CNZ 21st Century Arts Conference

[UPDATE - Join the smART talk forums from 27 July 2009 to participate in ongoing discussion. The announcement here has more information.]

National and international leading voices talked about the challenges and opportunities towards becoming a 21st century audience focused organisation at Creative New Zealand’s inaugural 21st Century Arts Conference.

The conference took a pan-art form approach and was promoted to CEOs and arts leaders as well as marketers to encourage cross disciplinary teams to engage with big 21st century ideas and tactics.

Its origin lies in the theory of the seven pillars of audience focus that have been developed by Morris Hargreaves McIntyre: vision-led, value-driven, outcome-oriented, outward-facing, insight-guided, interactively-engaged and personalised.

Speakers included Diane Ragsdale, Alastair Carruthers, Tim Baker, Vicki Allpress-Hill, Stuart Nicolle, Tim Roberts and Helen Bartle and Andrew McIntyre.

Keynote speaker Diane Ragsdale spoke about surviving the culture change. Ragsdale is the Associate Program Officer at the performing arts programme at the Andrew W Mellon Foundation which in 2007 provided approximately $42m to arts organisations in the USA.

“As a result of new technologies, generational shifts and economic divides, changing demographics, increasing diversity in cities and town across America, a trend towards anti-intellectualism, increased competition for people's leisure time, cuts in funding for the arts in K-12 education, the decline in arts coverage in newspapers, and many other forces, we are seeing a profound shift in the interrelated relationships between people, space, time, and art, and changes in the ways that people create, consume, commune, and communicate.”

“So what does this mean for the arts? Russell Willis Taylor of the Washington, DC-based National Arts Strategies said to me once, when I asked her what were her greatest concerns for the arts, that she was troubled by the fact that arts organizations in the US can't easily explain to people why they matter. I would say that this - the fact that the arts don't appear to matter to people in the US - is one of the most serious consequences of the culture change. This is the iceberg. This is the thing, which if we don't start dealing with it, could sink us.”

Diane Ragsdale also discussed some ideas for surviving cultural change.

“Yes, we need to bring our marketing into the 2lst century; but first, we need to bring our missions into the 21st century. This is less a failure to sell well, and more a failure to see well-a failure to see that our communities have changed, and that art and artists have changed, and that we, perhaps, as institutions that exist to broker a relationship between the two (communities and artists) have not changed in response.”

She outlined ten ideas for surviving-adapting to the culture change.

1. Beware Unsustainable Growth, Silos, & Mission Creep
2. Don't Conflate Money or Attendance with Impact.
3. Go Cellular.
4. Let The Art Dictate The Space-Not The Other Way Around
5. Fuel A Fan Base-Sample & Share!
6. You Can't Fix It In Post
7. Let People In On The Action
8. Be a Concierge: Filter and Make Recommendations
9. Aggregate Supply and Demand for AII Culture
10. Beware the Search for Silver Bullets and Innovation for Its Own Sake

"Perhaps it's time for us to stop waiting for people to find us, to appreciate us, and instead move toward them; seek to understand them: break into their hearts and minds - in that order."

More information

Creative New Zealand’s 21st Century Arts Conference was held at the Aotea Centre, THE EDGE on 26 and 27 June, 2008.

Related story

Alastair Carruthers, Creative NZ Arts Council Chair Excellence and Engagement

Related Video

See a video of Diane Ragsdale's full keynote address at the 21st Century Arts Conference