Arts Policy Research Articles

Integrating Sustainability into Contemporary Art and Design: An Interdisciplinary Approach

This study confronts the ambiguous concept of sustainability within contemporary art and design, seeking to define and operationalize it through an interdisciplinary lens. By synthesizing philosophical, technological, and artistic methodologies, this research utilizes qualitative analysis and detailed case studies to evaluate the sustainable attributes of modern decorative arts. Focusing on the integration of nature and technology, the investigation spans various artistic disciplines, critically assessing their contributions to sustainable practices. The results indicate that an innovative use of materials and avant-garde design approaches significantly advance sustainability, highlighting the role of contemporary art in promoting environmental consciousness and sustainability in policy-making. Conclusively, in this paper, a paradigm shift in art and design education and policy is argued for, advocating for a proactive engagement with sustainability that extends beyond traditional artistic boundaries, thus providing a framework for future sustainable development strategies in the arts. This study offers a comprehensive model for understanding and implementing sustainability that could influence future artistic and educational practices globally.

공공미술로서 AI를 활용한 인터랙티브 미디어아트 제안

Media art attracts public attention for its newness and differentiation from existing art and media art converged with the latest technology, AI is being presented in public art. This paper proposes interactive media art using AI as public art. Powerful interactions that are more personalized, non-linear, and multidirectional should be delivered through AI. They need to make interactive media art more interesting for citizens to expect and participate in, and provide differentiated experiences through diverse communication and empathy with artworks. When establishing public art policies, a virtuous cycle structure that leads to public participation is proposed by preparing a strategy to promote the work to the public through sharing and co-creation of artworks on SNS. For citizen-centered public art, citizens' needs should be identified through AI data analysis and reflected in policies and creation. Interactive media art using AI as public art should promote citizen participation and communication and advance in the direction of developing a citizen-centered culture.

Chinese Russian language teachers’ agency in response to the New Liberal Arts policy

Chinese Russian language teachers’ agency in response to the New Liberal Arts policy

Kardeş Türküler as ‘art action’: The multiple cultural heritages of Anatolia

Abstract This article focuses on Kardeş Türküler, a band that reflects the multiple cultural heritages of Anatolia in its concerts and albums. Kardeş Türküler has taken a unique stance in choosing to express itself from a culturally pluralistic perspective rather than following a single language or identity. Referring to Kardeş Türküler as ‘art action’, and utilising the non-reductive methods of John Street that focus on the two-way interaction between music and politics, I conducted in-depth interviews in 2017, 2020 and 2021 with the core members and the former coach of the group regarding its intellectual roots and internal modus operandi. There are three main reasons for Kardeş Türküler's deep engagement with music as protest: being against the cultural–artistic policies of the Republican period; the political meaning of making multilingual music in Turkiye; and Kardeş Türküler's engagement with post-neoliberal street protests such as the Gezi Park movement.

Integrating Health Policy Into Undergraduate Physiology: A Pedagogical Framework

Evidence-based health policies save lives. Rising to meet the global health challenges of the 21st century (e.g., the climate crisis, infectious diseases, health inequity) will require more scientists to participate in the policymaking process. However, few opportunities exist for STEM students to learn how their scientific knowledge can be applied to policy, or how they can shape the policies that govern science in the United States. Additionally, although scientific expertise is necessary to create effective health policies, it is not suffcient. For example, many scientifically sound policies (e.g., masking, vaccination) fail in the implementation phases because they are not communicated effectively to their intended audience. Here we share a pedagogical framework for integrating health policy into existing undergraduate physiology courses using examples from Anatomy and Physiology, Physiological Model Systems, and Public Communication of Physiology. This framework empowers students to develop procedural knowledge about state and federal policymaking, discuss examples of biomedical scientists and healthcare workers contributing to policy and rulemaking, link course curricula to current legislation proposed at the state or federal level, and advocate using their scientific knowledge and lived experiences as scientists. It also incorporates foundational science communication training that goes beyond the commonly used deficit framework (i.e., “educating the public”), and instead emphasizes dialogue (e.g., listening to stakeholders), rhetorical strategy (e.g., storytelling), trust-building, discrete goal setting, and positionality. Lastly, we provide preliminary evidence that using this health policy toolbox leads to student empowerment in policy and advocacy, development of practical communication skills applicable to their future careers, and deep affective connections to their physiology coursework. This project was supported by the Alan R. Bennett College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Public Health Policy Research Fund at the University of Connecticut. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.

