In the Culture 3.0 landscape, the practice of making art and culture omnipresent benefit both the cultural sector and society at large.

Would you like to live in a society where people have been liberated from the need to focus on productivity and efficiency, where we are free from the suppression of individuality, free from disparity, and free from constraints on resources? Where instead we can exercise our compassion and insight to identify the different needs and challenges faced by different segments of society and use our rich individual and collective imaginations to develop scenarios to solve them? Welcome to Society 5.0—the Imagination society i, an ideal concept put forward by Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation). They invite us to consider what kind of society we wish to create.

Our imaginations manifest differently because of the moulding influence of the culture that surrounds us. Therefore, when seeking to bring to life any inspiring, equitable, human-centred future scenario the capacity for unleashing the potential of cultural activity as a source of value becomes vital. It is also vital for counteracting the gripping effects of technological development, most importantly the automation of human behaviour, which has been exposed as the goal of ‘surveillance capitalism’ii —a new mutant form of capitalism. The infinite mind of the creator is free; it defies automation and convenience. Is it possible that the key to creating an inspiring future is to be found in the arts?

In order to unleash the potential of culture, we must understand how it is transforming. The Digital Era has ushered in Culture 3.0iii — characterized by massive, shareable, and shared production of content that is instantly diffused and circulated. Audiences have become practitioners: we are developing our personal capabilities to transform/manipulate the cultural content we are being exposed to, and this is laying the foundation for the culturalization of economies. Cultural participation has been demonstrated to shift value into the social domain.

How can we move forward to unleash the potential of culture, to make it more inclusive instead of just another channel for income disparity and opportunity inequality? By collectively acting to make art and culture omnipresent.

“The art of tomorrow is not necessarily that which is created for galleries, exhibitions, and the art market—there’s another way. I see artists having a critical say in the shape of tomorrow.” Gaël Charbau, Curator and Artistic Director
of ZAC Olympic and Paralympic town for Paris 2024

“I dream of art being present in all spheres of life—embedded in us from an early age. I see art as a means for encouraging people to see the world around us differently. I see art as a language; if it would enter the minds of political thinkers, social activists, it would add dimensions to our world. It would allow peoples’ perceptions to shift.” Agniya Mirgorodskaya, Founder and Commissioner,
Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA)

“Art should be intertwined with other subjects and fields. Art should not be created for the galleries. I find this problematic.” Lina Lapelytė, Composer, Sound Artist, Music Performer and Performance Artist

“I am not interested in art created for professionals. For me, the future of art is outside of the art bubble; I want to see artists working more with society, i.e. researchers, rehabilitation homes, etc. The future of art is with the different minds open to connection and collaboration, not with the elitist art academies that are currently perpetuating homogenous environments for particular ideas and people.” Justė Jonutytė, Curator, previously Director of the Artists’
Residency Program at the Rupert centre for art and education

Artists become mediators, audiences transform into co-creators, culture becomes collective sense-making.

A decade ago, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei said: “Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as everybody else.” In Culture 3.0, the arts and culture are undergoing a continuous process of democratization. The persona of the artist is shifting from that of a romanticized maverick to one who, ideally, engages the public in memorable experiences. An artwork becomes a platform for interaction, facilitating participants to further produce their own content. No longer simply exposed to an artistic experience, audiences learn to play with the ‘source code’ underlying the generation of cultural meaning. Individuals challenge themselves to “expand their capacity of expression, to renegotiate their expectations and beliefs, and to reshape their own social identity using the means of arts”.i

