Articoli taggati con ‘cultural management’
Reinventing the wheel: why museums should learn more about their visitors
Have you ever wondered why everybody underlines the relevance of private information and privacy policies? One of the most astonishing answers could be that personal information is important to those who want to sell you a product or a service. Maybe simple. Still, it is everything but simple for museums, apparently. In Italy, there is very poor knowledge about museum visitors, and there is still less knowledge about cultural consumption. In our country, there are always too many reasons that could be suitable to justify a specific condition, and this case is no exception. This lack of knowledge could be the effect of the lack of funding, or, the consequence of the lack of adequate software, or even the organizational structure of the most important Italian museums, where private companies manage all those services where visitors’ data could be collected (such as ticketing) and this condition could cause issues related to the privacy of visitors or give to those operators a commercial advantage. Actually, none of those reasons is decisive: lots of museums have spent, in recent years, significative economic resources to realize research about their visitors; no special software is required to collect basic information about visitors and their cultural tastes and consumption; the realization of a common database could avoid any commercial advantage, and the data-anonymization process could come in handy to protect visitors’ privacy. Since the lockdown Italy strongly prompted the digital development of public services: we’re running digitization projects in almost all the most important spheres of our lives, such as health with the realization of the Electronic Health Record, a database with all our health data, or digital identity, with the so-called SPID (Public System of Digital Identity), which already provides citizens with numerous e-government services. So why we do not have an Electronic Cultural Record? Perhaps it is not such a priority for our museums or policy makers, but it could be a strong tool for both public and private players. Analysing Cultural Consumption Data, private enterprises could produce a more attractive cultural supply, addressing specific products and services to the right audience, and this could increase the overall volume of cultural consumption. Tanks to the potential growth of private revenues, public institutions and other organizations could focus on those “taste-niches” that cannot reach a proper market dimension. Furthermore, cultural organizations could reach the right audiences, strengthening engagement and improving sense of belonging. There are several ways to realize such a system: one of the most intuitive is a specific tax-deduction policy for all the personal expenses related to cultural and creative themes that are paid by a specific debit-card. This kind of system could enable the realization of a specific AI developments, thanks to which, when a person comes to visit a specific museum, the AI could suggest specific guided-visits based on his or her past purchases. It is sad to find that traditional cultural systems are abdicating to the digital supplies all the potentiality of data: in our everyday lives we’re surrounded by services displaying us how likely it is we could appreciate a book, a restaurant, a tv-series or a tv-movie. It could be useful for us to understand how likely it is we could count of such a service also in our physical experiences: going to the cinema, exploring a city, evaluating theatre or music events, or choosing an art – exhibition or a museum. It’s quite simple to understand. Still, it is everything but simple for cultural systems, apparently.
Museum Archaeological Collection Storage: reassessing needs and priorities
A museum does not survive if it does not preserve its works. The tools and places essential for preserving the works are the storages (Mottola Molfino 1991). Unfortunately, despite the ever-increasing attention paid to museums, the storage plays a marginal role: an invisible (or almost invisible) resource for the community, whose potential is often little explored and/or valued. In Italy, the awareness of the importance of museum collection storage is a relatively recent achievement that has experienced a considerable delay compared to other countries (Fossà 2005). Recognising the storage – in the same way as the exhibition spaces – a dynamic and multifaceted role linked not only to conservation, but also to research and development (Rémy 1999; Della Monica et al. 2004; Beaujard-Vallet 2011), today constitutes a fundamental challenge for museums, if they want to preserve their role as centres of knowledge at the service of the community. This challenge becomes even more difficult and problematic for storages of archaeological material, which undergo a continuous and exponential increase (Marini Calvani 2004; Shepherd and Benes 2007; Papadopoulos 2015). What is the situation of archaeological museum storage? What problems do they face? In 2014-2015, a statistical survey was conducted by the writer during her doctoral research project at the University of Ferrara, in collaboration with the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and with the National Association of Local and Institutional Museums (Muttillo 2015, 2016, 2017). The purpose of the survey was to create an updated and comprehensive mapping of the archaeological museum heritage not exhibited, collecting information on the management of goods in storage, mainly on: a) inventory and cataloguing; b) preservation: safety and control of risk parameters; c) structure and organization of storage; d) professional figures involved in the study, care and management of the collections; e) valuation of storage, in terms of accessibility, visibility and use. Archaeological museums[1], both state and not state[2], have been investigated through a specially designed questionnaire, also available online [3]. The survey has allowed to identify critical elements and priority areas of intervention.
