What can we learn from the culture sector crisis during the pandemic? 

In the latest episode of Theory of Creativity we speak with, Ben Walmsley, one of the world’s preeminent thinkers on the cultural sector to discuss the importance of learning from culture in crisis. 

Ben is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Value in the UK, as well as holding the roles of Professor of Cultural Engagement and Director of Research and Innovation in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds. 

Ben’s research encompasses arts management, arts marketing, audience studies, and cultural policy with a focus on audience engagement and enrichment, change management in the arts, and cultural value and leadership.

Learning from Culture in Crisis with Ben Walmsley

Image description: A black and white photo of Ben smiling at the camera. The episode title “Learning from Culture in Crisis with Ben Walmsley” is displayed next to the photo of Ben.

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In this episode, Ben and I discuss his hugely ambitious research project into the impacts of Covid-19 on the cultural sector. With an impressive national research team, Ben and his colleagues undertook a vast amount of research and gathered case studies to determine how the pandemic impacted the workforce, audiences and organisations within the arts sector.

We discuss some of the key findings from the Culture in Crisis report, specifically how the pandemic shone a light on existing negative trends within the arts and cultural industries. There is still a great need for more inclusion, representation, and equality. Ben talks about why digital is not the answer to audience development and how since the pandemic, cultural organisations are more active in stimulating everyday creativity.

As we discuss the pandemic’s impact on cultural organisations, Ben shares why networks are the key to resilience within the arts sector. We talk about what it means to take a regenerative approach and how we must learn to work with our biological rhythms and produce less, not more. We discuss the need for better HR in the culture sector, to promote healthy and balanced workplaces, encouraging creativity and time for intrinsic evaluation.

This was such an inspiring and thought provoking conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 


Key points

[1:00]: Introducing Ben Walmsley and the Centre for Cultural Value

[2:25]: Taking a pragmatic approach to cultural value, the Centre’s first year of research and investigation helped develop their goal: to develop a shared understanding of the differences that arts and culture, heritage and screen make to people's lives and to society. 

[4:30]: Ben reflects on the decision to undertake research into the impact of covid 19 on the cultural sector. 

[6:20]: How the Centre of Cultural Value acts as a broker between cultural sector academics and policymakers. Because of this, they were able to form a national research team and deliver a 15 month project looking at different sub sectors. 

[8:00]: Gathering the various elements of research and data and leading this project was the most challenging time of Ben’s career and also the most rewarding. 

[9:00]: Ben talks about why it’s important to research the crisis and how their findings shone a light on things that were already happening such as inequality, lack of representation and impact on marginalised groups. 

[10:50]: The screen industries boomed very quickly. Some creative freelancers fell between the cracks and others were busier than ever. The complexity of the differences between different subsectors and demographics was important to note.

[12:00]: Ben talks about the privilege of capturing compelling stories of people who were impacted by the crisis.

[13:20]: “There are real risks that inadequate interventions could exacerbate the existing exclusions and further accelerate the negative trends, particularly in the context of consumption and production equality.” (excerpt from the culture in crisis report)

[14:15]: There is a risk that we don’t do anything and go back to how it was before. They hoped they would see a shift in digital audiences but it didn’t transpire. There was more engagement from the existing audience.  

[16:50]: Ben’s recommendation is to not invest in digital unstrategically but to be very clear on the difference between digital production, distribution, marketing and engagement. 

[18:15]: The demographic of who engages with culture in Britain hasn’t shifted since the founding of the Arts Council in 1947. Maintaining engagement is challenging and there is a lot of ambiguity.

[20:00]: There has been a shift toward the role of cultural organisations in stimulating everyday creativity rather than pushing products that people don’t want. There is more awareness of the vital need for representation and equality, and the implications for programming. 

[21:30]: One of the most powerful factors in determining someone’s arts participation is education. The government in the UK is taking a lot of creative arts out of the curriculum in schools, which is going in the absolute wrong direction. 

[25:15]: Although broadly speaking, the audience isn’t changing, audience development is happening on an individual organisational level. 

[27:00]: Due to the pandemic, a lot of organisations pivoted to engagement with local communities. There has been a rethinking of resilience and how it’s far more complex than your box office income. 

[29:00]: The better networked individuals and organisations rode out the pandemic with less stress due to the strong peer support.

[31:00]: A key recommendation is thinking about how policymakers can support networks to help sustain them.  

[32:00]: The pandemic has done a favour in opening doors with policy makers that would have been difficult to open.

[35:00]: Ben talks about what a regenerative approach is and how we can implement it. We need to work with biological rhythms and produce less, not more. The difficulty is that a lot of sectors want to go back to how it was before, which is unsustainable. 

[38:25]: If we produced less, funders would need to expect less product but it would allow time for audience development, deepened audience interaction and rest. We need to invest in HR, which is an area that is letting the sector down. 

[40:20]: A lot of arts and cultural workers feel an intrinsic work ethic and passion, which leads to overworking, exploitation and burnout. 

[41:50]: Ben talks about the evaluation process at the Cultural Value Centre and how it has been a very engaging learning process that has produced qualitative feedback. 

[46:20]: What’s happening next for the Centre for Cultural Value Centre. In the next 5 years, the focus will be on international collaboration. 

[50:45]: Where to find the Centre for Cultural Value

[51:30]: One action that will help create a thriving cultural sector post pandemic is to BE the change. Ben talks about the importance of living and breathing regenerative practice. 

[52:55]: Top takeaways from my conversation with Ben Walmsley

  • #1: Academic research has an important role to play in studying culture in crisis as it can help us understand what’s really happening and why, and how we can address it. 

  • #2: The pandemic is accelerating some negative trends in the arts and cultural industries and in general, marginalised people have been hit the worst. 

  • #3: Digital hasn’t been the answer to diversifying audiences. 

  • #4: If we’re serious about audience development, we need to be really clear about what we mean. Looking at the quality of our education system might be more powerful than some of the other levers that we tend to use.

  • #5: If we want to see change, we need to BE the change.

Links

Resources mentioned: 

www.culturalvalue.org.uk

Culture in Crisis Report

Supported by Creative Victoria, Theory of Creativity Season 2 is focussed on 'Real Change and Renewal'. Tune in on the first Tuesday of the month as Patternmakers Managing Director Tandi Palmer Williams speaks with experts in audience trends, strategic planning, organisational change and resilience. 

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