"Senator Barack Obama writes poetry, gets props from Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z, and is the first President Elect to include a far-reaching arts plank in his platform. The proposals range from increased support for arts education and the National Endowment for the Arts, to changing the federal tax code for artists. 'It is unprecedented,' said Robert L. Lynch, president and chief executive officer of Americans for the Arts, a Washington- based arts advocacy group, explaining that no presidential candidate in recent times has addressed cultural issues in such detail." More here.

Korea Arts and Culture Education Service, South Korea, May 2007

An overview of arts and education policies in South Korea.

Contents include:
Part I: Arts & Culture Education Policy in Korea
Concept of Arts and Culture Education in Korea
‘Creative Korea’and Arts & Culture Education Policy
Vision and Goals
Part II. Arts & Culture Education Programs in KACES
Bringing Arts & Culture into Public School System
Bringing Arts & Culture Education to Everyone
Training-for-Trainers
Advocacy and Public Awareness
Part III. Case Reviews
Part IV. Research Summaries
Evaluation of Creative Partnership Program and Strategies for Improvement
Design and Operation of Arts and Culture Education Programs for Correctional Facilities
Arts and Culture Education Programs for Military Personnel
Teachers - Art and Culture Education Study Group Support Project 2005
Experience in Arts and Culture Education, and the Sharing of Thoughts
Toward A Arts and Culture Education Model: Case Studies of Successful Programs
Toward A New Arts and Culture Space for Children: Design and Operation Strategies and Overseas Examples

More here ..... >

After adopting our new name and launching a new website, the first edition of the new Culture Action Europe newsletter is now available!   Following the same themes as our rebrand (ie accessibility and engagement), we are going to develop the Newsletter tool further, to make sure that all actors of the European cultural scene keep up to speed with the relevant European cultural debates and are given the necessary information to make a difference at policy level. Our newsletter is a natural complement to our website so don’t hesitate to surf on culturactioneurope.org regularly - consult our glossary, read our news and follow our latest advocacy actions.   More here .....>

Arts Council of Ireland, 01 July 2008

The Arts Council today published Points of Alignment the Report of the Special Committee on the Arts and Education. The Report was presented to the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Martin Cullen, T.D., and the Minister for Education and Science, Batt O’Keeffe, T.D.

The Special Committee on the Arts and Education was established by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, in tandem with the Minister for Education and Science and consisted of nominated representatives from the arts and education sectors with special knowledge of the intersections between the two fields.

More here .....> 

Culture Minister Margaret Hodge today announced plans to strengthen DCMS engagement in regional policy through a new, simplified and improved way of working.

For the first time, the Department's four key agencies in the regions - Arts Council England, Sport England, English Heritage and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council - will have a duty to work together to jointly deliver a core set of shared priorities across the culture and sport agenda.

These priorities include:

• Regional Strategies;
• Local Area Agreements;
• Local Government commitment to culture and sport;
• Place Shaping; and
• LOCOG liaison on 2012 and the Cultural Olympiad.

This alliance, working with partners in local authorities, the Regional Development Agencies, and other partner organisations, will agree top priorities and create joint plans of action for the culture and sport agendas for their region. These new arrangements will still enable the four agencies to continue with their existing and continuing sector specific responsibilities, but will also introduce a way of using contributions from all regional partners in a more targeted and effective way.

The plans announced today are the result of a review into the Department's regional infrastructure, led by Margaret Hodge. They will come into effect over the next 12 months and replace the Department's eight Non Departmental Public Bodies, the Regional Cultural Consortiums. This will deliver long-term savings that will be reinvested directly into culture and sport provision.

Culture Minister Margaret Hodge said:
"We have come a long way in strengthening the case for the role of culture and sport at the heart of a region, its economy and its aspirations. That's thanks in no small part to the work of our cultural consortia and their Boards over the last nine years.

But the regional landscape is shifting. With the new Local Area Agreements imminent and Integrated Regional Strategies on the horizon we need to put delivery at the heart of the debate at this critical time. We can only do that by coupling advocacy with action, speaking with a stronger more unified voice across our sectors and giving a better service to Local Government and Regional Development Agency partners."

