Category: issues

“The claim is made in a major new report into the impact that being a parent can have on people working in the sector, which also found that around three quarters of survey respondents – 74% – had to turn down work because of having a child.”

“This is a new kind of cultural amenity, a new kind of institution—a hybrid gallery, media archive and library, and community center. It is an institution of and for the South Side—a repository for African American culture and history, a laboratory for the next generation of black artists and culture-interested people; a platform to showcase future leaders—be they painters, educators, scholars, or curators.”

“The gutting of arts funding at the national, state and local levels left a gap to be filled by private mega-donors and corporate philanthropy. This has transformed the non-profit performing arts into a funhouse mirror version of America’s corporate sector.”

“At a time of heightened racial tensions across the world, with police shootings of black men in the United States and Islamophobia (and phobias of all kinds) seemingly on the rise, this rage against cultural appropriation is understandable: no right-minded liberal wants to cause unnecessary offence, least of all to minorities. Yet simply to point out instances of appropriation in the assumption that the process is by its nature corrosive seems to me a counterproductive, even reactionary pursuit; it serves no end but to essentialise race as the ultimate component of human identity.”

“People who enjoyed what were once known as guilty pleasures have absolved themselves of guilt. Arguments that people should be ashamed of lower-order tastes – like Ruth Graham’s attack on adults who read young-adult books – are actually quite rare. Yet anxiety about all this is pervasive, as if everyone’s high-school English teacher were lurking around the corner, ready to scold us for skipping Middlemarch on the summer reading list.”

“The venue – a dome-shaped tent dubbed the Good Chance Theatre – runs workshops on writing, drama and choral singing, as well as poetry and spoken word events. It was founded by playwrights Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, who plan to stage weekly productions created by migrants, as well as host touring productions by theatre companies and artists from around the world.”

“The text of the current deal has not been made public yet, but as cultural executives quietly peruse summaries or read the smoke signals emitting from the recently concluded negotiations, one big difference is readily apparent: Nobody cares enough about their issues these days to launch a national debate about them. Sure, Canadians are worried what will happen to the auto-parts and dairy industries, but how the deal might affect their access to culture is barely mentioned in polls or news reports.”

Robinson: “I think that we have created this incredibly inappropriate sort of in-group mentality when we really are from every end of the earth, just dealing with each other in good faith. And that’s just a terrible darkening of the national outlook.”
Obama: “We’ve talked about this, though. I’m always trying to push a little more optimism.”

Lucy Liu, Watson on the show ‘Elementary,’ said, “The one thing I’ve learned, and I think everyone can take this away with them, is that a closed mouth doesn’t get fed. … So open your mouth. If somebody says no to you, that’s fine. You’re going to hear no a lot in your life, and that’s just what it is. And somebody’s gonna say yes sometime. So you always have to ask the question.”