International News in August 2006
Show all of 2006
Creative Financing for Struggling Artists
Unlike other countries, which give artists individual grants and will pay to send them to international exhibitions, there is no direct funding for individual artists at the federal level in the United States. Philanthropic groups and some for-profit ventures have stepped into the gap. more >
French-style academy bid to aid Gaelic
Scotland's Gaelic language quango is proposing a French-style academy to regulate new words and correct spelling and grammar. more >
New UNESCO Observatory for Australia
The UNESCO Observatory brings together people with shared interests in the arts and encourages activities that cross disciplinary divisions, drawing on the combined expertise of national and internationally recognised researchers. more >
UNESCO Observatory E-Journal Invites Submissions
UNESCO Observatory e-journal invites submissions. more >
A Nation Divided Over Piracy
A pro-"piracy" party is threatening to revolutionise Swedish politics. more >
Creativity conference
How are the culture industries getting on in the Nordic Region? What potential do they have? more >
Cultural Heritage Must be Viewed as an Investment - Assamba
The Minister of Tourism, Entertainment and Culture, Aloun Ndombet Assamba, has stressed the importance of viewing the Jamaican cultural heritage as an investment, which has economic benefit for the country. more >
Culture at the Centre E-book
NCPSG presents an ebook version of Lia Ghilardi's Culture at the Centre report mapping the development and current understanding of cultural planning in Scotland. more >
If it's Tuesday...
The Internet brings news about music, films, books and other art forms 24/7. But there's so much information out there it's impossible to sort through and separate the wheat from the Milli Vanillis. Now Internet arts curators are trying to help. more >
Insurance for Art Collectors
It seems that as more and more money pours into the fine-art-purchasing market from all over the world, more money is being invested in fine-art insurance. more >
Libraries hold key to growth of the ‘knowledge economy’
England’s public libraries are playing a crucial, but often overlooked, role in the growth of the knowledge economy, a new study has found. more >
Afghan cultural festival to open in Tehran
Afghanistan’s first Art and Culture Festival is scheduled to open in Tehran on August 30. more >
UNESCO to Meet On Cultural Heritage
An extraordinary session of the General Assembly of the States Parties to the International Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage will be held on 17 October at UNESCO Headquarters. more >
Creative types get a bit of business schooling
As it distributes grants to artists, the Creative Capital Foundation also tries to teach them how to succeed in the wider world. more >
Cultural Connections the Key to US-Korea Relations
South Korea and the United States should concentrate more on cultivating personal and institutional relations that would outlast any political tensions, an American cultural director has said. more >
Festival Head: 'Films Should Be Viewed As Tools for Social Development'
The executive director of the Zimbabwe International Film Festival Trust (ZIFFT) has declared that films should be viewed as tools for social development. more >
Is President Chirac’s long-awaited museum of non-Western art a success?
The Musée du Quai Branly in Paris is visually stimulating, but not always enlightening. more >
Mexican Culture Festival in Hong Kong
The 8th Mexican September Cultural Festival will kick off in Hong Kong on 1 September. more >
Minister of Culture Defends Promotion of Vernacular Languages
Angolan minister of Culture, Boaventura Cardoso, has spoken out for the promotion of vernacular languages as a fundamental support for cultural identity. more >
The Research and Innovation of Culture
One of the reports accompanying the pre-budget document issued by the government last Saturday contains an extraordinary statement about culture. more >
Calligrapher Politicians from Japan and China Hold an Exhibition in Beijing
While there are plenty of issues that divide Japanese and Chinese politicians, the two countries' shared tradition of calligraphy is one pastime they both seem to enjoy. more >
Creative financing for struggling artists
Being a struggling artist isn't what it used to be. In fact, it might be worse. Andrew Falkowski thinks so, and it's easy to understand why. The suburban Chicago resident and his wife have a combined five art degrees and six figures in debt because of them. more >
Cultural policy of non-western countries: Colombia
The latest instalment from Power of Culture's Cultural Policy of non-Western Countries series, outlining the cultural policy context in Colombia and linking to items of interest. more >
Does Australia need a cultural policy?
Panel discussions about the direction of Australian culture have been something of an ongoing conversation over the past couple of years. more >
Industry must become creative to open new streams of possibility
Subsidy for the performing arts has been predicated on a front-seat view rather than from behind the scenes. Future support for cultural enterprise should recognise creativity in all its forms, says Katharine Brisbane. more >
Ministry Of Culture Runs Seminar For Journalists
A seminar on cultural journalism will be held from 22-23 August in Luanda, sponsored by Angolan Ministry of Culture in anticipation of the 3rd Symposium on National Culture scheduled for September this year in Luanda. more >
Monet's art may reveal Victorian London's smog
Monet could have been an early pollution monitor, recording Victorian smog levels in his paintings. At least that is the hope of environmental scientists who have analysed a selection of the artist's work. more >
Museums Establish Guidelines for Treatment of Sacred Objects
As Native Americans and other groups become increasingly assertive about protecting and preserving their cultural heritage, and federal laws enable tribes to reclaim works outright, museums are struggling to strike a balance between the traditional practice of collecting indigenous objects as art and the often competing interests of the people whose ancestors produced them. more >
Mutorwa Argues for Culture
The current trend towards cultural relativism and ethnocentrism was sharply criticised by Minister of Youth, National Service, Sport and Culture John Mutorwa yesterday. more >
Mwanawasa Calls For More Money for Artists
President Levy Mwanawasa has implored business houses that use talents of artists to promote their product and corporate images to pay them money commensurate to the quality and standards of their work. more >
Korean short stories debut in Hungary
A collection of Korean short stories is to hit bookstores in Hungary in a local language edition, its sponsoring agency said Monday. more >
Namibia/Zimbabwe Look to the Arts
Namibia’s deputy minister of Youth, National Service, Sport and Culture has declared the arts to be "an industry with potential to grow and generate income”. more >
AU Calls for Preservation of African Languages
The African Union (AU) Commission urged member states on Monday to preserve languages of the continent it said are "disappearing or are in the brink of disappearing." more >
China bans foreign cartoons from prime-time television
Regulators have barred foreign cartoons from TV from 5 to 8 p.m. in an effort to protect China's struggling animation studios more >
Culture Ministry reprimands Hermitage director for improper work
Mikhail Piatrovsky, the director of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, has been reprimanded for improper execution of duties following a large-scale theft of museum exhibits, the Ministry of Culture said Friday. more >
Dreams under fire
Beirut's Al-Madina Theatre has issued a statement calling for support. more >
Guggenheim Museum Receives $1 Million Grant
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum today announced it has been awarded a $1 million grant by the U.S. Department of Education to evaluate the impact of its pioneering arts education program Learning Through Art (LTA) on students’ problem-solving skills. more >
Namibia: Film Should Be a Favoured Sector
"It is a paradox that the film industry through the cowboy genre has taught the world the essentials of finance and yet Africa's film industries have not put these essentials into practice," said a film executive from South Africa. more >
Students learn traditional arts in new project
Vietnamese students are learning more about the country’s traditional art forms, through a long-term cultural project funded by the Ford Foundation more >
Tough choices for 'peace' orchestra
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is an extraordinary ensemble from the Middle East. About half of its 100 musicians are Jewish Israelis. Most of the rest are Arabs. more >
Words into art
Those in London this summer could do worse than take the tube to Russell Square, where the British Museum is hosting a season of events on the contemporary Middle East, writes David Tresilian more >
The international who's who in cultural policy, planning and research >