Art Futures: Justin O’Connor on Culture and Democracy - Whitechapel Gallery

Art Futures: Justin O’Connor on Culture and Democracy

  • Tickets availiable (1)

    Book cover – Culture is Not an Industry, Justin O’Connor

Thu 25 Sept, 6.30-8pm

Gallery 2

Monday Closed
Tuesday 11am–6pm
Wednesday 11am–6pm
Thursday 11am–9pm
Friday 11am–6pm
Saturday 11am–6pm
Sunday 11am–6pm

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Talk
Art Futures: Justin O’Connor on Culture and Democracy

Join a global policy expert to think about culture’s future role.

In this keynote talk, Professor Justin O’Connor explores how we might rediscover the radical energies of culture to create a bold and powerful vision for change.

Drawing on his acclaimed book, Culture is Not an Industry, O’Connor challenges the established economic arguments underpinning cultural policy. Instead, he advocates for ‘culture’ as a public good and an essential part of our democratic citizenship.

This is the first event in a major new Whitechapel Gallery series – Art Futures – which looks at the role of public art institutions at a time of multiple crises, bringing together audiences with artists, writers, academics and policy-makers to collectively imagine alternative visions.

Justin O'Connor

Justin O’Connor is Professor of Cultural Economy at Adelaide University and a Visiting Professor at the School of Cultural Management, Shanghai Jiaotong University. Between 2012-18 he was a member of the UNESCO ‘Expert Facility’, supporting the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity. Previously he helped set up Manchester’s Creative Industries Development Service (CIDS) and has advised cities in Australia, Europe, Russia, Korea, Vietnam and China.

Justin is co-editor of the 2015 Routledge Companion to the Cultural IndustriesCultural Industries in Shanghai: Policy and Planning inside a Global City, (2018); Re-Imagining Creative Cities in Asia (2020) and recently co-authored Red Creative: Culture and Modernity in China (Intellect, 2020) and Culture is Not an Industry (Manchester University Press).

More information at https://justin-oconnor.com