Cultural Heritage between administrative organization and non-for-profit initiative
Italian Cultural Heritage is worldwide acknowledged. Artworks, Archaeological Sites, Museums and even whole cities are by now part of the collective imaginary. In spite of this, there are several criticalities characterizing Italian Cultural Heritage. Most of them are the results of an anachronistic interpretation of the role that Cultural Heritage could play in our daily lives. Following this interpretation, Cultural Heritage should not be associated with (direct or indirect) private intervention because private intervention is only targeted to a “profit” and the “profit” is a great enemy for the public interest. Regardless of how unreasonable it may sound, this has been, for long, the unexpressed belief of many Italian Cultural Operators and decision makers. This interpretation led several consequences that could be summarized in an almost completely public management of Cultural Heritage, performed regardless to the results of the activity run by the public administration. Fortunately, in recent years the “cultural establishment” acknowledged the need for a change that was widespread invoked by cultural practitioner and civil society. Obviously, this “switch” is also the result of the substantial evolution that has characterized the Cultural Heritage Management globally as well as the transition from an industrial-led economy to a knowledge-led economy. The main effects of this change are in everyone’s eyes: never in history as today, museums are, in many countries, the living center of the society. Cultural Heritage and Activities are at the very heart of urban development and, most of all, it has been finally acknowledged that Cultural Heritage and Activities could be one of the key economic sectors for the development of entire regions or countries.
Non-hype instruments for territorial development
As occurs in almost every branch of human activity, our sector is often influenced by trends that condition the work of academicians and practitioners. Today as yesterday, we assist to the explosion of tools whose impact could affect both the cultural and economic development of territories. Yesterday it was the case of festivals, today is what occurs with Blockchain and smart contracts. Nevertheless, following these fashions we leave behind tools or assets that could be very helpful in the construction of a territorial policy for a culture-based development. This number of Tafter Journal is dedicated to two instruments, highly differentiated, that nowadays are not as cool as big-data or the AI applications, but that could concretely concur to the diversification of territorial cultural offer contributing, at the same time, to the specialization of cultural and economic production of a region or a city. Who’s involved in day-by-day working on territory knows that are plenty of resources (as much as obstacles and difficulties) that need to be managed: historic buildings, contemporary production, cultural associations, natural heritage and so on. Properly, our role is indeed to underline further opportunities that could extend that set of assets, and show how these new (or old) tools work or they could do.
What will remain of the Days ?
Free entrance to museums on the first Sundays of each month seems to have been a great success till its launch in July 2014. It has seen the average increase of visitors throughout Italy of some 260thousand units per month in 2016. More or less as half the yearly visitors in region Marche museums for the same year, following the data of the Mibact or as if the same number of population of the Greater Milan area visited museums or archaeological sites and parks during the twelve free Sundays. Surely it looks like a great success. Overall, it demonstrates that museums arise interest and curiosity in a large number of population. But these numbers don’t tell us anything about the people they represent or about the related “visitors’ journey”. What is the level of loyalty to these events? Are the same people traveling throughout the country planning a free visit to the Italian museums or is mainly a locally-based phenomenon? Can the visitors be profiled at least on the basis of the traditional demoscopic categories? Above all, these numbers don’t say anything about the kind of experience the visitors live and what remains of it, to both actors involved: visitors and museums. It should be time for the national cultural policies to clarify the meaning of success pursued, since the investment required for running the Sundays free entrances or similar openings (i.e. last March 8th ) on national or local level is significant for the public administrations and since lately it has been replicated in other sectors of the cultural production. In facts, the trade-off of this kind of operations is highly worthy if they can help defining further cultural strategies in audience development and in cultural production, and if they can collect valuable feedbacks and data on which cultural institutions can improve their cultural offer and develop new creativity.
