“Some industries will forsake the senior audience, other industries will court it. And those decisions are likely the result of research and judgments. Which end of the spectrum will we end up on, and is it likely some arts organizations will embrace the senior growth market, while others of us, flee from it?”
Category: issues
Queens Without Borders: A Berlin Drag Show Offers Welcome And Aid To Queer Refugees
The project’s organizer, an Australian expat whose drag name is Olympia Bukkakis, “describes the show, with a bit of a cringe, as ‘conceptual drag,’ where specific themes are explored through various acts. It features a mixture of ‘punk, alternative queens’ along with refugees new to the city, incorporating belly dancing, burkas, and gender-bender performance art.”
The Olympics Promised London A Legacy. Sure, What What Did It Turn Out To Be?
“That London has a lasting physical inheritance from its two-week £12bn jamboree is indisputable, but what kind of place is the promised Legacy-land turning out to be?”
A Clinically Depressed Egg Yolk Is One Of Japan’s Most Popular Cartoon Mascots
“Meet Gudetama, the anthropomorphic embodiment of severe depression. Gudetama … feels existence is almost unbearable. It shivers with sadness. It clings to a strip of bacon as a security blanket. Rather than engage in society, it jams its face into an eggshell and mutters the words, ‘Cold world. What can we do about it?'”
When Is Cultural Appropriation Just Exploitation (And When Is It Expanding The Culture?)
“Of course, it’s hard for any people who are socially dispossessed not to feel extra possessive when it comes to their cultural icons and their reception by a more socially dominant audience, particularly when there’s ample evidence of those same icons being celebrated (and dismissed) by the majority in an ignorant way. It’s kind of bleak right now.”
What Is Science Doing At A Music Festival?
“What we do is help people bridge that gap themselves by stimulating them. The trick is communication. Music is about communicating emotion. Science is about discovering facts, but if you can’t communicate them there is little point in discovering them.”
UK Report: Number Of Children Participating In The Arts Falls
“Overall, 98% of five to 15-year-olds engaged with the arts in 2015/16, the report claims. However, numbers for specific genres including theatre, music and dance, have decreased.”
Do The Arts Really Matter? (But Why?)
“Art opens us up to new ideas – so important always, but crucial now as the world seems to be losing its peripheral vision. We can all take refuge in our echo chambers, but the danger of cutting ourselves off from other ideas – or from ideas, period – is in vibrant display at the moment.”
David Brooks: How Artists Reframe The World
As usual, there were a ton of artists and musicians at the political conventions this year. And that raises some questions. How much should artists get involved in politics? How can artists best promote social change?
Is Everything Art? Is Everyone An Artist? Some Definitions Please…
“Yes there is music and yes there is painting, but is there such a thing as art? The arts? Do we need art to make sense as something other than a phantasm, or a useful fiction, to be able to advocate for it? Does that fabrication invalidate our efforts?”