Artists are wooing their publics with a growing number of artistic practices that emphasize direct experience and kinaesthetic [bodily] engagement, asking them to become part of an artistic concept that often harbours a call to action to engage with social and environmental issues. Think, for example, of Sun & Sea (Marina), a subtly unnerving meditation on the end of a world brought about by laziness—a chilling work of art about climate change—shown at the Lithuanian pavilion during the Venice Biennale in 2019. Artnet ii called the unconventional opera about the day on a beach a ‘revelation’ and ‘powerful exception’ among so much bad art about climate change. “Viewers look down at a sandy tableau, where performers of all ages and sizes splay out on towels under beach umbrellas, scrolling through their iPhones and thumbing through magazines. One by one, the vacationers sing about a world very similar to our own, full of minor inconveniences.” People could sign up to be part of the performance, laying down on a beach towel and even singing. The boundaries between works of art and the public are deliberately being broken down so the public becomes a co-creator and a part of the performance; this encourages learning, open discourse, and collective sense-making. Sun & Sea (Marina) was awarded the 2019 Biennale’s Golden Lion.

But there are also more pragmatic developments in the realm of artistic mediation and audience co- creation; visually overstimulating exhibitions and performances often invite viewers to enter into the artwork to experience it and take pictures from within, as if deliberately manipulating viewers to create social media content. Sponsored experiential exhibits, optimized for Instagram and the like, have become a new trend. A timely example would be Color Factory — a collaborative, interactive exhibit, developed by a team of artists, illustrators, designers, and makers. “The Instagram-ability of art is now a dominating feature; artists whose works are shared more on Instagram are better known and consequently shown more often.” — Agniya Mirgorodskaya, Founder and Commissioner of Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA) reflects that this phenomenon keeps emerging artists, or those whose work is not visually appealing to a wider public, outside of the loop.

“No more Jeff Koons: my view is that in cities the art of tomorrow will be created through the involvement of artists with the society, collaborators, companies” Gaël Charbau, Curator and Creative Director of ZAC
Olympic and Paralympic town for Paris 2024 Olympic games

“The idea of the art genius is gone; art has become more democratic over the last century. The nature of art has changed as well, it has become a form of life, it alters our expectations.” Joseph Ekoko, Project Manager at ArtRebels

“To me, a cultural institution is interesting if its mission is to develop consciousness and knowledge. That becomes possible when the public is part of an artwork or project. As an artist, I think we should integrate people into our creative process, to develop knowledge. The role of the artist now is to be a mediator.” Pablo Jansana, Artist

“Performance art is growing and becoming more important. We live in visually overstimulated environments to the point where only a performance can make us be really present.” Justė Jonutytė, Curator, previously Director of the Artists’ Residency
Program at the Rupert centre for art and education

Artistic minds and their artistic methods are being employed beyond artistic practice to design our shared future.

“What we usually call reality is a montage. But is the reality we live in the only possible one? From the same material (the everyday), we can produce different versions of reality. Contemporary art thus presents itself as an alternative editing table that shakes up social forms, re-organizes them, and inserts them into original scenarios. The artist deprograms in order to reprogram, suggesting that there are other possible uses for the techniques and tools at our disposal.” Jean Bourriaudi

Art today has become a way of life, but the role of art has changed. Contemporary societal problems are global and multifaceted. Understanding, addressing, and solving our problems requires multiple (scientific) disciplines. We need effective ‘transmission chains’ that facilitate the communication and implementation of ideas within different disciplines—art is known to create conjunctions for continuous dialogue, exploration, and imagination.

Art has become a medium for processing problems. Art is venturing out of art institutions and artistic practices are now being embraced beyond art curriculums. As Joseph Ekoko from ArtRebels says in an interview for Future Culture: Pilot, art can be used as “an ethos, which can express itself when it opens up a particular atmosphere that allows a group of people to employ a rebellious mind in a world that is not so rebellious.” Ekoko further advocates that art can “teach us to trust the process, permit the creativity to spark, and liberate the people involved regardless of their position in the company’s hierarchy. This could translate into solutions that are well-thought-out, conceptually strong, and methodologically untraditional.” ArtRebels is a Copenhagen-based creative business, a movement, and a network that uses creative methods, design, and art to catalyse social change. “We embody an artistic approach by collaborating with people, by setting up a community with the likeminded as a way to fight the current disintegration of communities in society.” Through the embodiment of shared values in artistic practices, we can connect what might look like ‘different species’. For example, companies such as IKEA don’t shy away from ArtRebel’s artistic methods; their collaboration proved successful and even resulted in the co-creation of the SPACE10 research and design lab.

