From August 19 to 23, CARADT professor Sebastian Olma joined a group of leading international academics at the 13th International Conference on Cultural Policy Research 2024
in Warsaw for a series of expert meetings on the democratization of the arts and culture. Thematically organized around Prof. Justin O’Connor’s highly influential recent book Culture Is Not an Industry, these meetings expressed the conviction that only by democratically redesigning the social and economic foundations of the cultural sector can the “democratization of arts and culture” be turned from a mere policy buzzword into meaningful reality.
Together with his esteemed colleagues Prof. Justin O’Connor (University of South Australia), Prof. Kate Oakley(University of Glasgow) and Dr. Tully Barnett (Flinders University), Sebastian joined a highly anticipated roundtable discussion on Culture as Foundational. To a packed conference room, Prof. O’Connor explained the general idea that culture should be understood a part of the “social foundations” that very democratic society requires (such as health, education, transport, social welfare, housing). The subsequent paper presentations discussed the implications of such a perspective for cultural policy, followed by a lively discussion with the audience on topics that ranged from Doughnut-Economics to the cultural value of professional football and the effect of the phenomenon Taylor Swift on popular culture.
‘Our research group investigates the role artists, designers and cultural producers in general can play in developing the aesthetics and poetics of a desirable future.’
Sebastian Olma is professor Cultural and Creative Industries. He works for the Expertise Centre Art, Design and Technology.
The research group Cultural and Creative Industries investigates the role of artists and designers as creative innovators and drivers of social and economic change. Affiliated researchers analyse the cultural and creative industries from a critical point of view and examine the conditions under which timely forms of aesthetic expression and social connectedness can actually take place within the precarious reality of this field. What economic models are required by artists and designers to create a meaningful practice within the aesthetic, social, and economic intentions of the cultural and creative industries? What skills sets are required for those artists and designers who don’t just want to follow movements, but actually shape novel social and economic models of the future?
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