Dispatches

Impact Investing in the Global Creative Economy

Creativity, Culture & Capital has released the second volume of essays from international voices illustrating the need and opportunity for impact investment in the global creative economy. Covering fashion, video games, food, art, music and more, the report offers inspiration and concrete examples of how creativity and culture can help build back better from the global COVID-19 pandemic, making the case a new global impact investment fund for the inclusive creative economy. (Creativity, Culture & Capital)

Growth Through Skills: Lessons from the Estuary Production Corridor

Led by Policy & Evidence Centre researchers at Work Advance, the University of Edinburgh, and the Work Foundation, this research provides definitive evidence on the causes of class imbalances in the creative economy and sets out an ambitious and wide-ranging programme of change to enhance social mobility into creative roles. (Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre) 

Oregon Shakespeare Festival Announces New Leadership Structure

“This new artistic structure will enable us to place the artist at the center, and as the conduit for how we engage, develop, and access new work, and how we interrogate the classics in both live and digital spaces,” said Artistic Director Nataki Garrett. (American Theatre)

Beyond Sponsorship

Featuring insights and lessons from 115 arts and business stakeholders in the period September to December 2020, this report explores arts and business partnerships, the shifts occurring and their impact on partnerships during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. (Creative Partnerships Australia)

COVID-19 Impacted the Technology & Performing Arts Relationship

President and CEO of The Music Center Rachel Moore writes about how the global pandemic, societal division and economic uncertainty over the past year has accelerated the arts into the realm of reinvention via digital technology, asking if the arts were ready. (CSQ)

Meet the Amateur Art Sleuths Fighting to Bring Back India’s Looted Cultural Heritage

From sting operations at art sales to cheeky protests at the British Museum, the India Pride Project is on a mission to hold museums and former colonizers accountable. (Vice)

Memory Culture for Europe and Africa: A Way to Deal with the Colonial Past

Policy writer Oz Russell comments that European politicians can build stronger relations with African partners if they consider how to make big public statements that recognize the iniquities of their countries’ colonial past. (European Council on Foreign Relations) 

Creative Majority

The Creative Majority report addresses the issues of inequality in the workforce through a ‘What Works’ approach, aiming to understand what has worked to improve equity in the creative and cultural sectors, and what can be learned from other sectors to transform the creative labour forces of the future. (King’s College London)

As They Hasten to Cozy Up to China, M+ Museum and Credit Suisse Have Let Freedom of Speech Fall by the Wayside

Artist Ai Weiwei responds to museum censorship and Swiss outrage over his dissident ideas, pointing to the web of shared corruption involved in Western business partnerships fueling Chinese private interests. (Artnet News) 

How Do You Clean an 11-Story-High Glass Dome? Academy Museum Crew Shares Its Secrets

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is getting all spiffed up for its Sept. 30 debut. And chief among the tasks at hand is cleaning the transparent dome over architect Renzo Piano’s dramatic concrete sphere building. Get an inside look at the cleaning crew’s strategy and process of cleaning the Museum’s transparent dome. (Los Angeles Times)

MediaCity UK

Anthropologist Rebecca Toop writes what it is like to live and work in Peel’s MediaCityUK, and asks if it has brought the promised benefits. (The Developer) 

Why Museums Need to Think of the Physical and the Digital Holistically

In this monthly guest series at Jing Cultural & Commerce, Microsoft’s Business Strategy Leader of Libraries and Museums Catherine Devine shares how institutions can best enhance their infrastructure and programming to meet the digital moment. In this article, she asks the question: why limit your institution to the physical? (Jing Culture & Commerce) 

How to Write a Sustainability Plan for a Museum

The V&A Museum recently launched its Sustainability Plan. Arranged under the three headings of Place, People and Programme, it identifies key issues and actions the museum will prioritize over the next three years in the context of a long-term net-zero carbon target. (V&A Museum)

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