Bone’s Territories: Territorial Heritage and Local Autonomy in Italian Inner Areas
“Areas in the bone” is not just a quote: it is the metaphor of the load bearing structure of Italy as well as the plastic representation of the marginalization process of the inner areas of the country that started from XX. In 1958, Manlio Rossi-Doria, coined the expression “flesh and bone” in order to underline the profound socio-economical feet apart among the numerous inner areas and the few valleys. His analysis coming from his specialization in agricultural economics was focused on the southern agricultural sector, in a historical phase in which were visible the firsts effects of the Riforma Agraria (Agrarian Reform) and of the investments of the Cassa del Mezzogiorno (Fund for the South) started since 1950. The interpretative framework developed by Rossi Doria can be extended to the entire peninsula, where the differences between urban and rural areas, inner territories or the coasts, mountains and valley grew more and more. Inner areas have experienced a deviation whose principal effects are the depopulation, the emigration, the social and economic rarefaction, the abandon of the soil and the landscape modification.
Culture and the Red Queen
Just at this moment, somehow or other, Alice and the red Queen began to run. They were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying ‘Faster! Faster!’ but Alice felt she could not go faster, though she had not breath left to say so. The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything. “I wonder if all the things move along with us?” thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to guess her thoughts, for she cried, “Faster! Don’t try to talk!” And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy. Alice looked round her in great surprise. – Why, I do believe we’ve been under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was! – Of course it is,’ said the Queen, ‘what would you have it? – Well, in our country, said Alice, still panting a little, you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing. – A slow sort of country! said the Queen. Now, Here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!
Made in Italy museums. Some reflections on company heritage networking and communication
Corporate museums arise today as a powerful identity medium for companies and brands representing Made in Italy worldwide. At the beginning of the new millennium, such cultural centers, preserving and communicating the Italian economic history, are extending their presence in most of the country and market sectors. They define a very fragmentary universe (indeed, a still largely underground “dorsal” of Made in Italy culture), but also an investment which could support the cultivation of innovative quality relationships among companies, territory, and society. From this scenario, the paper aims to offer a synthetic overview of the phenomenon concerning company museums and its contemporary evolution within the Italian context, where it appears to be unique for both dimensions and its qualitative features if compared with the international scenario. Indeed, this means also to reflect about the special affinity which seems to exist between museum format and the essence of Made in Italy culture, rising nowadays internationally as a strategic communication discourse.
It happens in Turin. From Cascina Roccafranca to the “Case del Quartiere Network”
In the last 20 years Turin has gone through several radical transformations and changes. When we talk about that we can’t forget its passage from “industrial town” to “post-industrial town”, breaking away from its past. From automotive to baby-parking and from heavy metallurgic plants to organic and “from farm to fork” food-stores. But that’s not all. Empty spaces, left by a decaying industry fabric, have inspired requalification initiatives and a social, educative, cultural enterprise everywhere in the city. In this context stems the need for re-appropriating and re-dwelling, through the involvement of the whole town community So, those ready to fill, empty spaces themselves become, in a perspective of recycling and re-use, the perfect container for inclusion, increased participation and for offering possibilities, events and moments of social aggregation. Here was the most fertile “humus” to create new special structures: the Case del Quartiere (Houses of Neighbourhood). Common spaces, multipurpose cultural hubs, social laboratory – all at the same times. In an House it is possible to propose events, to organize or attend a workshop or an artistic atelier, to discuss about common themes or simply use services provided. They are friendly places, where a person is not only a guest, or a resident, but above all is a citizen.
Does Culture makes us happier – and healthier?
