Category: Arts policy

1 week to go! Arts management & policy conference, 25 June (UCD)

UCD Student Centre
FItzGerald Debating Chamber – Conference Location
Pool & Dance Studio
Black Box theatre
Cinema

We’re getting very excited about hosting next week’s conference ‘Mapping an Altered Landscape: cultural policy and management in Ireland‘ next Wednesday (25 June 2014) in UCD’s beautiful new student centre. Co-sponsored by IADT, the conference is supported by the Arts Council and Heritage Council. The one-day conference features a great line-up of speakers reflecting in an open format on current cultural policies and management practices.

Our main aim of the day is to propose solutions to a problem that perplexes us all: what might a coherent cultural policy look like?

The last cultural policy conference held at UCD was held in 2008 — right before the economic crash — and there’s no better time than the present to take a hard look at what’s changed in the interim, and talk openly about the way forward.

Our capacity is limited, with 100+ confirmed attendees from across the artforms and cultural sector (artists, arts managers, curators, theatre-makers, museum/heritage folks, local authority officers, representatives from the Department, Arts and Heritage Councils, government ministers, students and academics), so please register soon if you’d like to join us on the day! Speaker presentations will be diverse and brief to allow for maximum audience participation.

There will also be the opportunity to tour UCD’s new cultural facilities — still unknown to lots of folks, and open for programming and collaborations — including our state-of-the art cinema, black box theatre, dance studio and radio station. An optional screening of the documentary ‘Skin in the Game‘ (on Irish artists & the recession) will be held that evening after the conclusion of the conference in the new cinema.

I hope very much that many of you will be able to join us!

‘Mapping’ 2014 Conference schedule

www.culturalpolicyconference2014.ie

 

Happy new year! Weathering the storms…

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Well, the recycling bins are overflowing, the tree disposal centres are looking a bit sad, but at least the storm clouds finally seem to be breaking… although perhaps not over Limerick, quite yet (oh dear…)

After a very quiet semester on the blogging front, I’ll be back with regular updates in the coming weeks, and of course, regular job postings and event announcements.

2013 was quite the rollercoaster for the arts & cultural community — we’ve had a nasty budget with bodies like Culture Ireland and National Cultural Institutions especially hard-hit; the spectacular collapse of Temple Bar Cultural Trust and the closure of the Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick (and worrying times for the Irish Architectural Archives too); campaigns highlighting the precarious position of visual artists and compensation and the need for cultural research and better policy-making processes; controversies over corporate arts sponsorships and the Arts Council Music Recording Scheme bursaries.

Amidst the gossip and gloom there have been many bright spots as well — a very successful run by Derry as City of Culture; Rough Magic and Opera Theatre Company’s fab win in the Sky Arts Ignition competition; booming times for Culture Night nationwide;The Gathering (despite its rocky start) now being hailed as a great success. In our own neck of the woods here at UCD, we launched the new Irish Journal of Arts Management and Cultural Policy and are looking ahead to issue 2 very soon.

What’s in store for 2014? The fallout from the Limerick City of Culture debacle is set to continue (though a new CEO has just been announced) — and in many ways it serves as an apt distillation of the challenges ahead. The bungled initiative has thrown into painful (and public) relief what we already know: the dominant rhetoric of corporate ‘rebranding’ and clashing conceptions of what a ‘city of culture’ is actually meant to deliver; public ‘cultural management’ practices which betray no deep understanding of either term; the small, imbalanced budgets now assigned to major arts events with the expectation of high (usually non-arts) returns; and the shockingly poor control of taxpayer-funded initiatives by the government department meant to oversee them.

There’s still time for Limerick to get its act together — and the mass turnout at public meetings and high level of publicity generated over the past few days bodes well for Limerick CoC. This matters deeply to many people, in Limerick and nationwide. However the issues underlying CoC that have fuelled this crisis have been with us for some time – and they aren’t going away. I’m looking forward to lots of discussions and debates over the coming months over how we can improve relationships between cultural policy, art practice and public funding, across all of the artform sectors. One of the benefits of working in a university is the boundless energy and enthusiasm for change and opportunity in the arts which floods through our doors every year. And as we enter into a new year, I’m taking a page from their book: perhaps we all need to adopt Woody Guthrie’s final New Year’s resolution (from his list that’s been making the rounds): Wake Up and Fight.

Launch of Irish Journal of Arts Management and Cultural Policy

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JOURNAL LAUNCH

The School of Art History and Cultural Policy at University College Dublin is delighted to announce the launch of the Irish Journal of Arts Management and Cultural Policy (www.culturalpolicy.ie), a new peer reviewed, open access e-journal publishing original research on the arts and cultural sector in Ireland.

