Arts and cultural management: sense and sensibilities in the state of the field

Abstract

aspects of cultural work during the pandemic. Overall, the chapters repeatedly point out the problems of creative freelancing – low earning, the lack of access to social safety, portfolio career, prevailing uncertainty, the individualised risk, short-term contract and so on – which were exacerbated. At the same time, some chapters note how artists and cultural workers adapted to the crisis by reflecting on their existing work pattern and organisation, embracing the digital technology and online media, building resilience and taking a contemplative mode. Yet, another key observation is the deepening of the structural inequality which is manifested by the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on freelancers and the workers with less privileged backgrounds. Part 3 examines ‘institutional strategies’. Broadly speaking, the chapters in this part are about cultural organisations, cultural industries in general and film agencies, and their responses to Covid. Countries and regions covered include Italy, Spain, the Nordic region, Czech Republic and the European region. One common theme cutting across the chapters is the (potential) structural changes triggered by the pandemic in the cultural industries in general and the museum, film and orchestra sectors in particular. The changes include the shift to the digital, more focus on local provision, more engagement with the community, new relationship with audience across online and offline, new business model and the rise of streaming services. From this, we need to ask some important questions regarding the future of cultural policy: what kind of policies or state interventions would facilitate those changes; how the existing organisations and venues can adapt; and under what conditions the changes will create new opportunities for cultural workers or make their work even more precarious. Over the past 2 years, a number of writings examining the cultural sector during the pandemic have been published in journals such as IJCP or Cultural Trends. This edited volume adds diverse case studies to the current literature. Its biggest merits are the focused overview of the cultural industries during the Covid crisis, the coverage of several European countries and the country-specific details. Yet, comparative approach could be more consciously and explicitly attempted. This book helped me find some answers to my questions on what happened, who were affected and what policymakers did during the viral emergency whilst my other questions remain unanswered. Many of us are currently engaged in the collective endeavours to produce new knowledge of cultural policy in the Covid and post-Covid contexts. A significant part of these endeavours is to analyse if and how the experience of the pandemic informs and reshapes the mission, reasoning, scope, structure, institutional arrangement and instruments of cultural policy for tomorrow. This book’s empirical data and findings feed well into such efforts.