2½ days per week £40 - 45k pa pro rata
Initially one year secondment or fixed term contract

Jointly funded by Arts Council England, Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council and hosted by PfS, this is a high level national strategic development post influencing authorities involved in the BSF Programme. The main purpose is to raise the profile of culture within the education visioning and strategy process and in doing so, promote the strategic development of cultural facilities across local areas.

Mainly working with PfS, you will undertake both internal and external advocacy using your wide-ranging experience in provision for the Arts and Culture, particularly in conjunction with public agencies. Demonstrating a collegiate approach and personal credibility, you will champion arts and cultural facilities ensuring the best possible provision through BSF.

If you are ready for the challenge, click here to download the BSF Culture Adviser application pack . Completed applications should be forwarded to recruitment@partnershipsforschools.org.uk

Closing date for applications Monday 30^th June 2008.

An apology that this site has been ahem slightly overlooked in the last few months. We're doing something about that. Honest. Email if you want more details on what and when...

We hope normal service will resume shortly.

This event will be a unique opportunity to discover the innovative model of relationship between 'arte and impresa' initiated and developed by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.  Download a copy of the final programme here.

It will also allow the participants to define the agenda of the working group on 'Creative Entrepreneurship and Education in Cultural Life' and to start working on the programme of the international one week event to be organised in cooperation with Dennis Rich from the Columbia College in June 2009 in Chicago.

To register to this event please write an e-mail before the 15 February to activities@encatc.org.

On 16 November, the Culture Council agreed on a European Agenda for culture which introduces a more structured system of cooperation and concrete priorities, on the basis of the Commission's proposals presented in May 2007.  Indeed, the Council has endorsed three major objectives that will together form a common cultural strategy for the European Institutions, the Member States, and the cultural and creative sector:

(1) promotion of cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue;
(2) promotion of culture as a catalyst for creativity in the framework of the Lisbon Strategy for growth, employment, innovation and competitiveness; and
(3) promotion of culture as a vital element in the Union's international relations.

More information here.

The National Cultural Foundation is a statutory body in Barbados established by an Act of Parliament in 1983. Its mandate is to oversee the development, promotion, preservation and economic viability of Barbadian culture and heritage. The year 2008 will mark our 25^th Anniversary which will be celebrated by year-round events to showcase the cultural richness and diversity of Barbados and the wider Caribbean.

As part of this celebration, the NCF will be hosting the Caribbean International Conference on the Cultural and Creative Industries in order to stimulate discussion at the level of policy, programming and successful case studies. To this end, we are putting out an international call for conference delegates submit proposals for papers. For more information about the categories and to obtain a submission form contact Ian W Walcott, National Cultural Foundation, West Terrace, St James, Barbados. Tel: 00 1246 424 0909 Ext 251, Fax: 00 1246 424 0916 or Email: ian-walcott@ncf.bb

November 5, 2007 - 6 PM

Columbia College Chicago’s Film Row Cinema

1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor

What are the Real Benefits of Arts Education?

New research by Lois Hetland of Harvard Project Zero (Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education) shows that art programs teach a valuable set of thinking skills that go farbeyond the techniques of drawing and painting.  These skills – persistence, careful observation, reflection and revision, envisioning and planning, learning from mistakes,

and more – are useful in all subjects and in life.  They may have significant impact on student learning across the curriculum. 

Respondents:

Nilaja Sun, writer/performer, No Child…    

Mary Acierto Ridley, visual art teacher/retired, Chicago Public Schools   

Admission is free

Co-sponsored by Lookingglass Theatre Company

No Child…

October – November 2007

Visit www.lookingglasstheatre.org for tickets

In conjunction with BERA Creativity-in-Education SIG and National Association of Music Education (NAME) Regional Events - Thursday 13 December 2007, 4:30 – 6:00pm, Room 2S8, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 2PQ

Professor Huib Schippers , Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre Griffith University, Australia

Abstract

With the incorporation in universities of most training for performing and creative arts, the pressure on performing in the field of research increases for staff members. While few are inclined to dedicate themselves to publishing in standard formats (such as peer reviewed journal articles and books), many in fact have profound reflective artistic outputs. There is more that ten years of rhetoric on his subject, but little proof. This paper examines the genesis of a recent DVD-Rom on the art of interpretation, which attempts to document the artistic process in all its non-linear complexities, and may well become a model for convincingly demonstrating the research components of artistic practice.