People’s happiness and wellbeing are undoubtedly at the center of today’s modern life – we could even dare to say that our generation is obsessed with the pursuit of happiness, with finding the perfect balance between our inner desires and the lives that we actually live. Nevertheless, we know very little about what truly makes a human being happy. We read tons of self-help books, we go to courses, and we talk to counselors. But the truth is – we very rarely dig deeper into the scientific causes behind human happiness and wellbeing. We may even be surprised to know that, in fact, there are very solid scientific causes. And among those causes, culture lists as one of the main ones. In order to better understand this, we need first to define what we mean by wellbeing and by culture.
The future art of storytelling: Future Fabulating in Madeira Island
Introduction The practice of predicting the future has a long history, ranging from personal consultation in the patterns of coffee grounds to global computational projections derived from vast sums of data. The longing for a vision of the future offering some certitude seems to cross cultural boundaries. Engineer Alan Kay stated that […]
Measuring Cultures
Introduction The topic of the importance of being able to measure the impact (or better yet, the plural impacts) that cultural heritages and activities have on many different areas is one of the most discussed issues in Contemporary Economic literature. There are many reasons explaining such an interest: first of all it is […]
Cultural Heritage and Value Creation. Towards new Pathways
“What do we mean by cultural heritage?” Is it the classical definition of “culture” relating to a purely material dimension still relevant, legitimizing the protection of “cultural heritage” as opposed to protection and enhancement? Is it perhaps time to reconsider the scope of this concept in a new way based on a systems […]
Culture Crash. The killing of the creative class
The financial crisis of 2008 and other changes in the economy and culture have had a pervading impact on the creative sector more than on any other field. Using an original style, which combines autobiographical elements with a deep knowledge of the present and past music and culture panorama, Scott Timberg allows us to explore the suffering status of the creative class, which he belongs to.
China Cultural and Creative Industries Reports 2013
This book represents a very interesting collection of reports about the state of the art of the Cultural and Creative Industries in People’s Republic of China. Globally, in spite of the growing importance it plays in the national economy, the cluster of CCIs still faces high difficulties to reach a widespread awareness of its relevance and potentiality.
Creative challenges
It may sound obvious: in order for creative products to conquer markets we need creativity; business creativity. In the last decade debates and books about creativity were multiplied, in the attempt at answering to crucial questions ranging from the definition of creativity to the identification of creative activities, from the measurement of the impact of creativity upon local economies to the needed design of public action in support of creative artists and organisations. In such a way, although a varied and lively discussion is always healthy, ‘creativity’ was added to ‘art’ and ‘culture’ as iconic labels generously including an extremely wide and heterogeneous realm of objects, actions and exchanges. Neither right nor wrong, it seems to be the clear symptom of an urgency reflecting the attention (and the obsession) for taxonomies and hierarchies needed in the serial economy. The arts and culture, and quite recently creativity, have been absorbed in a simple and rigid view whose map is a grid of models.
The impact of globalization on cultural policy: insights and emerging trends from the International Conference on Cultural Policy Research 2014
This article discusses some thought-provoking papers, presented at the ICCPR2014, on the relationship between cultural policy and globalization. On the one hand, it looks at how globalization has an impact on national cultural policies with reference in particular to tax incentives for private donations and mobility schemes for artists. On the other hands, it tackles the role of cultural policy in international development, questioning the motives and methodologies applied. Finally, it opens up a space for reflection on the role of cultural policy in countries involved in the Arab Spring and which are now in the middle of establishing new sovereign nations and need to define also the role of culture in society.
Pioneering Minds Worldwide. On the Entrepreneurial Principles of the Cultural and Creative Industries
More than 30 authors in 17 countries are the “pioneering minds”, who lead readers to the exploration of the “Entrepreneurial Principles of the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs)”. Even if CCIs play a key role in the European and global economy, cultural entrepreneurship is still a new knowledge domain.
