An Op-Ed Letter to the Editor in Support of Arts Education

Dear Mr. Anderson:

The recent coverage by The Salt Lake Tribune of Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Beckers proposal to eliminate YouthCity Artways ("Artways program appears doomed", June 6) and ("Parents, kids beg Becker: Dont stamp out Artways", May 23) as well as the Tribunes Editorial ("YouthCity Artways Only one good reason to kill it", May 26) suggests to me that the Mayor and the Salt Lake Tribunes Editorial Board are in need of a good arts education.

From Boston to Oakland, from New York to Dallas, city mayors across this country have found arts education to be both good policy and good for the economies of their cities. Early learning in the arts that a city sponsors increases arts demand that helps all arts organizations in a city and contributes to the citys creative economy. A vibrant creative economy is good economic policy. Cultural participation, which begins with arts education, leads to greater community engagement.

Boards of nonprofit organizations decide on the compensation of the CEO. But with increasing negative press coverage and growing demand for talented CEOs, how can a board balance due diligence while retaining and motivating their leader? The following is my advice.

In the framework of the summer courses 2010 of the University of Zaragoza, the Department of Documentation Science and History of the University of Zaragoza and the Documentation Centre on Culture and Employment Infoculture organize a course Management on information and cultural policies in Jaca, Huesca, from 21 to 23 July. Addressed to information and documentation experts; students and graduates in social sciences, humanities and management; responsibles for management and administration units of business and cultural institutions and cultural professionals in both enterprises and public administrations, the course aims at presenting documentary techniques of collection, processing, recovery and information transfer needed for cultural and heritage management.

Published by the Council of Europe, the study Making culture accessible was officially launched in May 2010. The author, Annamari Laaksonen, researcher on cultural rights and project coordinator at Interarts, asserts that the enjoyment and fulfilment of the right to participate in culture requires an enabling environment and a legal framework that offers a solid basis for the protection of rights related to cultural actions. According to Laaksonen, a society that demonstrates an interest in nurturing cultural and spiritual needs in conditions of liberty has a greater chance of developing a sense of social responsibility among its members.

Neighbourhood Impacts is a longitudinal research study into the impact of the Liverpool European Capital of Culture (ECoC) on local residents. It explores what local people felt about the Liverpool ECoC, their levels of cultural participation, and their perceptions of their city and some of its individual neighbourhoods.

Tourism and the business of culture: the views of small and medium-sized tourism businesses on Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008 is the result of in-depth interviews and an on-line survey of small- and medium-sized enterprises within Liverpool and Merseysides visitor economy.

The Economic Impacts of Visits Influenced by the Liverpool European Capital of Culture in 2008 sets out to understand the visitor economy in 2008, and estimate how it was affected by the Liverpool ECoC. Student Perceptions of the European Capital of Culture: University Choice and Liverpool 08 considers the influence of the Liverpool ECoC on student choice, through 35 focus groups of first year undergraduates across all faculties of the University of Liverpool.

This project underscores the critical role of our nations museums and libraries in helping citizens build such 21st century skills as information, communications and technology literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, civic literacy, and global awareness.

At a time when increasingly advanced skills are required for success in life and work, people of all ages are seeking a diverse range of learning experiences to inspire, guide, and enhance their personal and professional lives.

Libraries and museums can embrace this opportunity to build on past achievements and chart promising new directions. One of these critical new directions involves developing a comprehensive, purposeful approach around 21st century skills. With 17,500 museums and 123,000 libraries across our nation, every community in the United States stands to benefit from the leadership of these institutions.

The European Cultural Foundation is delighted to announce that the Board of ECF has appointed Katherine Watson as the Foundation's new Director. The decision was taken during ECF's Board meeting in Brussels on June 1st. Katherine has been ECF's Acting Director since November 2009. During this period, she and the ECF staff have successfully implemented ECF's new content programmes. Katherine looks forward to continuing to lead the Foundation with her unique energy and vision.