It aims to provide an accessible and engaging discussion of recent arts management and cultural policy research for academics and practitioners, encourage new research directions in the sector and offer a platform for aspiring researchers and writers. Contents of the first issue include:

Editorial Board Introduction

Ciarán Benson Foreword

Michelle Carew Towards Creative Europe: Irish Performing Arts Organisations and the EU Culture Programme

Timothy King Tapping the Culturati: An Underexploited Source of Private Finance for the Arts in Ireland

Eve Lalor Safeguarding Giving: the Volunteer and the Intern

Thomas McGraw Lewis Challenging the Literacy of ‘Literacy and Numeracy’: The Potential for Film and Moving Image Media in the Irish Educational Landscape

Emma Mahony Where Do They Stand? Deviant Art Institutions and the Liberal Democratic State

CALL FOR PAPERS – ISSUE 2

Accompanying the launch of Issue 1, the Editorial Board is now currently seeking outstanding research articles by academics and practitioners for Issue 2 of the Journal. Submissions should address topics concerning Ireland or Northern Ireland, may focus on any of the following areas:

  • cultural policy
  • arts and cultural management
  • cultural tourism
  • creative industries
  • cultural economics and marketing
  • heritage and museum studies
  • governance and administration
  • audience development and participation
  • philanthropy/fundraising
  • cultural finance
  • production / consumption
  • arts and education

The Journal is published annually and edited by an Editorial Board comprised of Irish academics. All research-based submissions are blind peer-reviewed by an international panel of academics and practitioners. If you are interested in submitting to the journal, please email a brief abstract and article title to info@culturalpolicy.ie by 1 November 2013. We also welcome proposals for book reviews and editorial essays. Final submissions (4,000-5,000 words) will be due 6 December 2013. Full submission guidelines and further details may be found at www.culturalpolicy.ie.

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Editorial Board:

Pat Cooke, University College Dublin
Victoria Durrer, South Dublin County Council
Emily Mark-FitzGerald, University College Dublin
Kerry McCall, Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dún Laoghaire

International Advisory Board:

Eleanora Belfiore, University of Warwick
Oliver Bennett, University of Warwick
Constance Devereaux, Colorado State University
Luke Gibbons, NUI Maynooth
Chris Maughan, De Montfort University
Andrew Newman, Newcastle University
Dave O’Brien, City University, London
John O’Hagan, Trinity College Dublin
Carmel O’Sullivan, Trinity College Dublin
Bernadette Quinn, Dublin Institute of Technology
Marie Redmond, Trinity College Dublin
Elizabeth Silva, The Open University
David Throsby, Macquarie University
Jonathan Vickery, University of Warwick
Chris Whitehead, Newcastle University

Artsmanagement.ie round-up: 20 August 2013

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Counting down two weeks until the new UCD term begins: autumn is upon us! Which also means the arts scene is warming up again…

The programme for Culture Night is launching today; the growth of this event is nothing short of astonishing; it’s the biggest night of the year for Dublin and many other towns who’ve adopted it. Unmissable.

The Dublin Fringe Festival also recently announced its line-up. As director Roise Goan’s swan song, it’s packed full of treats. So difficult to choose highlights, but I’ll be booking/attending Anu Productions’ Thirteen cycle (13 performances/events reflecting on the Dublin Lockout); Fit/Misfit (collaboration between Mexican and Irish dancers); Lippy by Dead Centre; for a bit of light relief, David O’Doherty and Maeve Higgins both have shows; and Brat Kids Carnival for my kiddies. For starters.

The centenary of the Dublin Lockout is receiving lots of attention at the moment – especially from Anu Productions (both at the Fringe and part of the brilliant, almost sold-out Tenement Experience) – but many other related events are listed at http://1913committee.ie. Some of the most interesting include Pallas Project’s A Letter to Lucy, a response to 1913 by a group of contemporary artists (Anthony Haughey, Deirdre O Mahony, Mark Curran, Deirdre Power, Jennie Guy, Brian Duggan) in a number of locations around Dublin (until 21 September). The Labour and Lockout exhibition at the Limerick City Gallery also looks fascinating (on until 1 October). Finally Temple Bar Gallery & Studios has issued an open call for workshop proposals for its Workers’ Cafe: from 10 October – 2 November, their exhibition space will transform into a participatory venue and cafe, hosting events and workshops connected to the subject of labour, economy and exchange.

We’re smack dab in the middle of Heritage Week – their listing of events is like a phone book! There’s something going on in every corner of the country — check in to your local museum or heritage centre to see what special programmes are on offer this week.

The most recent NCFA research colloquy in Kilkenny last week featured Dave O’Brien from City University London speaking on the evolution of evidence-based policy making in the UK, with a response by John O’Hagan (TCD, Economics). The session made for a lively debate on the pros/cons of evidence gathering methods and their use by decision-makers (some of the debate was captured via twitter – #ncfacolloquy). The next colloquy will take place in October: these are well worth attending if you’ve an interest in the arts sector, policy-making and the role of research.

Who else is worn out from all of the appeals to vote for projects that are part of the Arthur Guinness Project scheme? Their dire daily voting mechanism has been clogging up inboxes and feeds over the past few weeks, but Jim Carroll has a bigger bone to pick in his Irish Times blog. His critique of the scheme has attracted a huge number of comments: well worth a read for the range of arguments coming from all perspectives.

