"The easiest gain is then to produce less. Because high production implies a lot of energy and material use, travel movements and other forms of impact." Last week, the Council for Culture's long-awaited opinion on sustainability was released, and sooner than I could click 'open', all was set. Came all because of the above sentence, which, mentioned in...
Eerlijke beloning, vertrouwen in de culturele sector en minder administratieve lasten horen tot de belangrijkste uitgangspunten voor de culturele subsidieperiode 2025 – 2028. Staatssecretaris Uslu (Cultuur en Media) wil hiermee de komende jaren zoveel mogelijk rust brengen in de sector. Ook pakt ze een aantal knelpunten aan, bijvoorbeeld bij de jeugdpodiumkunsten. Zij volgt grotendeels het advies op van de Raad…
In the series In Perspective, Erik Akkermans looks back and ahead at developments in cultural policy and practice. Today: walk of the orchestras. In the Hall of Mirrors January 1980, the Hall of Mirrors in the Concertgebouw. Culture minister Til Gardeniers accepts the report "Possession in service" 1 presented by the Federation of Artists' Associations. I found it exciting because the report, commissioned by...
Today, the second meeting of the design teams providing input for the Council for Culture's advice on renewing the cultural system towards 2029 takes place. This time, the teams will meet at the Public Library on the Neude in Utrecht. The teams will work to define design questions more sharply and will draw inspiration from...
The Dutch government distrusts citizens. And that stands in the way of a healthy art sector. This emerged on 17 January during a well-attended symposium at Amsterdam's Veem House. The occasion was the essay published in book form by Renée Steenbergen, who also published articles on this site. At the event, co-organised by Veem and Platform Beeldende Kunst, many makers were...
This is a pre-publication from the book The Art of Different, which will be available from 17 January 2023 via the author's site The arts sector is vulnerable, as was unmistakably demonstrated during the pandemic years. It is also clear that these are not just temporary setbacks, but problems of a structural nature. These were already in play before Corona but were anticipated...
Since the budget cuts from 2011 onwards, policymakers have been setting the so-called 'creative industries' as a model for the arts. Industrial design, architecture, graphic design and the gaming industry: the creatives have been nuked as a 'top sector'. This, I believe, is the deeper cause of the unease expressed in this newspaper's Cultural Supplement: the increasing instrumentalisation of the arts by policymakers. The piece 'Why the...
Almelo has been on the map for a few years now thanks to theatre. I went to see Van Katoen en Water on Thursday, an open-air spectacle with well-timed downpour and a full-moon rise like you can only experience in the almost gentrified old-industrial heart of Twente's poorest city. Mashed potatoes were served beforehand, with a johmas salad. Wine flowed profusely. In...
Let's start yesterday with a fundamental dialogue with the entire arts sector, using the vitality and creativity of the arts as inspiration, both for the sector itself and for society as a whole. Our sector talking, thinking, participating, deciding! in good times and in bad times. Never be silent again ...
The Turfsteker rejected The mayor was angry. The councillor was angry. Everyone was angry because the A municipality wanted to put up a work of art by a locally highly esteemed sculptor as a tribute to the peat cutter, but was denied a grant by the province. The Cultural Council had advised negatively. The relevant advisory committee lamented the artist's figurative work; it left nothing to...
‘Wij hebben uitsluitend aangename, betrokken mensen ontmoet met het hart op de goede plek voor de Rotterdamse cultuur.’ Zo luidt de laatste zin van een rapport van het Utrechtse adviesbureau Rijnconsult over de toekomst van de Rotterdamse Raad voor Kunst en Cultuur (RRKC). Op basis van dat onderzoek heeft wethouder Said Kasmi (D66) deze week besloten de RRKC per 1…
Culture and Media State Secretary Gunay Uslu today presented her recovery plan for the cultural sector. Recovery, renewal and growth are central. This year, it involves €135 million structurally and then rises to an extra €170 million a year for culture. The future of the cultural and creative field has been under great pressure due to the corona crisis and is...
