“Critics have dubbed it a ‘festival of Brexit’ and pilloried it as a waste of £120m of public money, but the first plans for the festival of Great Britain and Northern Ireland … will officially launch on Wednesday. Using the working title Festival UK * 2022 organisers have opened applications for teams who wish to be commissioned to come up with ideas for the event.” (In fact, Theresa May first proposed the arts festival, but just about everyone associates it with Boris Johnson.) – The Guardian
Category: issues
Boris Johnson Announces Plan To Restart Performances By Testing Audience Members On Site
“Addressing a press conference at Downing Street on Tuesday, [the British prime minister] said, ‘Theaters and sports venues could test an audience, all audience members, one day and let in all those with a negative result, all those who are not infectious. Work places could be opened up to all those who test negative in the morning to behave in a way that was exactly as in the world before COVID.'” The scheme will be put to the test in October in Salford, near Manchester. – Variety
Report: State Of The Arts Audience During COVID
Organizations who balance growing the number of younger patrons engaging with alternative artistic product while also retaining older generations’ philanthropic support seems to be an emerging best practice for finding resiliency through COVID-19. – TRG
France Allocates €2 Billion To Help Arts And Culture Recover From COVID
“France’s Prime Minister, Jean Castex, … said that the state has earmarked €2 billion ($2.36 billion) for the cultural sector in the wake of the coronavirus” as part of the government’s €100 billion economic recovery plan. “The newly installed Castex told France Inter radio that the state believes ‘culture is an economic activity’ and that ‘the cultural sector has greatly suffered from the crisis … more than others.'” – Deadline
The Artist Trap: How Do You Get Paid In The Digital Age?
There’s still plenty of money to be made in art, or writing, or music. It’s just not being made by the creators. Increasingly, their quest for personal artistic fulfillment is part of someone else’s racket. – The New Yorker
UK Culture Secretary Says He Wants To See Performance Venues Open As Normal For Christmas
Using articles in this past weekend’s Mail on Sunday and Sunday Times, secretary Oliver Dowden announced what he’s calling “Operation Sleeping Beauty,” a plan “to bring back some of the magic of theatre for families this Christmas … We need to start filling seats in much larger numbers – not just for the audiences, not just for the venues and livelihoods who depend on them, but for the entire urban economy, too.” (The performing arts community is responding with — well, not cautious optimism, more like optimistic caution.) – WhatsOnStage (London)
What Sources Will Historians Of The Future Use To Make Sense Of 2020?
A child today will be a historian of 2020 in the future. What sources will they turn to? How will they verify scattered memories? How will people tell the story of the tumultuous times that we’re living in today? 2020 may be a year for the history “books” but of course, the record we leave behind will be digital in manner. – The Conversation
Cancel Culture? This Too Shall Pass
So what to make of the apparent growing strength of cancel culture and affiliated movements? Here is the fundamental point: With the rise of social media and low-cost communications, virtually everything that can be said, will be said. – Bloomberg
Could Changing Our Work Weeks Mitigate Layoffs?
One potential avenue to spare redundancies is a move to a four-day workweek. While the idea has been toyed with for decades, new and adaptable working situations ushered in by Covid-19 have sparked an entirely new conversation on the subject. So much so, in fact, that MPs in the UK are pushing for a four-day workweek to cut costs and mitigate redundancies. – Artnet
How Creative Workers Are Adapting During Shutdown
The coronavirus pandemic has ravaged all parts of the economy, and culture workers are among the hardest hit. Yet some have managed to keep their jobs — and even thrive — while others are still struggling or have pivoted to new roles. – The New York Times