The Covid pandemic has had a devastating impact on the arts and cultural industries throughout the UK and continental Europe. For much of the UK’s creative sector the nightmare of closed venues and out of work cultural producers, performers and technicians is being exacerbated by the absence of a ‘cultural passport’ in the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) negotiated by the UK government with the European Union. Simultaneously, and accelerated by the lockdown, the continuing ‘digital shift’ is effecting radical changes to the way in which we produce and consume culture.
Against this complex background, what can and should we expect after the pandemic? What will be the effects on cultural production and consumption? What are the biggest emerging challenges facing the cultural sector and the broader ‘creative industries’, in a post-Covid world?
Welcome remarks: Prof Frances Corner OBE, Warden, Goldsmiths.
Guest Presentation: Prof Pier Luigi Sacco, Professor of Cultural Economics, IULM Milan; Head OECD Venice office and Senior Researcher, OPSI, Harvard University; formerly Special Adviser to the European Commissioner for Education and Culture, Tibor Navracsics, 2014-19.
Chair: Caroline Norbury MBE, CEO, Creative Industries Federation and founding CEO, Creative England.
Respondents: Dame Vikki Heywood CBE, Chair Festival UK 2022; formerly Chair, Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value; formerly Executive Director, Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and Royal Court Theatre. Prof Geoffrey Crossick, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, School of Advanced Study, University of London; formerly Director, AHRC Cultural Value Project and Warden, Goldsmiths (2005-10).
Concluding remarks: Dr Martin Smith, Visiting Fellow, ICCE, Goldsmiths.