An artistic approach allows us to rethink problems with better results as this practice prevents us from remaining trapped in the same narratives. We will see more of this: artists and artistic methods employed outside of the art world. Or, as Gaël Charbau, Curator and Artistic Director of ZAC Olympic and Paralympic village for Paris2024 believes, it is outside ‘the machine of art’ where future opportunities lie for both curators and artists to actually “have a say about the world of tomorrow”, to get involved with political questions, and with societal and environmental challenges. Together with the team at Manifesto, Gaël Charbau is designing a lengthy programme of artistic interventions in a village in the North of Paris; he is determined not to make artistic work a signature of style for the place. “I want artists to work with nature’s cycles, rain, night, the Seine, to think of artistic interventions to create new experiences of the surroundings, to use technology that would help create a liveable memory of the identity of this place.” —Charbau sees artists as active creators of future societies.

What is the challenge? “To make people who are already thinking about the world of tomorrow aware of the knowledge and potential of the artistic mind, aware of the existence of art that can engage directly with challenges and needs of society.”

“We are building a programme, not a sculpture. I want artists to think how they could co-create this village.” Gaël Charbau, Curator and Artistic Director of ZAC Olympic
and Paralympic village for Paris2024 on designing artistic
interventions for urban spaces and facilitating identity development

“When we work with the problem of pollution from vehicles, and electric vehicles seem like an obvious solution, we then think about the possible implications. Electricity can be translated into digital data, and then who would be owning that data? Will there be political consequences if an electric car company suddenly owns this mobility grid? The question of pollution becomes a question of politics and morality.” Joseph Ekoko from ArtRebels on rethinking
the problems using an artistic approach

“We are building every part of the biennial on very human interactions with the artists [...] and we feel that is very much appreciated exactly for the reason we all get very excited to meet them. For me every artist is a window onto a different dimension, a different world.” Agniya Mirgorodskaya, Founder and Commissioner,
Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA)

The future of the creative precariat depends on solving an economic paradox—although they contribute great social and economic value, they live in precarious economic circumstances.

The cultural and creative sectors produce self-reliant, risk-bearing, non-unionized, always-on workers: the creative precariat. The concept of a precariat [a portmanteau of precarious and proletariat] class, developed by economist Guy Standing among othersi, refers to a class of workers forced to live unpredictably without economic security or traditional labour rights. These days the existence of the precariat is perpetuated by an increasing level of digitalization, globalization, and neoliberal policies, all of which rely on the continuous growth of voluntary and involuntary participation in the gig economy. Until recently, members of the precariat class have included blue-collar workers and immigrants, but the term has increasingly come to apply to creatives and artists who are only partially involved in labour and must undertake unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs. By 2027 freelancers are set to become the majority of the workforceii. Policies that hurt the poor—inflexible tax regimes, unaffordable housing, and a meanspirited benefits system—also hurt aspiring artists and creatives, pushing them further into the economic margins.

Let’s take the world of visual arts—making headlines with unfathomable sales numbers—as an example. A report released by Arts Council England (ACE) in 2019 demonstrated that two-thirds of visual artists earned less than £5,000 in the previous year from their art practice.iii Surely there must be financial prospects in a global art market valued $67.4 billion? iv Although an unprecedented avalanche of money has crashed onto the contemporary art world, only a tiny minority reap these huge rewards. the market is vulnerable to the logic of ‘superstar economics’: “A very small number of artists, and the galleries representing them, drive the bulk of sales value, while others struggle to survive.”v The entire ecosystem of small- and mid-sized galleries that play a crucial role in incubating and developing artists is in the state of precarity.vi And on the funding side, art grants often play into ‘superstar topics’ further reducing diversity, limiting funds for research, and limiting the work opportunities for the artists and curators who do not participate in the art market.