The 1st Kufstein Summer School in Greece (August 22-28, 2010) focuses on the significance of sport and cultural management as one combined subject-area in which, over recent years, new synergies and challenges have emerged. Throughout the countries of Europe, terms such as identity, integration and cultural representation are being discussed extensively, thus revealing the increasing importance of sport and culture as integral parts of social encounters and intercultural exchanges. The Summer School reveals the historic lines of connection between the two, stemming from ancient times and continuing into the 21st century, which raise questions of the relationships between identity, the human body, and social representation. This also includes the impacts and challenges which make up sport and culture management. Organisational aspects as well as the historical, economic, and political issues that influence the staging of the various events will be discussed.

AMA conference 2010

Royal Armouries Museum and Saviles Hall, Leeds UK

20-22 July 2010

The age of mass collaboration is upon us and critical trends are turning the world of work on its head. The social, interconnected world (on- and offline) in which we live is opening up new opportunities and new ways of engaging with the public.

It's simply no longer enough to create the most persuasive message, send it to the right target audience and expect them to make a rational decision to attend.

At the European Museum of the Year Award Ceremony on Saturday 22nd of May, in front of an audience of more than 160 museum professionals from 22 European countries, the Ozeaneum Museum in Stralsund, Germany was announced as the winner of the European Museum of the Year Award for 2010.

This groundbreaking book brings together a collection of essays on the revolution taking place in museums around the world as they look anew at the ways communities are represented. It highlights a fundamental shift occurring in 21st century museums: how they confront existing assumptions about people, and the pioneering ways they work with specific groups to narrate oral histories, tell ancestral stories and keep memories from the past alive.

The philosophical thread, woven through each essay, expresses a rejection of popular claims that minority people are necessarily silent, neglected and ignorant of the processes of representation. This book showcases contemporary museums as spaces of dialogue, collaboration, reclamation and storytelling. It acknowledges the radical efforts many museums and communities make to actively engage with and overthrow existing misconceptions, on the important subject of race and ethnicity.

Turner prize-winner Richard Wright and nominees Roger Hiorns and Mike Nelson, Britains representative at the 2011 Venice Biennale, share a common bond beyond their recent honoursboth are participating artists in the Artist Pension Trust (APT).

APT is an art investment fund with a twistthe artists contribute the works themselves, and the trust is structured to provide future income for the artists. Now in its seventh year, it has a global portfolio of 1,100 artists and a collection of more than 4,500 works, which it values at $45m. This year, its lending and exhibition division, APT curatorial services, will mount five exhibitions in Bahrain, Beijing, Berlin, Cairo and at Bard College in upstate New York.

What does the term social entrepreneurship actually mean? Broadly speaking, it describes situations in which business principles are used to further social good. Many artists and organizations working in the arts and culture sector have already made use of social entrepreneurship with great success. However, while they have been systemically integrated into the strategies of organizations working in issue areas such as international development, poverty reduction, and public health, their potential has not been fully realized in the arts and culture sector.

Social entrepreneurship, or social enterprise, is a general term that applies to any individual or group that uses business principles to both further social good and generate profits. Social entrepreneurs both individually and within the context of organizations work to develop targeted to solutions to specific, often localized, social problems. Many of the major advances in social entrepreneurship have been in the field of international development, where small-scale, highly targeted projects can have far-reaching impact for communities in developing countries.

The conference will be organized on June 24 and 25, 2010 in Ostrava, Czech Republic, and held in Old Arena - a club for culture and information 2015.

The Ministry of Culture held a teleconference with representatives of government, financial institutions and major creative enterprises on April 14 to encourage financial support for Chinas emerging cultural industry.

The Ministry, along with the CPC Publicity Department, Peoples Bank of China, Ministry of Finance, State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), General Administration of Press and Publication, China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) and China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), were following up a March 19 instruction to the financial sector to provide financial support to the cultural industry.

Many people will work without pay in the arts. But are they being exploited?

THERE'S no lack of people lining up to take on unpaid or poorly paid roles volunteering their time for arts organisations. With the possible exception of charities, and community groups, very few areas of life are more reliant on voluntary labour than the arts. But what responsibility does the arts have to the unpaid? Put simply: are interns exploited?

The objective of this consultation is to gather views on various issues impacting the cultural and creative industries in Europe, from business environment to the need to open up a common European space for culture, from capacity building to skills development and promotion of European creators on the world stage. The responses to the consultation will inform the Commission and help it ensure that EU programmes and policies involving cultural and creative industries are "fit for purpose".