UK Museums Have Been Devastated By Funding Cuts In Recent Years

“Data published by the Department for Communities and Local Government suggests local authority spending on museums fell by 31% in 2016. The MA report estimates there have been at least 64 museum closure since 2010 – 15 of which occurred in 2016. In addition, there have been staff cuts in a quarter of local authority museums, 55% of national museums, and just under 60% of independent former local authority museums.”

Is Ballet Using The Dreaded Old ‘Paper-Bag Test’ On Its Black Stars?

“Janet Collins, Raven Wilkinson, Debra Austin, Nora Kimball, Misty Copeland, Francesca Hayward. All of these successful black ballet dancers have something in common: they skew toward the fairer end of the sepia spectrum. Onstage, the duskiness of their complexions can be all but washed out, bleached by the lights. From the audience, they could present as a white girl back from a beachside vacation, or be perceived as Latina. This observation is in no way meant to challenge these women’s ‘blackness,’ or their talent. It’s to highlight a long-overlooked fact.”

A US Show Of Artifacts Curators Are Fighting To Save In Syria And Iraq

“Many US museums have been closely monitoring the on-going destruction of heritage sites in Syria and Iraq. But few have had boots on the ground like the Penn Museum. The Philadelphia institution’s curators and researchers have been on the frontlines of the battle to safeguard cultural heritage in conflict zones. Now, they have organised an exhibition that seeks to illustrate just how high the stakes are.”

Poland’s WWII Museum Just Opened. But The Polish Government Isn’t Happy

The museum’s goal is to show the lives and fates of civilians and soldiers, not just in Poland but in other European countries as well. “We cannot explain Polish history without paying attention to other nations,” the director said. “We are not an isolated island.” But the government isn’t happy. Polish Culture Minister Piotr Glinski has led the charge to merge the museum with a newer one that hasn’t even been built yet, something his opponents say is a way for the government to take over the Gdansk museum and change the exhibits.

Orchestra As Metaphor For Community – What Really Works

The LA Philharmonic’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles operates in an area where the high school graduation rate is 50%. But kids in this program? “The statistics coming out of the HOLA’s academic enrichment, visual arts and music programs speak to why demand is so high. Of the 63 students in those programs who were high school seniors in 2015, 100% of them graduated, and 97% went on to college.”

Marvel Exec: Our Focus On Diversity May Be Hurting Sales Of The Comics Franchise

“What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity. They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not. I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales … Any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up.”