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For those of you who prefer your reminders in musical form, here's two different takes on the same message...

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The Art of Relevance

Nina Simon, who is the Director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History , and a leading museums thinker , was the punchiest keynote speaker at the recent AMA conference. I came away with a copy of The Art of Relevance , her new book, the themes of which she set out in her talk. Relevance has the potential to give the other R word a run for its money in the 2016 Buzzword stakes, but we should not hold that against Nina or her argument. Using the images of rooms and keys and insiders and outsiders, the book is a sharp argument for mattering more to more people, not by assertion of your own intrinsic value but by making genuine connections. It uses stories and micro-case studies to illustrate how switching the terms in an open and ongoing fashion leads to change, and to relevance. Along the way there are a good number of highly quotable lines and arguments. Simon starts off by skewering two common delusions, seen weekly in the arts: firstly that what we...

The Art of Living Dangerously

Back in summer 2012 I did some research into different ways of thinking about the value created by culture, and about the role of artists in that, as part of an ambitious project started by Exchange, a group of performing arts organisations in Tyneside. They had connected to Mission Models Money (where I’m an Associate) and New Economics Foundation to think about three inter-linked issues: the role of arts and culture within sustainable economic development; how artists and other creative practitioners can contribute to sustainable development and finally how to ensure artists and creative practitioners are able to achieve sustainable livelihoods throughout their life-cycles, especially as emergent independent artists. At least that’s how we’re describing it in the paper finally published last week: The Art of Living Dangerously . The final document, whose authors were Shelagh Wright, Natalie Querol, Sarah Colston and myself, had a rather protracted gestation, with a number...

Eclecticism and the creative case for diversity

Recently I chaired three ‘creative conversations’ about the ‘creative case for diversity’, organised under the banner of ‘Eclectic’ by BALTIC , Gem Arts and Zendeh and supported by the promulgators of the creative case , Arts Council England . These brought people together to hear some thoughtful and provoking speakers, and then to have open space style conversations around topics of their own choosing. The idea was that these events were very much ‘sector-led’, rather than being driven by Arts Council, and were about creativity and the creative case rather than nuts and bolts equality plan issues. It felt as if this idea was welcomed by the people who attended – although I guess you have to wonder whether it is by the people who didn’t attend. Maybe there are some NPOs and others who think the creative case doesn’t apply to them, and they are fine ‘doing what they do’ with who they do it. Maybe there are some who think they’ve heard it before and a fundamental opening up o...

Movingpictures 24: Happy May Day

The video above is a project called the Invisibles by the artist Nisha Duggal . Sing along - it's May Day. In the UK we push the bank holiday to the first Monday in May so we're working, but let's not work for more than 8 hours, eh? (The workers' holiday has its roots in the struggle for decent working hours, a struggle the people who would replace the holiday with something celebrating a battle or the empire are still engaged in.) It's encouraging to see artists increasingly engaged in political thought, though hardly surprising what's going on. BBC Economics Editor Paul Mason has written this week about the way the Occupy movement in the US is challenging the contemporary art markets - it's a really interesting piece you can read here and view on the I-player here if you're quick. (It starts at 38 minutes in, though the earlier section with Hunt in full pouting prefect mode, being defended by head boy Cameron, is worth watching, maybe with the so...

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