Although they provide an increasingly substantial financial contribution to the economy, those active in the creative and cultural sector live as a ‘creative precariat’. In the EU alone, this sector contributes €509 bn in value added to the GDP and adds over 12 million full-time jobs (7.5 % of the EU workforce).vii However, current cuts to EU funding are an example of how the creative sector is continuously underserved. Funding provided for the Creative Europe program represents a mere 0.15% of the overall EU budget, which is by no means proportionate to the sector’s contribution to the EU economy. The Culture Action Europe network has campaigned for #DoubleForCulture and #1%ForCulture since 2018. The way public funding is distributed often criticized as ‘wildly inequitable’ and ‘vulnerable to short-term thinking’. However, there are those who advise becoming more resourceful and innovative instead of trying to influence the funding climate.

We need to re-evaluate the value of the contribution of the creative and cultural sector, especially taking into account Culture 3.0 as a network and seeing the potential for the ‘culturalization of economies’, which means asking governing bodies not overlook the results indirectly affecting the market. The cultural and creative field industries can act as a powerful incubator for new forms of entrepreneurship and activism. A generation of successful creative entrepreneurs and activists is essential to securing a leadership role in the knowledge economy.

"Our biennial was trying to be a different animal in the art world. From observation [...] came a very big desire to focus on artistic practices and on contributing to the development of the artists by prioritising commissioning new works. We don’t compromise on supporting the artists. We pay our artists fairly—this should be a given but, unfortunately, it’s not always the case with biennials. And it’s not only financial support. We are building every part of the biennial on very human interactions." Agniya Mirgorodskaya, Founder and Commissioner,
Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA)

“I wish for strong professionals in the arts to have financial and other conditions like professionals from other fields. […] Many people in business management want to work for art institutions but change their minds once they learn about the salaries.” Justė Jonutytė, Curator, previously Director of the
Artists’ Residency Program at the Rupert centre for art and education

“The government’s reprioritisation of state contributions hit us hard. We had to fire a lot of people. But it also forced us to rethink ourselves as an institution, to focus more on commercial aspects. We had to become more inclusive, accessible, and fun. This was not only for the worst.” Aaste Helgesen Stegarud, Head of Events
at the SMK National Gallery in Denmark

Changing the way we measure cultural and creative outcomes is the key to creating sustainable strategies for the future.

From macro to micro, rethinking how we evaluate and value both creativity and culture is required for scenarios that are future-proof.

The capacity for unleashing the potential of cultural activity as a source of value is now being recognised as a key factor for successful competitiveness and smart growth. In his paper Culture 3.0 i, professor Pier Luigi Saccoii, makes the case that the relationship between the cultural activities and the creation of social/economic value is one of under-recognised inter-dependency. We are now living in the Digital Era and cultural participation is transferring value to the social domain as never before due to increasingly pervasive networking among cultural practitioners. Not only has Europe enjoyed a long track record of culture-led development, but artistic activity within societies has been shown to have an indirect effect on innovation, new entrepreneurship, sustainability, soft power, local identity, health, and lifelong learning. As this new world of active cultural participation continues to develop, culture becomes a key asset at the top of any value chain.

Public art is an excellent example. Thoughtful art projects enrich cities with inspiring narratives, increasing inhabitants’ pride in their city and sense of belonging, but is it possible to measure and demonstrate their value? MTArt iii, an award-winning London talent agency representing top visual artists since 2015, set out to do just that. Instead of focusing on tangibles—technology, architecture, infrastructure—the agency demonstrated the importance of intangible values with its study on two public art projects in London. 84% of participants reported that regular public art initiatives would increase their wellbeing, and further, that they would be willing to pay at least £2 for the implementation of more public art in their area. iv