It is obviously good news: the German federal culture minister is increasing the budget for culture by 148 million euros to 2.3 billion. At a time when cultural funding, especially in the 'developed West', has been steadily declining (since 2010), such an increase is of course wonderful. For the Dutch, who point out with some regularity how well the arts are doing in Germany: per head of...
A rather voluminous (331 pages) report was published today by UNESCO, the UN organisation that deals with culture, development and education. In it, the organisation evaluates the extent to which the goals set by the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity have been met. The picture is not rosy. Mainly because of Corona, job losses are...
The virus may be unpredictable, but how we respond to it need not be. The Cultural and Creative Sector Taskforce calls on the government to quickly come up with a predictable government strategy aimed at different stages of the pandemic. Indicate at which corona signal values restrictive measures for the cultural sector come into effect or can be lifted. Link...
It all goes into effect only in 2023, at the earliest, but the first gusts of fresh wind blowing through the Performing Arts Fund are stirring the treetops. Under new director Viktorien van Hulst, the Fund wants to put an end to the many subsidy schemes that in recent years, under the guise of 'customisation', have become a bureaucratic jungle...
He will not be thanked, the headline above this article. After all, if there is one thing you don't want, it is to give a minister of a Rutte cabinet a compliment. And certainly not one of culture, the sector that, under Rutte's 10-year premiership, suffered the heaviest blows in post-war history. Rutte is the...
The uncertainty of the events sector and cultural institutions, after 17 months of lockdowns and one-half-meter openings, is not only disastrous for the mood of executives, artists and spectators. According to the Creative Sector Taskforce, much more is being lost. In fact, a 'Marshall Plan' is needed to help the cultural and creative sector get back on its feet,...
Up to and including the union, the message was shared: outgoing culture minister Ingrid van Engelshoven had allegedly gone overboard with her diversity policy and now wants to ban non-diverse art from universities. It was big in the Telegraaf and former cabaret artist Hans Teeuwen got a few hundred thousand likes with it on Instagram. Meanwhile, it has also reached the columns of Het Parool thanks to 'artist'
It is a great thing that there are comedians who keep a finger on the pulse of society. Hans Teeuwen, for instance, has once again made himself angry. He has joined the small chorus of (mostly) men who see the end of the world coming because of a rebuttal. That is the rebuttal that now comes via social media
Even though she has lived in the Netherlands since she was three, journalist and radio TV presenter Naeeda Aurangzeb (47) is still not considered a full-fledged compatriot. In her book 365 dagen Nederlander, she gives a disconcerting picture in short sketches of how non-white Dutch people or Dutch people with a migration background are treated. Biology teacher to class 'This is what you call olive-coloured skin. You can...
Those blessed with the surname 'sheep' not only know that they come from a rich and honourable lineage, but also know by heart all the proverbs, sayings and name jokes, offensive or otherwise. Up to and including comradely blathering chiefs of art. Then the fact that Flemish theatre company FC Bergman is producing a show titled 'The Sheep...
'In order to strengthen the position of self-employed workers, a regulation could be revisited that would make it easier to enter into several short-term contracts throughout the year with interim retention of benefits.' There is a lot of useful stuff in the Culture Council's opinion published today, but this sentence made me the happiest. Not so happy yet...
The most recent bulk of cultural rescue money was distributed to municipal councils without the obligation to actually spend that money on culture. Indeed, that so-called 'earmarking' was too cumbersome and time-consuming, according to now outgoing culture minister Ingrid van Engelshoven. (Malicious people suggest that this way Rutte and Wiebes were willing to cross the bridge, because the money would not...
Shall I just start straight to the point? I am angry with my sector colleagues. Not at all of them, but at a very large proportion. I am angry at all those big youth theatre companies that have figured out from their marketing departments with fat subsidies that a registration for youth theatre is only worth 2.99. So taking the whole family to watch...
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