Autobiography and cultural politics

This episode continues a conversation between Arlene Goldbard, in New Mexico; Sophie Hope, in London; and Owen Kelly, in Helsinki. The conversation begins by discussing the US Department of Arts and Culture, where Arlene Goldbard acts as Chief Policy Wonk.

Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly talk with Arlene Goldbard, a writer, social activist and consultant from the USA, whose focus is the intersection of culture, politics, and spirituality. She is a long-time advocate for cultural democracy and a creator of cultural critique and new cultural policy proposals.

Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly discuss the reasons that cultural democracy began to find favour among some people working in the British community arts movement in the 1980s. They used it to describe the goal and purpose of their work, when Roy Shaw at the Arts Council of Great Britain began to try to paint them as quaint missionaries.

Megha Sharma Bhagat and Abhijit Sinha from Project DEFY in Bangalore visited Helsinki to take part in the HundrED innovation summit. Owen Kelly met them in the cafe in Kiasma, Helsinki’s modern art museum, to talk to them about culture, democracy, and radical action in India.

Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly look back at some of the thinking that led to the development of the idea of cultural democracy, and the ways in which the community arts movement nurtured these ideas.

Kieran Curran has written an important essay in the online journal New Socialist, that suggests how the Labour Party manifesto of 2017 might be extended and improved in its commitment to culture. Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly look at different aspects of his article and discuss the possibilities inherent in his proposals.

The World Transformed took place in Liverpool in September 2018, just three days before Social Tools took place in Helsinki. Sophie Hope managed to attend both of them.

Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly look at the recent report by 64 Million Artists, and the responses it has drawn; and wonder what they thought they were up to.