Biography

Huib Schippers is Professor of Music Studies & Research at Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University. He has a long and varied history of experience in music and arts education in Europe. He has worked as a performing musician, a teacher, a concert promoter, a music critic, and in the record trade. Over the past ten years, he has run major projects in arts and arts education, lectured and published across the world, and served in a variety of capacities on numerous forums, boards and commissions, including the Netherlands National Arts Council and the International Society for Music Education. In October 2003, he moved to Brisbane, Australia, to become the founding Director of the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre at the Griffith University South Bank Campus. In September 2007, he was appointed the sole panel member for music in the Research Quality Framework, the Australian counterpart of the RAE.

Please contact Pam Burnard, (BERA SIG co-convenor) if planning to attend pab61@cam.ac.uk

Exclusive: Culture minister Margaret Hodge has warned that, with a tough spending round approaching, the arts must explore new avenues to help supplement traditional sources of subsidy.

Speaking to The Stage, Hodge explained that she was investigating how culture could link up with regeneration and education initiatives to gain access to funds which fell outside the jurisdiction of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

She added that while she and culture secretary James Purnell were fighting hard for a “fair deal” from the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review, the sector would, in the future, need to look to organisations such as the Regional Development Agencies for alternative or additional investment.

Hodge explained: “We’re in a really, really tough fiscal situation. I’ve come from a department where we’d agreed our settlement over the next spending review and it was a 5% real terms cut and that was really hard to implement. What I strongly feel is that [in the arts] Labour inherited a starved legacy of investment. We’ve put that right and it would be terrible if we threw that away. So we will fight hard to ensure a fair deal on funding. But it’s going to be tough, no one pretends otherwise.

“So what I want to do beyond that is to capture other resources for theatre and the arts. I’ve just come from being sponsor minister for the Regional Development Agencies. So I’ve got a relationship with them. They’ve got a budget of £2.3 billion. That’s all about economic regeneration in their regions and if we can place theatre and culture more strongly at the heart of regeneration, if we can persuade the RDAs of that, I hope that we can attract greater investment than we have in the past from them.”

Prime minister Gordon Brown has recently signalled that he may consider alternative means of regenerating deprived areas of the country than through super-casinos and Hodge said that she felt that culture could be used as such a catalyst. In particular, she gave the example of seaside resort Margate and its plans to introduce a gallery into the town. Meanwhile, she said that she wanted to investigate how the cultural offering in schools could be improved.

She added that her department would also be looking at how it could increase the amount of cash coming into the arts through private patronage.

“We do want to argue the case for the best settlement we can get in the very tight and constrained circumstances in which we are having to operate. We then want to argue much more strongly for synergy between budgets - around place and identity and education. The final thing we have to explore much more is patronage and philanthropy. I want to see what we can do to get people giving more,” she commented. “But I do know that if there’s one thing I have to try to deliver, it is a bit of stability and investment in theatre and the cultural infrastructure.”

The Treasury has responded to industry concerns over arts funding in the run up to the comprehensive spending review, by urging organisations to raise issues directly with culture secretary James Purnell.

In a letter to the National Campaign for the Arts, Treasury chief secretary Andy Burnham asserted that the government continued to value the contribution of theatres across the country, and from the wider sector, in bringing cultural experiences to the public.

However, he stressed that it was not the Treasury’s place to determine financial support for the arts. Burnham wrote: “I must emphasise that it will be for the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to decide the level of funding for his department’s sponsored bodies, including Arts Council England, and I would advise you to make him aware of your concerns.”