‘Formalistic Freaks in Music’: ‘Ilya Golovin’, Shostakovich, and Zhdanovshchina for the Masses

ABSTRACT Amidst all the art, literature, music, and theatre of the ‘Zhdanovshchina’ (the post-war Soviet intervention in arts policy), one play stands out: Sergei Mikhalkov’s Ilya Golovin. In this play, a leading Soviet composer is chastised for his formalism but sees the error of his ways and again writes music of sufficiently socialist character. Ilya Golovin is noteworthy not just because it presents a crude parody of Shostakovich and his music, but because it reveals the wider context of the ideological campaign against artists and shows us something of how different artists responded. In this article, I argue that Ilya Golovin is not simply a bizarre example of multiple artists toeing the ideological line: instead it reveals the uglier side of late Stalinism in the form of vehement anti-Semitism, as well as demonstrating the xenophobic Cold War patriotism that served as the ultimate motivation behind the Zhdanovshchina itself.

Oppression of Ukrainian Cinematography during the Years of Stalinism

The purpose of the research is to highlight the forms of pressure on Soviet cinematographers during the years of Stalinist repressions. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity, and a comprehensive approach. The work uses the historical-genetic method, which indicates the cause-and-effect relationships of repressive actions in relation to the specified artists. The historical-comparative method makes it possible to analyse the peculiarities of cultural policy in 1940, 1943 and 1946, to find out how the Second World War affected art and state policy in the field of cinematography. The systematic method makes it possible to understand that cinematography was a component of ideological influence on the population. The novelty of the study. For the first time, the history and creative work of Soviet cinematographers, who were natives of Ukraine and whose criticism symbolised certain stages in the ideological policy of the Communist Party, were compared. Conclusions. It was established that the process of criticism and condemnation was clearly developed in the Soviet totalitarian society. Despite the difference in professions and the subject of the work, the artists were accused of similar sins. Thus, O. Avdieienko, O. Dovzhenko, and L. Lukov were accused of distorting Soviet reality and failing to adhere to communist ideals.
 Keywords: Stalinism, USSR, communist ideology, cinematography, Committee on cinematography under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Department for Agitation and Propaganda of All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

Mapping policy pathways: Urban referencing networks in public art policies

This article examines the dynamics of inter-referencing between cities and develops the concept of the ‘Urban Referencing Network’ as a representation of the references made by cities to one another in policy documents. The study employs public art policies, specifically the Percent for Art policy, to investigate the structure of inter-referencing within the urban referencing network. Using a corpus of policy documents from 26 Anglophone cities with over one million residents, we analyse 150 documents containing 2178 inter-references. Combining network measurements and regressions, we explore the emergence of central nodes and the mechanisms influencing their formation. The broader field of arts and cultural policies, with its extensive inter-urban connections and professional networks, provides fertile ground for studying urban referencing networks. By integrating literature on policy mobility and urban networks, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the circulation of urban ideas and the interplay between cities in policy-making processes. The results demonstrate that only a few cities, including New York, Chicago, London, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Montreal, emerge as central nodes, attracting the other cities’ attention. Attributes of the referenced cities, like economic importance, iconicity and early adoption, determine to a great extent who are the most central nodes.