The indirect effect of cultural participation on innovation should inspire a sizzling interest in economists, policy makers, and urban planners. A Eurobarometer Special Survey on Cultural Values show that the EU27countries ranking above average in INNOVATION also ranked above average in ACTIVE ARTISTIC PARTICIPATION. v

“By learning about the rules that generate creativity, individuals learn how innovative meanings and practices can be constructed,” writes Sacco.ii Innovativeness has to do with creating effective “transmission chains” that facilitate the translation and implementation of new ideas—culture and creativity help do exactly that. One would think, that understanding their effect on innovation would encourage us to shift from “still seriously under-recognising” the value of cultural and creative outcomes to placing them “at the centre of developmental policies”, as suggested by UNESCO.

On the one hand, current budget cuts to EU funding point to a continuously under-served creative sector. On the other hand, a comparison of the most recent cycle of EU structural funding programmes with earlier cycles demonstrates the shift towards a new industry-centred perspective—cultural and creative production is now recognised as a major economic driver, with a positive creative spillover effect in other sectors as well. Although, Sacco warns that an excessive emphasis on the market dimension of funding policies is too narrow, and points out the importance of new, non-market mediated forms of cultural and creative exchange for Culture 3.0. The role of culture is to mirror society, to be critical, and to ask questions, and therefore culture should be available to the whole society.

Some dissenting voices hold the opinion that the broad availability of free art and cultural activities, made possible by public funding, is actually devaluing art for society, driving artists and creatives to sharpen their business instincts. The reasoning is faulty, but they do have a point—the new way of valuing cultural and creative outcomes will indeed foster new forms of entrepreneurship. The purpose and profit balancing, B Corp® certified, MTArt agency stands out as an example of a business that embodies this new value model and has successfully built its business strategy around it. In a market where everyone invests in works of art, MTArt invests in the artists—connecting them with collectors, investors, museums, cities, and brands. Their approach has proven successful. On average, artists signed to the agency have seen the value of their work grow 150% year-on-year, while MTArt itself is valued at £4.6 million!

“We grow because we are behaving like a sector in a market that acts more like a network. In a sense we have professionalised the way to represent artists—with contracts and a tailored process to help them be successful, and we have succeeded to scale. Having a people business can have high value.” Marine Tanguy, MTArt Founder

“I think when we talk about sustainability, we should, first and foremost, talk about financial sustainability for the artist. That should be the number one goal, because that is the only way an artist can create art of high quality. And high-quality art always brings value […] it can teach us about what is coming. I would argue that the good art produced today is always about what is coming. Because that is the artistic mind—it’s about reflecting, not copying; putting things together in a new, weird way. An artist should be financially stable enough to be able to contribute to our culture.” Signe Sylvester, Educator and Coach

Expect big shifts—entire cultural and creative ecosystems are undergoing a transformation in search for sustainable future models.

The cultural sector’s vital contribution to designing a socially sustainable future could be hampered by the search for financial sustainability. It is not only the financial insecurity of the creative precariat driving change, most cultural institutions/entities are in search of sustainable models that place an enlightened value on creativity.

For example, the ecosystem of small and medium galleries is crucial to the art market. Those galleries are incubating and developing a new generation of talent, but they rarely see meaningful returns on their investment as saleable artists get handpicked by bigger dealers. In his book Management of Art Galleriesi, Magnus Resch argues that most galleries are ‘undercapitalised and inefficient’. The feeling of precarity and the art market’s vulnerability to ‘superstar economics’ help explain the 86% drop in new galleries opening over the past 10 years, despite the steady growth of art salesii. Though there is much talk about galleries reinventing themselves, few innovators believe that ‘galleries are over’. Some, like MTArt, are redefining value models—the agency invests in tailoring development to their artists, and by doing so have succeeded in doubling their growth each year while the majority of galleries are losing money.