Temple Bar Gallery and Studios is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year with a forthcoming book Generation – 30 years of creativity at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, which recognizes the important contribution it has made to Ireland’s visual arts community. Its upcoming exhibition False Memory Syndrome proposes a series of alternative histories for TBG&S, touching on institutional memory, archives and materiality.

Heads up: the Arts Council is looking for new Arts Advisers in Architecture; Circus, Street Arts & Spectacle; Film; Opera; Theatre; and Traditional Arts. Applications close on 26 September.

Lots of new listings on the jobs page, but of particular interest may be the facilitator roles for the Turner Prize 2013 in Derry/Londonderry as part of City of Culture. Derry’s been playing a blinder of late, with an estimated 430,000 turning out for the Fleadh last week. Following a tumultuous summer in Northern Ireland, an interesting article on The Detail blog explores why Derry and the CoC events may hold out hope for the continuation of the peace process.

In the category of you-couldn’t-make-it-up, last week the DUP’s Peter Robinson published a rambling open letter on the subject of the controversial re-development of the Maze prison and its proposed ‘Peace Centre’. The satirical website Loyalists Against Democracy were on fine form with a swift response.

Once again, Dublin City Council has announced plans to redevelop Dublin’s Victorian fruit market (located between Capel St and the Four Courts). We’ve heard this plan before over the years — there’s widespread agreement this is a fantastic idea, but with a proposed opening date of 2015, the proof will be in the pudding.

It’s been a bumper summer for Irish Architecture, and both the Irish Architecture Foundation and the Irish Georgian Society have moved into new digs: the former to Hatch Street near the NCH, the latter in the old Civic Museum on South William Street. In related news, Dublin Civic Trust is sponsoring a conference on the future of Dublin’s Georgian Squares (13 September), to be held appropriately in the ballroom of the former Assembly Rooms of the Rotunda Hospital on Parnell Square.

Finally, some great news in the world of open access: the Getty Museum in LA has joined the Rijksmuseum in The Netherlands as one of the world’s major museums now offering open access to a massive number of images of its collection, free of restriction. As the Rijksmuseum’s head of digital collections has remarked, “If they want to have a Vermeer on their toilet paper, I’d rather have a very high-quality image of Vermeer on toilet paper than a very bad reproduction.” Words to warm any art historian’s heart!

Artsmanagement.ie round-up: 22 July 2013

Clearly there’s nothing else clogging up your news feed this morning, so how about some arts & cultural goodness?

Check out Patrick Lonergan’s new blog ‘Scenes from a Bigger Picture’ (Dept of English, NUI Galway): very thoughtful, extended pieces on issues connected to contemporary Irish theatre, well worth a read.

Eleonora Belfiore – a prolific academic from University of Warwick who researches cultural value and social impact – is looking for new contributors to her #Cultural Value online initiative: proposals for short essays, blog posts, etc are welcome.

The Upstart campaign’s looking to transform a derelict space in North Dublin city into a pop-up cultural space for the summer — full deets on plans & how you can pitch in are here.

Keen on finding a vacant space yourself for an arts/cultural project? Dublin CC is taking applications for use of two empty buildings on Cork St. in Dublin for a nominal fee – suitable for use as studios, by organisations, etc. Applications are due 31 July.

The Galway Arts Festival’s apparently a stunner this year – Aidan Dunne’s review of the visual arts programme certainly whets the appetite.

Dublin Fringe Festival has issued its annual call for Willing Workers – a list of volunteers willing to pitch in & assist with Fringe productions coming to the Festival, in all areas of production, advertising, design, tech, admin etc.

The inaugural Festival of Curiosity is kicking off in a few days, with lots of events spanning culture & science planned around the city from 25-28 July. An outgrowth of Dublin City of Science 2012, hot tickets will no doubt include Dara Ó Briain’s BBC Science Club on 26 July at the Mansion House and the free, family-oriented Curiosity Carnival at Smock Alley Theatre from 26-28 July.

Michael Dervan, I feel ya: on why the rebranding of classical music as easy listening (I’m looking at you, Lyric FM) is problematic.

The RAISE project (run by the Arts Council and managed by consultancy 2into3) is looking to fill five major fundraising posts in Ireland — for the Irish Film Institute, National Chamber Choir, Royal Hibernian Academy and Wexford Festival Opera. Salary of €70k is disproportionate by Irish standards, though not unusual by international ones; expectations will be high.

Half of this year’s Stirling Prize architectural shortlist are Irish! My money’s on Heneghan Peng Architects’ Giant’s Causeway Visitor Centre.

The LAB on Foley St has an upcoming group exhibition entitled NINE – a family-focused exhibition on what it’s like to be nine years old, and a child in Ireland. Puts me in mind of Sandra Cisnero’s much-celebrated short essay Eleven from her collection Woman Hollering Creek – beautifully capturing the voice and feeling of that age.

The Arthur Guinness Projects is a new vehicle for supporting initiatives in Irish arts, music, sports and food. Project submissions are being taken until the 9th of August, with public voting taking place until the 23rd, and final selection by an expert panel will offer bursaries up to €50,000! A fantastic opportunity, and the projects submitted so far are impressive & inspiring in their range.