International News in December 2006
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An unpalatable truth
Scottish art lovers are a fickle bunch. They aren't afraid to engage with difficult contemporary work when it's displayed in public galleries ... but when it comes to buying art for themselves, they suddenly come over all traditional. more >
Website opens up discreet Arts Council Collection
For years the Arts Council Collection has been a mysterious entity. Formed in 1946 and built up through taxpayers' money, it has no permanent home beyond a discreet storage facility in London and another in Yorkshire, both inaccessible to the public. more >
Coming to a town near you: national museums
What's happening is nothing less than a revolution in federal museum policy. more >
£1.2m funding puts everyone in the frame for a bit of culture
A series of arts projects involving the very young, elderly, disadvantaged and isolated in Scotland has been launched to test the idea of "cultural entitlements". more >
Academic fears ministers will control arts body
Leading cultural academic Philip Schlesinger has launched a broadside against new arts body Creative Scotland, raising fears over its autonomy from ministers and claiming its formation is a "convenient" way to cut quango numbers. more >
ARTS COUNCIL OPENING LIAISON OFFICE IN INDIA
On 8 January 2007, Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, is opening a liaison office in New Delhi, India, its first in Asia and its fourth overall after Cape Town, Cairo and Warsaw. more >
Arts Council publishes report into Creative Commons
OpenBusiness.cc and the Arts Council of England have published a report looking at the attitudes towards copyright amongst British creatives. more >
AVANZA LA CONSTRUCCIÓN DEL ESPACIO ESCÉNICO IBEROAMERICANO, IBERESCENA
El pasado 14 y 15 de diciembre se reunieron en Buenos Aires las autoridades de artes escénicas de Argentina, Colombia, Chile, España y Venezuela para dar continuidad al programa Iberescena que apoya la circulación de artistas entre los países miembros y que es dirigido por la Secretaria General Iberoamericana (Segib) con sede en España. more >
COLOMBIA ESTÁ PREPARANDO EL PRIMER FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE TEATRO INFANTIL Y JUVENIL
En Bogotá se abrirá el telón para el Primer Festival Internacional de Teatro Infantil y Juvenil, entre el 7 y el 22 de julio de 2007. Se contará con espectáculos, artistas y compañías profesionales de teatro de Colombia y del resto del mundo que tienen propuestas innovadoras y de alta calidad artística. more >
COLOMBIA PREPARES FIRST INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH
The First International Theatre Festival for Children and Youth will take place in Bogotá from the 7th to the 22nd of July, 2007 and will gather theatre companies from Colombia and the rest of the world interested in artistic innovation and quality. more >
Cultural Policy in El Salvador
El Salvador has a network called Casas de La Cultura, government centres that offer cultural programmes and stimulate local artists. more >
IBERESCENA PROGRAM PLANS ADVANCED
Performing arts authorities of Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Spain and Venezuela gathered together in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 14 and 15 December to continue the discussions on the Iberescena program, run by the Iberamerican General Secretariat (SEGIB), which aims to promote the mobilization of Iberamerican artists among the member countries. more >
International Convention on Cultural Diversity to Enter Into Force March 18, 2007
A convention that entrenches in international law the right of countries to apply cultural policies will enter into force on March 18 after 14 European Union member countries filed their ratifications with UNESCO headquarters in Paris earlier today. more >
MONUMENTA LAUNCHED
From 2007, the Grand Palais in Paris will become the venue for a new, annual contemporary art event initiated by France's Ministry of Culture and Communications. more >
New webpage for concepts and theories
The first instalment on a new part of the EFAH website dedicated to developments in theory and expert opinion comes from Raj Isar and is on cultural diversity. more >
Operating Support Must Be Large, Long-Term to Be Effective, Study Finds
Operating support is important to nonprofit organizations, but only when grants are larger and awarded for a longer term than those typically provided by even the nation's largest foundations, a new report from the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Center for Effective Philanthropy finds. more >
Singapore’s Cultural Policy
Like many major government decisions in Singapore, the city-state’s national cultural policy is informed by economic rationale. more >
The World Cultural Forum Rio
A view of the World Culture Forum held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 2006, from Felix Meritis Foundation Fellow Dragan Klaic. more >
SA's art heritage shame
South Africa's art heritage is being lost to the country because the government budget for buying art has been slashed to the point where the entire annual allocation for purchases cannot cover the cost of any single major work. more >
