Articles

Americans for the Arts

by Valerie Beaman, Private Sector Initiatives Coordinator, Americans for the Arts

Securing private funding is more competitive than ever given this current recession. So, how do we make the case for supporting the arts and how do we maintain a vital relationship with the private sector in spite of the funding downturn? How do we define the relevance of the arts to business in the face of urgent and basic social needs?

'Subsidy Junkies?' a day of practical survival strategies for arts fundraising

This one day symposium brings together fundraising and development professionals working in the arts and cultural sectors to explore this changing landscape, learn practical survival strategies, seek out opportunities and generate new ideas to stay financially healthy.

THE CULTURAL POINTS INITIATIVE IN BRAZIL

The Brazilian Ministry of Culture established in 2003 the edict for Cultural Points. This action aims to enhance cultural initiatives and projects already developed by communities, groups and networks of collaboration through arrangements with federal entities.

ORACLE Seminar in Luxembourg

The 12th Oracle Seminar will be held in Luxembourg from 22-24 April 2010, featuring plenary think-piece presentations, workshops, one-to-one conversations, research/encounters/exchanges offering ideas for new services and many of the connections and capabilities needed to implement them.

Culturemap

Websites and internet platforms for the exchange of information and dialogue already exist on the web and have been established by different cultural organisations and projects. The European Commission thinks “the time is ripe to map the existing online spaces for debate on cultural issues and on the European project”. Little is known on how cross-border and cross-sector debate on European culture can be stimulated online in order to help the further development of a common European cultural area for those interested in European culture.

European Museum of the Year Award 2011

The European Museum Forum is inviting European museums to take part in the competition for the European Museum of the Year Award 2011 (EMYA 2011). The Award was established in 1977 and is the most prestigious of its kind in Europe. It will be presented for 34th time in 2011. Throughout these years, EMYA has been a dynamic tool for the recognition of innovation, excellence and public quality in museums. It helped to explore the changes in the European museum field and it served as an instrument of international networking, bringing together the most advanced projects and people in the museum profession. 

Contrary to the common belief, museums are changing and every year brings an array of new, unexpected ideas, new answers to the question how a museum can serve the community and society. The European Museum Forum ensures that EMYA reflects and keeps pace with these changes, and this year sees the addition of new Judges and Trustee Board Members, covering wider areas of professional interest, with wider international representation.

Balancing act : twenty-one strategic dilemmas in cultural policy

The age of the command economy has passed. Govern- ments across the continent increasingly recognise the limits to their ability to make things happen. The complexity of contemporary society and the interdependency of local and national economies mean that Governments must influence rather than direct change. They must work with and through a vast range of public, private and independent sector part- ners. Nowhere is this more true than in the fluid, changeable world of culture, where the state’s efforts in one direction will often produce unexpected, perhaps unwanted, results elsewhere. In the cultural sector, individual vision can have a huge and unforeseen impact, where substantial public resources can appear to produce no change at all.The culture minister deals with a field which is inherently changeable and often seen as marginal to the government’s central objectives. While health and education ministers have thousands of hospitals and schools, and millions of public employees under their control, the culture minister typically has few directly managed resources. The development and management of cultural policy is therefore one of the most complex areas of modern government, a kind of a balancing act, not so much between competing priorities as in other areas of policy, but between competing visions of the role of culture in society. 

Restricting Artists is Not an Olympic Ideal: An Open Letter to VANOC

The former artistic director of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Arts Festival and correspondent of Arts Management Network, Raymond T. Grant, is deeply concerned about a clause that appears in the contracts for artists engaged by VANOC for its Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver, Canada. Arts Management Network publish the open letter of Mr. Grant to the CEO of VANOC, Mr. Furlong, at its website. 

Museums, Cultural Diversity and Management

From 1 to 7 July the Management Department of the University of Antwerp is organising a Summer School on Cultural Management. This year the Summer School will focus on Museums and Cultural Diversity. It will be open for students and professionals. The Summer School on Cultural Management is a new initiative of the Management Department of the University of Antwerp (UA). 

25th Anniversary of the European Capitals of Culture