“In April, the Irish government announced a new strategy: ‘Investing in Our Culture, Language and Heritage 2018–2027’. Astonishingly, although the Irish state has been in existence for almost a century, this is the first long-term plan ever devised for the country’s culture and heritage. For that reason alone, it should be welcomed. Furthermore, the scale of proposed investment in national cultural infrastructure – almost €1.2 billion over the next 10 years – is unprecedented. More money and better planning: it’s not often that either, let alone both, is on offer.”
Tag: 05.29.18
How ‘Killing Eve’ Made Itself Into Appointment TV (In An Age When There’s No Such Thing)
“If the always-streaming, everything-on-demand state of TV right now has taught viewers anything, it’s that very little about television is urgent. Sure, there are still a few watercooler shows, and events like the Oscars or the Super Bowl require real-time viewing, but everything else can be watched on an I’ll Get to It When I Get to It basis. Short of one’s peer group pressuring them into watching something right now no one feels they have to be caught up on everything. Killing Eve, however, was different.”
The Future Of Libraries? Look To Finland
As well as pushing the envelope in regard to architectural skill and style, Finnish libraries have an impressive record of being at the forefront of cultural progress and new thinking. Some of the first maker libraries (spaces where the public can borrow equipment and tools), for example, were founded in Finland, and today, some facilities offer the use of high-tech equipment such as 3-D printers and musical equipment free of charge.
Phillips Collection Hires Its First Chief Diversity Officer
Investing the resources to hire a senior staffer to focus solely on diversity and accessibility is a growing trend in tech and higher education, but the Phillips is one of the first art museums in the country to do so. Makeba Clay can count on one hand the number of people she knows with similar jobs in the museum world.
My Mother’s Brilliant Career As A Provincial Soviet Culture Worker
Anastasia Edel writes about her mother, a pianist and staffer at the Institute of Culture in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, where, for a time, she even had a local television show about classical music.
When You’re A Criminal Because You Write Poetry?
PEN International recently issued a statement demanding Dareen Tatour’s unconditional release. PEN’s President, Jennifer Clement, wrote the following: “Dareen Tatour is on trial because she wrote a poem. Dareen Tatour is critical of Israeli policies, but governments that declare themselves as democracies do not curb dissent. Words like those of Dareen Tatour have been used by other revolutionary poets, during the Vietnam war, during other liberation wars, and they can be found in the works of Sufiya Kamal of Bangladesh, of Ernesto Cardenal of Nicaragua, and so on.”
Blackface In Miami Theatre Is Part Of A Bigger Problem…
Blackface, once popular in racist U.S. minstrel shows, is still performed in Spanish-language entertainment. Afro-Latinos in South Florida say the practice, and this latest incident in Miami, is a small window into the racism that persists in Latin American communities stateside and abroad.
How Koranic Chanting Morphed Into Sizzling Afropop
“Across working-class Muslim neighborhoods in Yorubaland, for nearly 50 years, a high-energy sound has been heard on busy street corners and at parties. Fuji, a raw and percussive musical style, was born out of these communities; a cultural cornerstone adapted by a number of players to a backdrop of a continually shifting Nigeria.”
Read Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s Lecture, ‘Staying Human: Poetry In The Age Of Technology’
“In April, to mark the beginning of her second term as poet laureate, Smith delivered a lecture at the Library of Congress about what she experienced during that tour and how poetry can defend us from the distractions and degradations of our technological culture. Her remarks are presented here in full with permission from the author and the Library of Congress.”
Did The Hippies Really Contribute Anything To American Culture? Yeah, Man, They Did
“The 1960s marked a coming together of politics and counterculture, reminiscent of earlier modernist movements like dada and fluxus, though on a much larger scale. The hippies and their offshoot groups, more than any other anti-establishment group at the time, integrated art and life in a way in which the two were indistinguishable – an idea that carries through to contemporary art today.”