Arts Education to Be Pushed in Schools
Namibian arts have enormous educational value and potential, presenting a multitude of learning and teaching opportunities to learners in the country. more >
Classical Audiences Are Aging
We have to stop saying that the orchestra audience has always been the age it is now. Clearly that isn't true. And we don't even have to go back to 1937 to make this point. The orchestra audience has aged during the past 30 years more >
Former arts chief Boyle attacks bill as weak and 'born to fail'
James Boyle, the man Jack McConnell tasked to rewrite cultural policy in Scotland, yesterday attacked the culture bill as a lacklustre document "born to fail". more >
Goethe-Institut and GTZ study links between culture and development
"Investing in culture is the most sustainable type of development cooperation," said a participant at the Culture and Development conference Putting Theory into Practice held in Berlin in November 2006. more >
Museums Are No Longer Stores for the Mysterious
The concept of museums belonging to dark archives in the same realm as colonialism, Nazism, racial bigotry and the likes has long been overtaken by events. more >
Museums boost economy by £1.5bn a year, says report
Report says Britain's museums are not only vital to the economy, but also bind communities together. more >
NCAC Hosts Africa 2009
National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC), hosted the 21st session of the Africa 2009 from 11th-13th December, 2006, at the Baobab Lodge in Bijilo. more >
Sport beating art in the sponsorship stakes
Private funding for the arts in Scotland has sunk by 20 per cent over the last five years to £22 million, despite a rise elsewhere in the UK, new figures show. more >
The trouble with art fairs
As the sheer number of annual events continues to grow, curators, collectors and dealers are starting to feel fatigued. more >
The Write Stuff - Writers Adopt New Charter
The New Zealand Writers Guild has adopted a bill of rights for script writers. more >
The face of the national cultural scene is changing
Faces are changing rapidly in the arts, with the formal announcement yesterday of key appointments at the ABC and the Australia Council. more >
Chancellor offers £5m for pursuit of pirates
The UK government yesterday endorsed calls for a stringent clampdown on music and film piracy and an end to restrictions on copying music for personal use. more >
Integrating Culture Into Nigerian Education
By and large, modern education practices that are more abstract and often not relevant to the child's immediate surrounding eroded important traditional education tools and methodology like the 'apprenticeship' and 'participatory observation.' more >
Just Like Us? Not Likely
The world is moving toward a uniform material culture, dominated by mostly material American influences: technological innovations, fashion, Hollywood and the celebrity culture it promotes, hip-hop, and rock 'n' roll. more >
Venezuela's Magnum Opus
For 31 years, an ambitious state program aimed at instilling a love of classical music in children - particularly poor children - has drawn the admiration of conductors from as far away as Berlin and Boston. more >
Kennedy Center's Kaiser Aims to Expand U.S. Cultural Exchanges
Michael Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, is redefining the way the U.S. participates in international cultural exchanges. more >
Govt to unveil National Design Policy
It is currently working on setting up of a design university, and upgrading status of the National Institute of Design. more >
S. Korean artists oppose talks with U.S. for free trade deal
Dozens of South Korean artists took to the streets Friday to oppose a free trade deal with the United States, adding their voice to protests just days before the trade talks were to resume. more >
ECO-MUSEUM TO EMPOWER THE RURAL PEOPLE SAYS EBOREIME
The Director General, National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Dr. Joe Eboreime, has explained that the concept of the Eco-based museums is to empower local communities, especially the youth, women and the physically challenged persons dwelling in the rural areas. more >
EMBRACING THE RIGHT TO ART
The Glasgow City Council is the first local authority in the UK to become a signatory to a campaign aiming to make access to art and visual culture a right of all UK citizens. more >
INDIA AND CHINA IN CULTURAL RACE
Beijing plans to spread the message of "cultural harmony" by spending a whopping 10 billion dollars to build 100 Confucius Centres across the world by 2010. Now, India is looking at ways to leverage its "very considerable soft power". more >
U.S. MUSEUMS HAVE BIGGEST BUDGETS FOR ACQUISITION: STUDY
A British study of spending on acquisitions by the world's greatest museums shows the biggest spenders on arts and artifacts are U.S. institutions. more >
ZIMBABWE: PIRACY SIMILAR TO STOCK THEFT
A Zimbabwean Minister has likened piracy to stock theft and called for stiffer penalties. more >
'WE DON'T WANT BORING' CANADA COUNCIL DIRECTOR SAYS
The new director of the Canada Council for the Arts is taking the pulse of Canada's arts communities in a cross-country tour. more >
The international who's who in cultural policy, planning and research >