Arts, Culture, Country

Currency House Platform Paper Launch

Associate Professor Josephine Caust, Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne

This Friday please join us for a discussion of the big ideas in the next issue of Currency House’s New Platform Papers series, Arts, Culture, Country, with the author, Associate Professor Josephine Caust, Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Jo will be joined by a distinguished panel, comprising TaPS graduates Dr Liza-Mare Syron (Senior Scientia Lecturer at the University of NSW) Augusta Supple (Senior Manager, Strategic Projects and Engagement Create NSW)*, Dom Mercer (Artistic Associate, Belvoir), and Bella Nantsou (PhD candidate, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Sydney).

The discussion will be moderated by Ian Maxwell, Head of School, School of Literature, Art and Media.

For years the arts sector has provided evidence of its economic benefits, as well as its intrinsic value to society. Yet politicians remain impervious to these arguments. Increasingly, it is ideology rather than evidence that determines government policy. In other words, support for the arts is not primarily a question of economics. It is a question of values.

The pandemic has made people realise the seminal importance of the arts and culture to our national well-being, but politicians do not see them as a central part of policymaking. Arts and culture are intertwined. We need to change how we view the relationship between the two within the political framework. This monograph presents some ideas on how to do it.

The paper is available for download from the CurrencyHouse website currencyhouse.org.au The essay will be published in its final form, with the other essays for 2022, in paperback at the end of the year.

*Note: Ms Supple will be speaking her non-official,  non-work capacity, as a long-term observer of, and participant in the theatre/cultural scene, rather than as a representative of Create NSW.

Time: 3-5.00pm

Woolley Common Room
John Woolley Bldg, Rm N480
Sydney University

If you are attending in person, please register online.

Joining via Zoom

Join the event virtually via Zoom. Click here to register for the Online Event.