The new models are being created with a new understanding of value and distribution—rethinking investment in intangible capital, creating platforms where owned content is shared, and transforming access and ownership in light of technological development. Online audiences, AI-powered image recognition, and blockchain technologies aid existing players in strengthening their positions, but also create new business models and sustainable cultural entities. For example, although the art market is still mostly ‘looking over the fence’ toward blockchain, in 2018 the art investment platform Maecenas used blockchain to tokenizeiii and sell a multimillion dollar artwork—Andy Warhol’s 14 Small Electric Chairs (1980)—for the first time.

On the more human side, it could be social innovations and initiatives that give rise to sustainable models as the sector designs safe harbours for human connection. A new kind of collectors’ club, driven by 21st century understandings of ownership, artistic value, and social impact could become a safety net for up-and-coming artists and creators. Regional municipalities have begun creating new programmes to invest in artists that add value to their cities and economies. New models for the collective ownership of art are being created. Funding strategies are changing as we better understand how economic value is also culture-driven. Expect big shifts!

“If 2/3 of galleries are not making money, we need to find new structures, not loose the artists who can’t afford it.” Marine Tanguy, Founder of MTArt.

Cultural institutions are slow to embrace the pace of change: the elephants can’t gallop, but the gazelles could come to their aid—there are opportunities in collaboration.

“The future ahead of you is decided largely by what you care to remember.”—this is the opening line of a museum event dedicated to future concepts. Indeed, if we take museums as an example, in an increasingly ‘weightless’ virtual world, they are among the last bastions of authenticity—caring for billions of objects that together constitute our shared cultural heritage. As the keepers, protectors, interpreters, and exhibitors of heritage, museums play an essential role, albeit a ‘heavy’ one. Beyond time-consuming debates regarding an updated definition of ‘museum’ (over 250 proposals were submitted to the International Council of Museums), the pressure of scaling, getting beyond, removing restrictions to content, and inspiring creativity is real. “Museums are living hard times. […] We want so many things from museums, but most of them lack financial resources to invest in staff and in time- consuming, though crucial, processes.” — says Diane Drubay, Founder of the We Are Museums movement, organised as a diverse community constantly working to build shared knowledge and experience.

This does not only apply to museums; the organisational setup of most cultural institutions—their hierarchy, funding, management—make them slow, fixed, and often inert. Forced to rethink their core function and role in society, their ways of financing, their ways of addressing and exhibiting content, these institutions often fail in the face of a cultural landscape transformed by the instantaneous production, diffusion, and circulation of content. Cultural institutions are lumbering elephants being challenged by the speedy gazelles—tech, commercial, and creative industries; pop-up galleries; small, agile institutions; new networks and collectives. Their future lies in opening themselves to collaboration with those who are galloping faster. As Amit Sood, CEO of Google Culture Institute, says: “You need people from the cultural and digital sectors in the same room, thinking about the same things. […] Otherwise it’s going to remain a sector that isn’t embracing the digital.”

A fantastic example of one such collaboration is l'Incubateur du patrimoine [The Heritage Incubator] in France, a platform for experimentation, that provides formation, network-building, and expertise in the preservation of historic buildings and collections. It supports the development and testing of projects with the goal of preserving and making good use of France’s cultural and architectural heritage, i.e. 3D-visualization, space organization.

“Asking centuries-old buildings and institutions to change as fast as our society is quite a feat. I call for benevolence and understanding as most of the time the breaks are not the people but the systems in place.” Diane Drubay, Founder of We Are Museums

“We as cultural institutions are being told to become more ‘relevant’ and ‘open’ to the market. But when we try to, we are simultaneously told that we are competing on unfair terms with private actors. But that is kind of paradoxical since we didn’t want to compete that way in the first place.” Bette Thomas, Head of Cultural Activities, The Royal Danish Library

“We’ve seen how strategic collaborations with good intentions have failed, because it was unclear who would benefit the most and what the expectations were.” Bette Thomas, Head of Cultural Activities, The Royal Danish Library

To contribute to the design of an inclusive future, cultural institutions and entire cultural ecosystems are being called on to become more open and agile — to adapt to and mirror the societies of today and tomorrow.

