Category: issues

Can they? Yes. Will they? Hm. – Slate

“With the virus still on a rampage, many of the age-old, hands-on ways of training musicians, dancers and actors have had to be tossed out the window or, at the very least, drastically reshaped. How much this will affect the industry down the line — and what audiences may see and hear in years to come — is difficult to gauge. But to varying degrees, depending on the art form, professional groups and future performances rely on a pipeline of well-trained graduates of higher education. Which means there’s a lot of tension surrounding music, dance and theater programs.” – The Washington Post

A German couple going swimming in the Grand Canal. An Austrian breaking the toe off a statue when he climbed on it for a selfie. A French woman writing her name in felt-tip pen on the Ponte Vecchio. A woman posing for a selfie on top of 2,000-year-old thermal baths in Pompeii. Italians badly want to revive the all-important tourism industry in the wake of COVID, yes, but not if tourists vandalize. But which will be more effective, education or harsher punishment? – The New York Times

Like office workers across the United States, journalists have been pushed by the coronavirus to retreat from communal spaces and into remote work. Now some are confronting the very real possibility that they may never again work in a physical newsroom — a touchstone of journalism — and what that could mean for the future of their profession. – Washington Post

In many eastern European countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechia and Poland the locals’ desire to forget their collective traumatic past is paradoxically interwoven with the need for economic profit derived from commercialising remnants of the communist heritage. – The Conversation

Artists and institutions in Beirut, large and small, have rebuilt several times since the outbreak of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war in 1975 and through subsequent conflict. But even before the explosion that has wrecked the city, the country’s long-dysfunctional political system was spiraling, taking the currency, the economy and even the electricity grid along with it. Now, say many key figures in Beirut’s cultural life, Lebanon could really become a failed state. – Artnet

It is a gesture aimed at the Christian world, Europe and all international institutions categorically opposed to this act. Everyone is perfectly clear that this is not merely the transformation of a museum into active sacral space. What we are seeing is Erdoğan and the Turkish Republic demonstratively rejecting the direction set by the ‘father of the nation’, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, nearly a century ago. – Eurozine

Out beyond the big state capitals, people had barely had a chance to take a breath after the catastrophic bushfires of the Australian summer when COVID-19 hit, straining the national economy and choking off the flow of visitors and tourists that artists and festivals depend on. – The Guardian

It’s a brave new world out there, and we’re all going to have to adapt. There are no limits to what our artists, technicians, actors, creators, musicians, dancers and designers can imagine to bring back live outdoor experiences for audiences stupefied by the isolation of the omnipresent screen. We all want to protect our national culture in its glorious diversity – but it’s the creative workforce who are really under threat at the moment. As the Red Alert campaign demonstrates, there are horrifying figures of up to 1m creative jobs at risk in an industry worth more than £100bn a year to the economy. – The Guardian