“It will take time” – visual arts teachers’ professional freedom in policy enactment

The paper aims to add to what is known about how contextual prerequisites and governance systems affect art teachers’ professional freedom, a topic of global significance. Previous research shows that Visual Arts education has not been aligned with current syllabi. This discrepancy is partly explained by ‘a lag’ in the teachers’ subject conceptions given that visual arts teachers traditionally enjoy considerable professional freedom while designing their teaching. That is only one explanation; in contrast, this article, set in the Swedish educational context, enhances understanding of policy enactment in the visual art subject, with relevance for global educational policies. To understand how contextual conditions and patterns of governance determine the level of teacher autonomy, in-depth semi-structured interviews with ten art teachers in the Swedish 9-year compulsory school were conducted over 10 months in 2022, coinciding with the implementation of a new curriculum. In addition, staff from the National Agency for Education (NAfE) were interviewed, and NAfE materials were analyzed. Employing policy enactment theory, the analysis shows that contextual factors significantly influence the prerequisites of policy enactment. Further, the goals- and results-based management of schools challenges art teachers’ professional freedom as teachers adapt to the principles of governmentality. This, in turn, makes enacting new art policy challenging and time-consuming.

Institutional Theatrics: Performing Arts Policy in Post-Wall Berlin by Brandon Woolf (review)

Institutional Theatrics: Performing Arts Policy in Post-Wall Berlin by Brandon Woolf (review)

Rebranding China through facsimiles: A study of mubanshuiyin reproductions in PRC’s art diplomacy and soft power building, 1952–79

In September 2022, China Central Television released a five-episode documentary about Rongbaozhai, one of the oldest stationery companies and art galleries in China, to celebrate its 350th anniversary. This was part of the global propaganda aiming to reintroduce traditional Chinese cultural brands and their products under Xi’s art and culture policy of ‘telling China’s stories well’. One of the episodes is dedicated to the woodblock facsimiles of traditional Chinese paintings (mubanshuiyin) that Rongbaozhai produced in the 1950s and 1960s following Mao’s literature and art policy. However, the perspective of the storytelling is almost entirely focused on technical details. Little has been mentioned about these exquisitely crafted prints’ political function as specimens to demonstrate PRC’s cultural orthodoxy to traditional Chinese arts and crafts and its resolution of restoring Chinese cultural heritage. Drawing on archival materials, memoirs of former employees and a case study of the first mubanshuiyin reproduction – zanhua shinü tu (Court Ladies Wearing Flowered Headdresses) – this article traces the development of this unique art form during its golden age when it was marketed as both diplomatic gifts and souvenirs and a paradigm of collective craftsmanship by proletariat artisans. As a frequently used gift-giving practice for culture promotion, this article also unveils the contribution of mubanshuiyin reproductions to China’s soft power building and early art diplomacy from the 1950s to 1970s.

A Study on Self-directed Learning Experiences of Mature Students in Liberal Arts Courses at University

The purpose of this paper is to study the self-directed learning experiences of mature students in liberal arts courses at universities. In this study, the above mentioned experiences were analyzed through focus group interviews, as a qualitative research method, targeting five mature students enrolled a B liberal arts course at university. The results of this study are as follows. First, at the time of entering university, the research showed that mature students attempted learning at university with high school friends, attempted learning at university immediately after completing high school courses, attempted learning at university as a driving force for life, and attempted learning at university for the purpose of acquiring qualifications. Second, at the time of their application for liberal arts courses, the mature students chose liberal arts courses based on the department's collective timetable and the liberal arts policy in relation to the distance education provided by the university. Third, during the liberal arts courses, the mature students learned with classmates through competition and cooperation, through effort of repetition, through joyful participation, and through empathy understanding. Fourth, at the time of evaluation of liberal arts courses, the mature students grew through a belief in themselves, through the realization of the value of learning, and through their sastifactions with life as it pertained to their communication with their families. Fifth, in the preparation period for the next semester of university, the mature students challenged themselves by auditing other university classes and by engaging in extracurricular activities. The suggestions based on the results of this study are as follows. First, it is necessary to overcome the restrictiveness and rigidity of the existing university liberal arts courses by linking them with lifelong education. Second, it is necessary to provide continuous learning opportunities for mature students through advanced programs and in-depth programs in liberal arts courses. Third, it is necessary to promote learning motivation for mature students by strengthening the relevance of university courses with the real lives of their learners, as well by strengthening the interactions of students in liberal arts courses. Fourth, it is necessary to build a learning environment in which mature students can learn autonomously.