Inclusivity—a universally shared concept for the creation of more just societies—is embodied in at least three of the UN’s seventeen Sustainable Development Goals: Gender Equality, Reduced Inequalities, and Sustainable Cities and Communities. Today, cultural institutions and entire cultural ecosystems are being questioned about their missions, modus operandi, and identities and asked to reshape themselves to contribute to the design of an inclusive future. For example, the art market is now being required to value the artistic expressions of female artists more fairly: although more women than men major in the arts, female artists represent just 2% of the marketi. Weaknesses in the logic of ‘superstar economics’ are being placed under public scrutiny ii, and galleries are being criticized for their ‘small-minded’ suppression of artists’ potential.

Beyond the other values they contribute, cultural institutions are now required to be useful—to lead the way by mirroring the rich diversity and complexity of our contemporary world. Museums are asked to engage with and merge with their local environments, to become active local partners that both reflect the worldliness of their visitors and provide what local communities need in order to enhance our shared understandings of the world. Laura Wilkinson, Programme Director, New Museum, writes: “How do we [museums] change? By working with people not like us. By challenging our hierarchical models of decision making. By loosening our structures and flexing the 9–5. By extending our horizons.”iii

Some point to Nature as a source of inspiration for the future of cultural institutions and ecosystems. We Are Museums teamed up with the Biomimicry Academy to understand how the museums of the future could also find inspiration in Nature. “Museums today can be transformed by bioinspired mindsets, ecosystems, and organisations. They could become a new kind of species, more inspired by nature—permeable, porous, and open—not merely big blocks of stone,” says founder Diane Drubay. The museums of the future will be the embodiment of polyphonic, porous, democratized spaces brought to life through local participants vocalizing the challenges, conflicts, and needs of the past, present, and future.

“When you really understand the past, you can build a movement for a better future. And this is actually something you can do with museums; museums being the key places where you can debate, reflect, get inspired, learn and understand, create. In our vision, museums are at the heartbeat of what our societies could be” Diane Drubay, Founder, We Are Museums

“Museums should be useful beyond everything. That is something museums have actually forgotten. Being public spaces, mostly funded by the public and open to the public, museums should mirror the diversity of the public and respond to the needs and the questions of the public of today and of the upcoming generation.” Diane Drubay, Founder, We Are Museums

Connecting people with creativity, knowledge, ideas — connecting different industries: the future value is with the connectors.

“If we gave someone the MET’s mission statement today—‘to connect people to creativity, knowledge and ideas’—nobody would build a building.[…. They] would probably start some kind of digital presence. How to realise this mission in a way that is useful is a valid question.“—Loic Tallon, former CDO of The Metropolitan Museum of Arti.

In the Culture 3.0ii landscape, cultural entities are looking everywhere for opportunities to foster connections in an attempt to stay relevant as creators of social and economic value. Museums are reassessing how to generate new value by embracing digital connectivity and the opportunities provided by technological developments. For example, Google Arts & Culture aimed not only to organise the world of culture, but to make it accessible, to ‘give people a sense of magic’iii through new ways of connecting with works of art and cultural sites. Christie’s continues to ‘increase engagement and attract new audiences’iv by investing in digital initiatives, and apps like Magnusv — the new ‘Shazam for art’—entice millennials into the art market.

‘Platform thinking’ prevails when institutions go out into the world with a cultural narrative. “We should be able to look at everything we do through the cultural, creative perspective,” —says Per-Arne Wikström, Director of Communications at the Swedish Institute. But creating those connections is more challenging than it sounds. The cultural narrative has to be clear, appeal to wide audiences, and link to other sectors and subjects. For example: “With the story of Pippi Longstocking we can speak of childcare, gender roles.” Yet the fragmented media landscape and increasing accessibility to and from new media platforms is breaking up the cultural landscape. Outside of our immediate social bubbles, we lack uniting stories and cultural reference points.

