German immigration to Brazil. We hosted an exhibition here at the embassy, which was a great success. That same exhibition also traveled to Kiel and will likely be presented in Cologne in the coming months.

Another important initiative was the Tibira exhibition, which also took place at the embassy. I believe it was the first queer exhibition ever hosted by the Brazilian embassy in Berlin. That made it especially significant, and it resonated very positively with German society—especially in Berlin, which is known for its open-mindedness and its readiness to engage with the messages of queer art and queer theory, which Brazil also promotes.

Germany has a strong interest in the Amazon rainforest and the Amazon Fund. How are cultural projects engaging with these environmental issues?

Germany does have a lot of interest in the Amazon region, the Brazilian rainforest, and the Brazilian environment. We had an exhibition here featuring Indigenous people of the Amazon—a collective of Indigenous women who brought their art to be exhibited during the opening of Amazon Week.

This is one way to showcase the motivating variety of Brazil: by bringing artists from regions that are not as well known as Rio and São Paulo. The first step is to present artists from these other regions, and that’s already a great accomplishment we’ve been working on—trying to diversify the origins of Brazilian artists. The second step is to actually make these themes the focus of the exhibitions, the concerts, the events—the cultural events we organize.

Amazon Week was a great example. It highlighted Indigenous people, Indigenous art, and also addressed the repatriation of Brazilian cultural goods that are currently in Germany or in Europe in general. So I believe this is something we can continue working on here in Germany: the repatriation of cultural goods to Brazil.

What is your perspective on the role that culture plays within the economic development of Brazil?

The cultural sector in Brazil has a very high rate of return when you invest in it. There are some studies that show that for every dollar invested in culture, you actually get three dollars of return, because you make the economy move. That includes the informal economy as well, because every cultural event has people working for it to happen, and there’s also a whole structure around the event that moves the economy.

There are some other studies being prepared by the Ministry of Culture—I don't think they've been published yet—but that number can get as high as 1 to 6.5 dollars of return on investment. And that makes a lot of sense, because investing in culture is not only rational from an economic perspective, but it’s also rational from the perspective of building a nation and exporting important values of that nation to its public.

So when culture is being made by our people and is being consumed by our people, our country simply gets better and understands its values more clearly. The investment in culture is economically rational, and also rational from a more humanistic point of view.

I just want to add that, even on a global scale, it helps to improve or develop Brazil’s soft power capability. For example, countries such as Japan, Korea, the US—many countries—use culture as a way to make their culture known and gain some influence.

This aspect is very important, and I think Brazil has a very positive image worldwide. We can feel it when working as diplomats in the cultural sector. We feel very welcomed when we propose certain agendas, and we feel very welcome when we try to arrange a cultural event—because Brazil has this positive image worldwide, and that's built by soft power.

Would you say there are some personal or even professional experiences that have shaped your approach of cultural diplomacy and bilateral cooperation between Brazil and Germany?

I do think that there are some experiences that have shaped the way I see cultural diplomacy. I think that, when working with cultural diplomacy, you learn every day, because you're always talking to actors, trying to shape programs, and trying to listen to what is being produced in the cultural sector, in the artistic sector… So I believe we really do learn every day by working with it.

But since I've gotten here, I think what has had the most impact on how I see cultural diplomacy is seeing how welcoming people have been to the projects that I consider important for Brazil—and to the projects that Brazil is trying to develop. I think that shows there is great potential for Brazilian cultural diplomacy here in Germany.

Every project I've discussed so far has been received with great enthusiasm from German institutions, and that demonstrates the strong potential and interest in Brazilian culture.

Can you share a little more about these projects?

First of all, there is a concert series planned for this season (2025 - 2026) at the embassy, and also in other institutions here in Germany. We're trying to present Brazilian E-Musik, as they call it—concert music—here in Germany, and to do so in a more systematic way. We’re developing a concert program that shows, chronologically, how Brazilian concert music has evolved. The first concert will take place in November, and the series will likely run until June 2026.

This is a major project to showcase Brazilian concert music, and it ties back to what we were discussing earlier: Brazil is not exactly unknown to the German public, but it’s not very well known either. Everyone here, I think, has heard of Villa-Lobos, but concert music in Brazil goes far beyond just Villa-Lobos. We’re aiming to show the evolution and diversity of Brazilian music by featuring different composers—not just Villa-Lobos, who was a white male composer, but also composers of all genders and racial backgrounds in Brazil.

Another event we’re organizing is the promotion of the new German translation of a very important Brazilian novel, The Passion According to G.H., written by Clarice Lispector. There’s also a film adaptation of the book, and we’ll be screening it in October here in Berlin.

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