Art for policy and policy for art

ABSTRACT The intersection of arts and public policy is three-dimensional. A multitude of direct subsidy, regulatory, and support programs are advocated and managed as “arts policy,” but a wide variety of non-arts-targeted realms such as tax law, public education, public health, and urban development and housing programs importantly influence artists and their encounters with their audiences. These interactions, and the complexity and thorniness born of the difficulty of clearly categorizing the arts as either market or non-market goods, as well as our difficulty in their valuation, make a particularly good area for teaching about public policy generally. And finally, policy of all kinds is too important to be made without the insights and guidance of artists, whose job is to show us the society we live in and who we are. Our “Arts and Cultural Policy” course explores this landscape for students in both fields.

Arts policy in Kádár Era in Hungary, 1957–1989

AbstractThe study presents the development of the art policy of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party between 1957 and 1985, describing the processes and tendencies supporting it. The art policy of the Kádár era was framed by four documents among the various party resolutions, with different weight and effectiveness: the The Cultural Policy of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (1958); The Vocation of Literature and the Arts in Our Society (1966); Topical Issues in Our Arts Policy (1977); and the On the Current Tasks of the HSWP's arts policy (1984). György Aczél, the main director of the art policy of the Kádár era, played a decisive role in their creation, albeit with age. The appearance of the documents always marked a change in the era of art policy, in close connection with the consolidation after 1956, the attempts at economic reform in the 1960s and the reversal of the 1970s.

Performance and the Critique of Resilience in Culture (England, 2004–2020)

In the wake of Brexit and COVID-19, this article looks back at resilience-building agendas in English publicly funded cultural production. The analysis examines the history of ‘resilience’ in arts policy debates prior to 2012 before analysing Arts Council England (ACE)’s resilience-building programmes called Catalyst and discussing a performance-based Catalyst case. With Catalyst, ACE and collaborating agencies sought to incentivise private investment and entrepreneurialism in culture to minimise risks linked to potential financial loss in the wake of the 2007–2008 financial crash and subsequent budgetary cuts. The argument of this article is that, in this context, resilience discourses and practices, which aimed to rationalise, legitimise, and effect a further move away from older funding practices, reproduced a distinctly cultural ideological form. Through the performance-based case, this critique also examines how certain styles of discourse and practice were more critical and made space for figuring alternatives to the politics of resilience.

Disrupting Work and Leisure in Lockdown: the Case of the Soho Poly

This article takes as its point of departure the impact of Covid 19 on leisure and work and uses the London arts venue the Soho Poly as a lens through which to explore the profound disruption the pandemic represented. Beginning with a survey of the Soho Poly’s origins in the early 1970s, the authors demonstrate how these laid the groundwork for the venue’s current artistic policy of ‘disrupting the everyday’ with arts and culture. The authors then examine the Soho Poly’s output during 2020 and 2021 and suggest that key philosophies of temporal and spatial disruption in some senses found their moment in the particular circumstances of lockdown. Drawing on this observation, the authors consider how some of the discoveries prompted by the pandemic might be used by arts providers to rethink the ways in which arts and culture can continue to deconstruct, and disrupt, outmoded divisions between work and leisure.