Some believe the reverse is true, that splitting up stale, uniform narratives will create better connections. “How can cultural institutions uphold the overall, central story of population, when people don’t want to be part of that story? There is a general rejection of set narratives, which might only be addressed by splitting up the uniform story into decentralised and participatory hubs...” — says Joseph Ekoko from ArtRebels. “No more platforms, please!” says Aaste Helgesen Stegarud, Head of Events at the SMK National Gallery in Denmark. “They take too much time.”

“Me and curators alike will be in between utopia and reality, connectors forging new relationships.” Gaël Charbau, Curator and Artistic Director.
Gaël believes that it is outside ‘the machine of art’
where the opportunities lie for both curators and
artists to actually “have a say about the world of tomorrow”.

“When I was young, I remember how we all saw the same film or series on the TV. That was uniting people. Everyone had the same cultural reference point. This year’s Nordic Julekalender [Scandinavian TV-phenomenon—an annual Christmas advent story in 24 episodes] was so wrong because everyone saw a different Nordic Julekalender. It was not uniting, it was rather exhausting because people were competing over which Julekalender was the best.” Amalie Næsby Fick, film director.

Cultural institutions must start acting for the good of the people and the planet, otherwise they face extinction.

‘Ecoanxiety’ is real. Fear of climate change and planetary deterioration is causing mass anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Overwhelming, bigger-than-us problems are pushing many of us into a state of fear. We hide there, instead of learning, activating, changing. Recognising this global anxiety, the second iteration of the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA) will examine ‘the end of a world’—a loud, worn-out, yet still crucial theme. Curator Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel points to our lack of ‘creative models’ to advance our obsession with the subject. “Apocalypse discourse has almost become a new religion, with its own prophets and economy. […] We need to revise our idea that nature is outside of us, a distant monster we could eventually master. We are part of it. This is why I am interested in the idea of re-enchantment […], listening to the voices of those we have silenced or couldn’t hear. We need to understand how to thrive together on a shared planet.” (N WIND, issue 16)

Art/culture would be best positioned as a mindful, open platform/space where interested people can come together to reflect, create, and integrate ‘creative models’ for engaging with the environment, for loosening the grip of fear and opening up to possibility. The climate crisis—and our growing awareness of it—is motivating cultural institutions to step up and lead the way for planetary action. We Are Museums is campaigning to establish a new understanding of the role of culture in mentoring societies to respect other people and the Planet. “I believe that museums can actually transform people and transform the society that we currently are.” — says founder Diane Drubay. Cultural institutions can play a pivotal role in our current state of urgency by acting as positive change agents within the social ecology, deploying sustainable operational models that engender respect for the natural world at their very core. Institutions can commit to fostering ecological sustainability, and the ethics attached to it, on multiple layers.

This can only happen from the inside out—by challenging unsustainable habits, bringing nature back into our daily lives, creating inclusive living spaces, developing new ways of being, and practicing care within our local communities. Museums and other cultural institutions now have the opportunity to connect networks of people and knowledge; by taking on the role of host, they can provide the missing piece that unleashes the pent-up power and longing of local actors to act on the responsibility so many of us feel for our Planet. In doing this, they can become spaces that invite discussion, facilitate action, and support regeneration.

“If you start seeing museums as useful to individuals, communities, neighbours, and society, you start seeing that museums should also start acting against climate crisis. It’s the ethics of care: if you start to care for people, you need to actually start caring for the Planet as well.” Diane Drubay, Founder of We Are Museums

“You can try to implement sustainability in the education, but I also think it’s important to implement it in our surroundings. A discussion we have: how can you ask students to be aware of the environment if they go into the [educational] facilities and find nobody there is addressing the issue? Why would they believe it’s important? That’s why I would like this organization to do more.” Annette Finnsdottir, Head of Study at Zealand.