The response comes in reaction to a joint letter drafted by Equity, Bectu, Musician’s Union, Theatrical Management Association, Dance UK, NCA and Independent Theatre Council, sent in May to then chancellor Gordon Brown, warning of the damaging consequences of the Olympic’s Lottery raid on the culture sector.

The seven organisations - representing employers, performers, artists, and technical staff - pressed Brown to address as a “matter of urgency” the uncertain financial situation of the arts, which is set to lose £137 million to the 2012 Games.

Burnham reiterated the government’s announcement that no existing Lottery projects would be affected by the cut in grants. He also asserted that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Mayor of London Ken Livingstone plan to share profits from the sale of land in the Olympic Park after the Games, with some of the money to be injected back into the Lottery to compensate for its additional contributions.

NCA director Louise de Winter told The Stage: “Of course NCA will be making a strong case to DCMS in support of funding for the arts as part of the CSR settlement, but we will continue to highlight the contribution the arts brings to the UK economy to the Treasury, as part of making the case for public investment in the arts.”

Bronze/Silver Training – 10^th September 2007, The Angel Centre, Salford

Bronze/Silver Refresher – 24^th September 2007 (am), The Angel Centre, Salford

Gold Top Up Training (Half a Day) – 24^th September 2007 (pm), The Angel Centre, Salford

Bronze/Silver Training – 11^th October 2007, Wildflower Centre, Merseyside

Bronze/Silver Training – 18^th October 2007, The Gateway, Warrington

For further information about training or networking contact Sue Caudle here. To book your place at a training event, please visit Booking Adviser Training at http://www.artsaward.org.uk

Free Bronze / Silver Refresher Course

This refresher course aims to give anyone already trained as an adviser updated information and answer any questions regarding Arts Awards. The session will cover:

• An overview of Bronze and Silver Awards.
• Case Studies / Portfolios from North West Centres.
• Registering as a centre and registering young people.
• The moderation process.

To book onto this course contact Lyndsey Wilson, Arts Award Administrator:

01772 887785 or via email here 

“Opening Minds through the Arts” is a nationally recognized research-based program that integrates the arts into teaching reading, writing, math and science in public elementary and middle schools. Currently, over 17,000 students and 650 teachers in 37 schools in the Tucson Unified School District are participating in the OMA program. OMA staff is available for consultation with other school districts as well.

OMA "uses instrumental music, opera, dance, theatre and visual arts to help teach reading, writing, math and science to children in kindergarten through eighth grade." According to the program's leaders, "...it's been so successful at pleasing teachers and parents, and raising test scores, that Harvard University has studied it as a model for arts integration."

The OMA model incorporates three key types of educators: the classroom teacher, the school’s Arts Integration Specialist, and the teaching artist. To be considered an OMA school, the school or district must fund the position of Arts Integration Specialist. This highly qualified, certified arts teacher works with every grade level in his or her school, teaching classes that coordinate with classroom teachers’ lesson plans. He or she also works in tandem with the teaching artists. Teaching artists come from the community, working at the symphony, opera, an area university, for other arts organizations, or even independently.

Work with OMA enables them to supplement their performing and tutoring income and bring their art form to a new generation of appreciative and educated audiences.

The program was featured in a lengthy article by the Tucson Citizen, and the official website holds a large quantity of information about the subject and its applications.

17 August – 25 November 2007, Amsterdam/Holland

In a collaboration involving numerous cultural institutes, fifteen artists hope to link the Heringa / VanKalsbeek duo exhibition (to be held in the autumn of 2007 at the Stedelijk Museum) to school projects at fifteen primary schools in the province of Noord-Holland. The “The Children of Reggio Emilia” exhibition which was held in 1998 at the same museum is serving as an inspiration for the project, in which research, experiment and creativity take centre stage.

The project team will consist of full-time and occasional members, led by the initiator Annemieke Huisingh. The children’s work will be displayed in a professional fashion, along with extensive documentation, a website and a movie documentary.