Towards a “Creative Ravenna”. Capitalising on the European Capital of Culture process to build a Culture and Creative Industries’ strategy
Ravenna, with its rich cultural and artistic heritage, its economic and social fabric as well as the political will to invest in culture, has the potential to design its future with the support of art and culture and contribute to the development of a model of creative territory for medium-size cities. Ravenna has commissioned a policy paper with a view to reflect on how to capitalise on the ECoC bid for the future of the city. This is in line with the European Capital of Culture’s bidding process which requires cities to show the sustainability of the cultural investment in term of economic and social development. For the European Commission, the year’s cultural investment should bring long term benefits to the city and the surrounding region, including the development of a vibrant culture and creative sector. This paper will illustrate how CCIs can concretely contribute to local development in Ravenna, what are Ravenna’s strengths and challenges to become a creative city and finally proposes some recommendations for Ravenna to unleash CCIs’ potential to set a dynamic and attractive environment.
European Capitals of Culture: structures and infrastructures
Culture and territory. A pair with an ancient but actual flair. A binomial that a growing number of public managers choose as the asset to economic development and to increase the quality of life, like in Qatar, where culture has peeped out with a certain delay on the desks of the European Union. At first excluded from EU subjects and focuses, culture has been recognized only at the beginning of the 90s as a subsidiary competence, while on the contrary, it would have been the essence of the integration in the European project. As Jean Monnet, one of the fathers and founders of Europe stated, “If Europe has to be rebuilt, maybe we should start from culture”. The absence of a real and shared cultural project should have been inserted in the process of economic integration to reinforce the EU directives. From a different perspective, it is to say that the absence of an economic structure, deprived of its cultural infrastructure, is visible in the diffused phenomena of dissatisfaction towards the European institutions, in the many misunderstandings and in the race amongst member states.
Price management. Working on the supply could be our chance
It is not easy to establish the admission price to museums and monuments. Different cultures suggest singular methods at this matter. Although the global scenario tends to allocate to goods a specific price which is directly commensurate to its value, both dimensional and qualitative, this concept is inapplicable in the economy of culture. This subject takes care of assets of immeasurable value, which represent a heritage of humanity. However, people do not think that this patrimony could in some way generate a profit. Cultural institutions stand as the richest and poorest at the same time. In fact is clearly evident the deep gap they have between the value of their heritage and their disposal money. The majority of the countries charges visitors with a fixed entrance fee, but the price of the ticket is just a lump sum.
Do the arts dream of society? The secret war of languages
Whenever I think, speak or write about the arts the crucial knot of my analysis is knowledge. Of course emotion is important, as well as some intellectual pride, but knowledge gives the flavour to the whole system. It is well rooted in the dramatic urgency that leads single creative artists to craft their works: if they were able to display their sentiments and views in an ordinary way – through plain spoken language, for example – they would not need any kind of expressive substitution, and their discourse should not need to rely upon powerful semantic channels able to convey it to its potential (even not desired) recipients. Knowledge is also important in the growth of creative tendencies, artistic and cultural groups, and all the social clusters advocating the rise and the consolidation of views, styles, techniques and all the methodological tools that can define creative waves. This normally occurs as a response to an insufficient conventional knowledge, in any case to push the threshold of language ahead. Whether it is only innovation (along the path) or revolution (against the path itself) its language wants to show, not without some surprise or even some repugnance, that the world needs new words, new concepts, possibly new truths.
Theatre at auction! Making it live!
July 2006: some advertisements invited interested people to take part in the public auction announced to sell the for too long a time dismissed Teatro Sociale of Gualtieri. The theatre is now becoming a benchmark in the domain, for the quality and the method.
The Panagbenga: Ethico-Political Issues, Contestations, and Recommendations on the Cultural Sustainability of a Festival
The Panagbenga cultural festival of the popular tourist destination of Baguio City, Philippines, turns 20 in February 2015. Researching the sustainability of a 4-weeks festival held annually since 1995 is of academic and practical interest. Lessons can be learned for cultural policy and for more pro-active participation and collaboration between different stakeholders. Jumping off from issues and contestations on the cultural sustainability of Panagbenga, this descriptive-normative study argues for an ethics and politics of sustainable festivals, with focus on the difficult concept of sustaining culture. The study explores how cultural festivals become virtual and actual spaces for reflection, contestations, and consensual agreements on cultural tradition. “Cultural sustainability” or how cultures are dynamically engaged is distinguished from “cultures of sustainability”, or how cultures (mostly traditional) promote sustainable forms of living with the environment. The latter concept has been more discussed in the literature than the former concept.