Urban policy assemblage: Outcomes and processes of public art policy assemblage

In an era of international flows of policy ideas, when many cities apply the ‘same’ policy ideas, their local translations can be substantially different. Yet, urban studies have not provided sufficient tools to compare such translations among a wide number of cities. We develop a methodological program that operationalizes into a quantitative analysis the rich Policy Assemblage framework often used to compare selected cases. We distinguish between assemblage as a process and assemblage as an outcome, and argue that both are important for urban policy mobility studies. While assemblage as a process is often seen as the thicker description, assemblage outcomes provide central snapshots that reveal the broader process and make its concrete configurations evident. Using the case of public art policies and the mechanism of the Percent of Public Art, we compare the assemblage outcome of the idea in 26 cities with more than one million residents in the Anglosphere. We ask, how do cities assemble policy discourses, and what is the logic that differentiates cities from one another? We find cities use multiple discourses which refer to the socio-economic, cultural identity and the spatial dimensions of public art in cities. Nevertheless, when cities assemble these discourses, the socio-economic dimension tends to define a central cleavage between cities. To examine how such a cleavage is constructed, we examine the assembly process of Toronto more closely.

Building arts education policy using the tools of out-of-school time youth arts organizations

With the rise of COVID-19 and growing awareness of racial injustice, the last few years have been exceptionally tumultuous for our systems of education and their stakeholders. But scholars critical of traditional paradigms of schooling and accountability have argued that these crises kindle opportunities for profound change. Gloria Ladson-Billings, who has long argued for an approach to education that embraces cultural and epistemological diversity, has called for a “hard re-set” in education and has urged stakeholders to fundamentally reconsider the kind of human beings we want to nurture. With a reset in mind, we have turned our attention to studying out-of-school-time (OST) arts learning environments. The arts—dance, theater, music, the visual arts, and the digital and design arts—offer us a way to reimagine what good learning and teaching look like and how to design learning environments that work for all young people, and perhaps particularly for our most vulnerable youth. In this article, we draw on findings from our national critical qualitative study of out-of-school time community youth arts organizations. We offer policy recommendations for arts education and school improvement in four major categories: (1) Focus on youth and community assets; (2) Expand beyond a program-centric model of funding and design; (3) Support creative professionals; (4) Rethink the design and implementation of assessment systems. Within each category, we make recommendations specific to the various stakeholders who affect arts education policy—arts education leadership, funders and policy makers, and researchers.

Counter Measures

May 01 2023 Counter Measures Pato Hebert Pato Hebert Pato Hebert is an artist, educator and COVID long hauler. He serves as Chair and Associate Arts Professor in the Department of Art & Public Policy at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Pato Hebert Pato Hebert is an artist, educator and COVID long hauler. He serves as Chair and Associate Arts Professor in the Department of Art & Public Policy at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Online ISSN: 2572-7338 Print ISSN: 1091-711X © 2023 Pato Hebert2023Pato Hebert Thresholds (2023) (51): 190–191. https://doi.org/10.1162/thld_a_00801 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Pato Hebert; Counter Measures. Thresholds 2023; (51): 190–191. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/thld_a_00801 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsThresholds Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2023 Pato Hebert2023Pato Hebert Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Challenge and Obstacles of STEM Education in Malaysia

STEM education is a very important element of education for the development and progress of a developing country like Malaysia. For this reason, the government has introduced the Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013-2025) to ensure that the country keeps pace with the development of science and technology. At the same time, it does not exclude the strengthening of technical and vocational fields in the current national education system. The purpose of this study is to examine the challenges and obstacles of STEM education in Malaysia, especially as the implementation is now entering the final phase of the wave for the year 2021-2025. This study also discusses the declining trend of student participation in high school toward STEM education as of the current year. The goal of 60:40 percent student participation in Science and Arts policy is still far from being achieved. By shedding light on the challenges and obstacles facing STEM education in Malaysia, this research is motivated by the need to enhance the quality and accessibility of STEM education in the country, and its findings will provide valuable insights and recommendations for policymakers, educators, and stakeholders in the academic community, thereby contributing to the ongoing discourse on the development of STEM education in Malaysia and beyond.