Governments at all levels often assume arts funding is not electorally popular. New data shows they are wrong.
- Professor of Cultural Economy, Adelaide University
The return on government investments in arts and events should be measured over a decade, not a month.
Revive is the first step into a new global landscape for which we barely have a language.
Chokepoint Capitalism is a dark portrait of a cultural system where monopolies and monopsonies predominate to the detriment of artists.
Breathing new life into a decade-old national cultural policy is a useful beginning. What is required now is an in-depth gestation period to position culture as a public good for the nation.
Universities supposedly have adopted a more corporate approach – but most corporate board members have expertise in the area their company operates in and are more accountable to shareholders.
A new report outlining a national plan for the arts barely mentions two of our most important institutions: the ABC and the Australia Council.
Two reports — from think tank A New Approach and ex-Grattan Institute director John Daley — say Australian art and culture hasn’t advocated for itself effectively. But we need to try something new.
Where the policy debate has focused on a need to ‘rescue’ the cultural sector from the ill-effects of COVID-19, the emphasis must now be on growing it as part of a wider program of public investment.
Rezoning to mixed-use residential development drove small manufacturers and creative producers out of the inner city. The result is less diversity of land uses, jobs and services where we most want it.
A new project documents who uses urban industrial lands slated for redevelopment. It reveals a vibrant but largely hidden sector at the interface between creative industries and small manufacturing.
The notion of the creative sector driving fulfilling work as cities shed old industries has worn thin. But those creatives might be delivering value of a different kind, offering a more human future.
The corporate world has taken the lead in promoting various creative/smart city visions, which struggle to be inclusive, let alone entrust citizens with control over their lives.
The reality of the 2014 budget is now pretty clear, not just its specific provisions but the kind of nation it wants Australia to become. How it affects culture relates not just to this or that cut to…
The recommendation made by the Commission of Audit to merge Screen Australia and the Australia Council is yet another example of this government’s policy incoherence. Locked into belligerent opposition…
Last week the Creative Industries Innovation Centre released a report that found 43% of the creative workforce consists of creative practitioners embedded in non-creative industries such as manufacturing…
The release of new Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data on the contribution of cultural and creative activities to the Australian economy represents an ever more sophisticated grasp of employment…
Last week, UNESCO launched its Creative Economy Report 2013 in New York. It’s a key document in a major reorientation of global cultural policy – away from creative industries and towards a more inclusive…
Jason Potts’ article for The Conversation earlier this week purports to bring an economist’s clear-eyed vision to the small problem of arts funding – and in this it follows quite a few others who tell…
Arts New South Wales, the state’s arts policy and funding body, released a discussion paper last week: Framing the Future: Developing an Arts and Cultural Policy for NSW. As a discussion paper rather than…
A column of light shines from Hobart’s Queen’s Domain, where Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda’s Spectra reaches up to the looming clouds, visible across the city. The normally empty streets are crowded, the…
In 2012, public debate over the value of art and culture has reignited as conservative state governments in Victoria and Queensland cut arts funding from their budgets. Queensland Premier Campbell Newman’s…
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