The fifteen schools and fifteen artists will be submitted to the project team by four centres for art education, whose artistic consultants also serve as points of contact for the school teams during both the preparation and execution phases. Of the fifteen schools, twelve schools (four clusters of three schools) from Noord-Holland will take part and one cluster of three schools from Amsterdam.

The aims of the project are

• to develop a working method in which the creative learning process of the child takes centre stage and which gives primary schools the opportunity to improve their art education and to create a direct and meaningful relationship with an art museum

• to create a link between the expressive languages of young children and the artistic languages of Heringa/VanKalsbeek

• to create networks between the museum, clusters of primary schools and artists, enabling exchange, inspiration, education and reflection and providing continuity; to develop a website as an instrument of exchange

• to increase career options for artists, and to bring in groups of visitors to the Stedelijk Museum, who normally don’t go to museums

• to document, describe, evaluate and adapt the project and to produce a format for collaborative projects between museums and primary schools.

Fifteen artists, selected by the project team based on their artistic and pedagogical skills, will work with a group of primarily younger pupils (the age may vary per school from 4 – 8 years) at the schools for two half-day sessions per week. During the other days of the week the teacher can continue with aspects of the research with her group of children. This is to take place between 3 September and 15 October 2007.

This work is based on the children’s own research and experimentation under the guidance of an artist, teacher, student teacher and assistant/documenter (from the PABO and the Teacher Training Course for Art Education respectively). Research questions will be formulated and drawn up based on an analysis of the work of Heringa/Van Kalsbeek.

The children’s work process will be fully documented (in picture using photography and film and in text using audio recordings). The results will be compiled and selected for display at the Sandbergzaal in the Stedelijk Museum for the last four weeks of the Heringa/Van Kalsbeek exhibition. The participating schools, parents and teachers will then visit both exhibitions at the museum. It is therefore only at this point that the groups of children who took part in the project see the work of Heringa/Van Kalsbeek and their reactions during this visit will be recorded as well.

The Stedelijk Museum is looking into the possibility of also holding workshops for children, teachers and parents at the museum during the exhibition. Moreover a congress day will be held during the exhibition for museum education officers, artists and primary educationalists.

For some information: http://www.stedelijk.nl/oc2/page.asp?PageID=158

Created in February 2007, Kunstconnectie (www.dekunstconnectie.nl) is the sector association for entrepreneurial cultural institutions engaging in art education and participation (amateur art).

Kunstconnectie develops and makes arrangements concerning employment conditions that benefit entrepreneurship in the sector. By joining forces and connecting interested parties, its members are afforded a broad range of advantages. Kunstconnectie promotes the profile and the quality of the sector’s activities and ensures the sector’s position as a recognised and respected partner in the cultural-political debate and the development and implementation of related policy.

The 200 member institutions with their 11,000 staff members – local Centres for the Arts and Music schools and Provincial institutions for Art & Culture – offer courses and workshops in the various art forms outside school hours and reach more than 850,000 children and adolescents in over half of all schools with lessons and projects introducing them to art and culture.

You can read more about Kunstconnectie’s projects

• Caring for Quality -Quality Framework Art Education and Amateur Art

• Peer Supervision Network -Exchange Network for Managers of Institutes of Art Education at www.dekunstconnectie.nl/english+information/DU3118_Projects.aspx.

For more detailed information about the centre’s activities please have a look at www.iz.or.at or contact director Dr. Rüdiger Teutsch at ruediger.teutsch@iz.or.at.

The Third “Dialogues and Differences in Arts Education” conference, to be held at the University of Sydney on 23 -24 November 2007, will continue conversations about the important place of the arts in education. In the past the notion of integration across the arts has led to tokenistic or trivial responses to the authentic connections that can empower learners and lead to new research possibilities. All disciplines are welcome: Dance, Literature, Media, Music, Drama / Theatre, Visual Arts, Arts Advocacy and in particular, papers on Interdisciplinarity.  

The aim of the conference is to explore current pedagogy and research, including emerging methodologies that relate to primary, secondary and tertiary arts education.

If you are interested in taking part, you may register until November 9th, 2007 here, where you’ll also find more detailed information about themes and venue of the conference.