Category: issues

Hi, It’s 2020, Why Are Women Having To Prove Women’s Stories Are Valuable … Again?

Seriously, WTF, 2020 awards season? Last year, 2019, was “a year in which a slate of female-driven and directed movies topped the box office – Hustlers, directed by Lorene Scafaria, raked in over $156m this fall – or received critical acclaim and attention (Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood). And yet the pillars of acclaim in the industry – awards, at once irrelevant and its own cottage industry of symbolic importance – still almost never reward female-directed films, or films about women at all.” – The Guardian (UK)

English Funding Directly To Artists Has Declined. Here Are The Consequences

In 2001, the newly-unified Arts Council England (ACE), with plentiful government and lottery arts funding, made the expansive claim of making artists central to arts policy. The individuals strand of the ‘brave and radical’ Grants for the Arts (GftA) programme promised artists ‘the chance to dream without having to produce’. It initially went a long way to doing that, as 40% of the value of grants went to 3,279 artists, who had a success rate of 52%. More than half were newcomers to Arts Council funding. From 2003-2008 almost 6,000 artists shared some £39m, with almost a quarter of grants for R&D. But austerity and scarceness of arts funding changed all that. – Arts Professional

Now In The Public Domain: These Works Came Out Of Copyright This Week

“These works include George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, silent films by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and books such as Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, and A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young. These works were supposed to go into the public domain in 2000, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years.” – Public Domain Day

Rome’s Mayor Orders Relocation Of All Souvenir Stalls Near Major Attractions

“Seventeen stalls will be moved from sites including the Trevi fountain, Spanish Steps, the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. However, eight of the 17 will still be able to trade on streets away from the monuments, Rome’s authorities said in a notice. [Mayor Virginia] Raggi, who has long pledged to banish the stalls, said the move was intended to protect Rome’s heritage while ensuring safety at its most-visited sites. She said last year that the stalls were sullying the city’s image.” – The Guardian

In Brazil, Artists And Musicians Are Leading The Resistance To Bolsonaro

“‘We can’t become anaesthetised and think, ‘Oh, he won [the election]. There’s nothing we can do,” said [Edu] Krieger, who has written songs for some of Brazil’s most celebrated female voices. ‘At least through our music we can pester them a bit and make some noise. This is the most efficient kind of resistance we can mount right now … We can’t just passively accept the kind of situation they are trying to impose.'” – The Guardian

New York Is Losing Its Human Scale – Here’s How It’s Happening

“If we continue to allow the erosion of the human-scale city and long-evolved urbanism on which it depends, then I fear for the future. The first thing needed is a public exhibit of the many empty sites across the boroughs of New York, and a representation of what further, unchecked upzoning will it make possible to build in the future. But without a well-organized, well-financed campaign like the effort to save Grand Central, or a singular leader like Jane Jacobs able to take on the powers that be and a press willing to give these battles full coverage, the perilous undermining of authentic urbanism will continue.” – New York Review of Books