News

On 30 May in Madison, Wisconsin in the United States, ENCATC will join forces with the Association of Arts Administration Educators for a joint international panel discussion. ENCATC will be represented by its Vice-President, Ana Gaio from City, University of London as well as ENCATC will also be represented its Secretary of the Board, Richard Maloney from New York University. This event will be the occasion for the two networks to share perspectives, ideas, and explore solutions to common challenges. 

Arts administration is still young and evolving but it is also a dynamic discipline and one that has steadily matured over the past fifty or so years. Over this period, not only have the fields of study and the range and scope of the subjects explored gradually expanded, not least given what seems to be the inherent interdisciplinary nature of the field, but the discipline has also significantly developed as a field of research in its own right.  These developments have supported the consolidation of the discipline and, critically, its institutionalisation in academia, which is reflected in the number of those now studying in this area/s of studies, the number of academics teaching and researching in the field and, last but by no means least, the gradual proliferation and quality of academic journals and other publications on offer and their readership. 

Another significant development is that arts administration has also expanded across the globe which is tangible in both the education and research dimensions.  This expansion has materialised in a variety of ways – we have seen (1) cognate but distinct directions emerge in curricula and research depending on the lens used – arts administration, cultural management, creative industries and any permutation of their subjects – and the faculties where they nest, from arts to social sciences to business schools; and (2) different foci and frames of reference deployed in the discipline as local traditions are borne out of and shaped by locally defined cultural sectors, culture/s, political economies and cultural politics.  At the same time (3) the rise of international demand for graduate education and research (and research education) in the subject has promoted reflection on the impact of internationalisation of content, curricula, learning and teaching to the forefront of the debate among arts administration educators all over the world. 

In this context of evolution, expansion and global growth it is helpful to step back and assess the key patterns and themes that are emerging in our discipline in different regions of the world – whilst the eclectic foundations and interdisciplinary nature of arts administration were necessary conditions to its development, the first half-century milestone seems to be an appropriate point in time to comparatively and systematically benchmark current programmes and expressions of the field, consider the factors and geographies that are currently shaping it and appraise what the future might look like. 

Key questions for debate are: 

• To what extent can we speak of a core corpus of knowledge in arts administration (despite the inherent diversity of the discipline)? What would that be and to what extent has arts administration become codified as a discipline? If so, what indicators can we use to assess this?
• Is arts administration to any extent a globalised field of study? 
• What emphases or directions do we observe in arts administration and cognate programmes, for example, in terms of subjects, knowledge and understanding, the specific skills that are key to those who want to operate in the field, values, the balance between theoretical and applied.
• What are the relationships between arts administration and other fields, what are ‘usual suspect’ fields and overlaps that constitute (and frame?) interdisciplinarity? How is this affecting our field? What are the recent trends here? 
• What are the current learning and teaching approaches and trends in the field? 
• What can we learn from educational and research practices elsewhere?
• What methodologies can we deploy to gauge where the future is coming from? 

Learn more and attend this panel discussion to be held during the 2019 AAAE Conference 30 May - 1 June in Madison, WI, USA: http://conference.artsadministration.org/