TRUST IN BO. A new idea for Italian theatre management
Theatre’s needs and, above all, audience awareness, have showed relevant changes in the last few years. What happen to theatres organizations? How do they face society development? How do they deal with crisis?
What an effort “to enter out”! Closures and resistances in the cultural sector
“It might be easy for you, but you cannot imagine how difficult is for us to enter outside”. Few years ago, walking in the yards of Santa Maria Della Pietà, psychiatric hospital already closed, Thomas Lovanio, Franco Basaglia’s colleague, got these words from one of the guest of the hospital. He was referring to the difficulty of coming back into the city, a city that years ago had jailed and forgotten him. But now, just because someone have decided to close the psychiatric hospitals, this city has to absorb him again. The articles in this issue reminded me those words. How difficult is for our artistic and cultural system to shape open and innovative relations with the environment and the urban space, and to generate an innovative and transparent management. These difficulties are surely a limit to innovation and an obstacle to the cultural growth of our country. Urban studies have long observed that the most innovative systems are those capable of hybridizing different worlds.
Culture and social welfare: thinking about the bolognaise context
The article supports the thesis that culture is a real development engine able to enhance our social welfare. If public entities, associations and private bodies will adopt a joint point of view, results will be tangible.
The importance of being evaluated. Guidelines and tools to plan a worthy evaluation of cultural projects
Talking about culture production, we need to shift The importance of being Earnest in The importance of being evaluated. The longing of evaluation it is in fact, by now, intrinsic to any cultural project: sponsors, stakeholders, project managers are all aware of that; however, while the crucial relevance of evaluating is no more called into question, there are still many doubts concerning how an evaluation should be planned and fulfilled. The aim of this article is to give some simple, but practical and solid, guidelines to conceive a worthy analysis of cultural projects, of any kind.
The value of culture. Neverending debates need views and tools
Within the rich and complex vocabulary of culture the word value is certainly overused. It is always associated with culture, however we prefer to define it (which is already a challenging task). Even those who hate culture, since they fear it, say that it has no value. Even when conventional metaphors are adopted, describing the cultural galaxy with examples from the food system (it feeds, it must be preserved, it decays, it may lead to greedy action, etc.), the perception of its value is crucial. If we just observe the meaning that the debate gives to the concept of value as applied to culture we may find a few interesting views, often conventionally shared and accepted, able to reveal the eternal struggle between opposite factions: those who believe that culture is a ritual and hermetic realm where only the initiated have the right to speak (and to act), versus those who consider culture as normal as any other product, being therefore subject to simple economic norms and mechanisms. Exploring this controversial map, where culture is pulled and stretched to endorse much wider and visceral views, we discover that culture appears powerful in providing individuals (and sometimes communities) with some ethical strength.
Call For Papers on “Festivals: audience, funding and sustainability”. Deadline extended to 31 March 2014
Tafter Journal and LOOP Studies/University of Barcelona invite paper submissions which offer new and challenging research on trends within the management of cultural festivals. Get Involved! We welcome participants willing to share their research and experiences!
Forum D’Avignon 2013: Polyphonic Voice From Avignon
The Forum d’Avignon is a think-tank dedicated to culture and creative industries which organizes an international annual meeting on culture, economics and media in Avignon, France since 2008. More than 450 participants of different sectors arrive from 40 nations. Guaranteeing a great diversity of opinions, this sixth edition focused on “culture” and “power” and 10 roundtables on the topic were held at Palais des Papas and University of Avignon on November 21 – 23, 2013. This article introduces the general outline, uniqueness and the way of discussion on cultural policy and management at the assembly.
