In addition to devastating the arts sector, COVID-19 has made it abundantly clear that Australia’s cultural policy has been long neglected. In place of a cohesive policy framework that recognises the complex ways that culture creates value beyond that which is economic, a patchwork of policy has arisen. Given the policy void and lack of long-term vision at the federal level, short-termism from different levels of government has taken place. This has resulted in a piecemeal approach to policy making in the arts leaving Australia’s cultural sector ill-prepared for the ravages of COVID-19.

Join the Cultural Value Impact Network and the Contemporary Art and Social Transformation research group for a presentation featuring leading thinkers who will be reflecting on Australian and international experience in cultural policy and discussing articulations of cultural value and how cultural policy might be reimagined.

Panellists: Ben Eltham (AUS), Eleonora Belfiore (UK), and Arjo Klamer (Netherlands)

Ben Eltham is a Lecturer in Media and Communications at Monash University (Melbourne) in the School of Media, Film and Journalism. Ben’s primary research interest is on Australian cultural policy for which he is well known both as an academic and also through his popular media engagement. In addition to a number of peer reviewed journal articles and monographs, Ben writes as a journalist and essayist for New Matilda and regularly contributes to Crikey, Guardian Australia, Overland and Meanjin. Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Eltham

Eleonora Belfiore is Professor of Communication and Media Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture at Loughborough University in the UK. She the creator and editor of a curated blog The Cultural Value Initiative, which aims to bring together perspectives from academia, creative practice, arts management, policy-maker and media cultural commentary on questions of cultural value, arts and creative industries policy and cultural analysis. Website: http://culturalvalueinitiative.org/

Arjo Klamer is recently retired as a Professor at the Erasmus University. In cultural economics he is responsible for developing the value-based approach as a challenge to more orthodox ways of recognising cultural value. He has authored several books on this approach including Doing the Right Thing. In his retirement Arjo remains active in research and is currently writing another book and also developing a course on humane economics for Free University. Website: www.klamer.nl

Hosted by the Cultural Value Impact Network (CVIN) and Contemporary Art and Social Transformation (CAST) research group at the School of Art, RMIT University, Melbourne. Supported by the DCP ECP and ACUADS.