ARTS MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP
In collaboration with the Department of History of Art, National Museum Institute, New Delhi
With the growth of the cultural and creative industries and their increasing contribution to the economy, there is a visible interest in bringing together the spheres of arts and management. To this end, an Arts Management workshop was held virtually for MA and PhD students of the Department of History of Arts, National Museum Institute from the 8th-11th of March, 2022. The program consisted of lectures, presentations and case study sessions by experts followed by Q&A rounds and discussions.
The primary reason for having this workshop was to present to the students, mostly upcoming art and culture professionals, a picture of the current scenario of the arts world as well as the kind of challenges that are faced by specialists in the field. The program aimed to understand what it means to bring arts and management together, and to explore the strategic and logistical issues that arts and cultural managers face. Additionally, it also brought out the debate on the opposing nature of arts and management and how we as professionals can reconcile the two.
The workshop was spread over four days and eight sessions, with each speaker discussing varied but relevant topics in the sphere of arts management. The speakers included well-known people from the heritage and museum space, academia, management and communications, marketing and advertising, as well as policy research and advocacy.
Session 1: Introduction to the Arts Management Workshop by Anjchita B. Nair (Co-founder and COO, Cultre)
The workshop began with an introductory session by Anjchita B. Nair which briefed the participants on the fundamentals of arts management and why specialist managerial skills are crucial in the field of arts and culture. She spoke about the many kinds of art institutions that exist today and how these organisations can combine tools of business management to make their work more engaging and available to wider audiences.
Session 2: Creating and Building Value by Bikram Bindra (Marketing & Communications Specialist and Faculty at MICA)
Having worked in the world of marketing, media and advertising, Bikram Bindra looked at art, cultural and museum bodies through this lens. He discussed at length all that goes into building a cultural brand and familiarised students with the kinds of branding strategies that can be used by cultural organisations to develop a strong identity. He stressed on the importance of making a deep personal connection with audiences in order to help institutions to survive and thrive. The session, peppered with advertisements and other marketing snippets created by different companies, was engaging and enjoyable.
Session 3: Building an Art Institution by Aditya Arya (Founder, Museo Camera)
This was a case study based session, wherein renowned photographer Aditya Arya provided a detailed account of how, in a short span of time, he was able to design and develop the Museo Camera Centre for Photographic Arts in Gurgaon. He discussed the importance of having a vision, mission and strategy to set up an arts institution and also provided students insights on how, for the first time in India’s museum sector, a crowdfunding platform was used to finance the foundation of Museo Camera. The participants also got to go on a virtual tour of the museum.
Session 4: Marketing in the Arts & Audience Development by Josh Dobbins (Associate South Asia, Flint Culture)
Josh Dobbins, with several years of experience working with museums, art galleries and auction houses in India and abroad, presented various examples of organisations he had worked with to bring to the fore the intricacies of audience and marketing. Some topics he covered include: how to identify specific audiences and their needs, how to develop suitable marketing strategies based on the respective audience profiles, and the interplay between art and cultural projects and commercial ventures. This session was interactive and activity-based – for instance, the participants were asked to conduct SWOT analyses for different organisations assigned to them, the results of which could help make their museum or gallery more visible to their audiences and emerge with a better marketing strategy.
Session 5: Cultural Policy by Professor A. Damodaran (Faculty, IIM Bangalore)
The session on the craft of policy-making in arts and culture was led by Professor A. Damodaran who has many decades of experience working and writing in this field. He spoke of the cultural policy environment in India and in other countries and through comparisons, showed that even though India has an undeniably rich corpus of art and cultural heritage traditions, there is no singular art and cultural policy that can help to foster and promote cultural diversity and accessibility as well as artistic expressions. He explained and emphasised on how the cultural policy of a nation plays a crucial role in shaping its outlook.
Session 6: Copyright Policies and Accessing Material by Pranesh Prakash (Co-founder and former Policy Director of Centre for Internet and Society)
The session led by Pranesh Prakash was interactive and thought-provoking, with discussions on copyright philosophies and policies. The participants were explained the basics of copyright and presented with ideas and arguments for why the concept exists, how it feeds into the domain of art and culture and why cultural institutions like museums and archives should pay heed to intellectual property rights such as copyright. The talk was enriched by the suggested readings, which the speaker kept bringing into his discussions.
Session 7: Entering the Digital Age of the Arts by Professor A. Damodaran (Faculty, IIM Bangalore)
In the second session by Professor A. Damodaran, the students were exposed to the different forms that art is now being consumed in. Drawing from his work in the realm of culture and heritage as well as his writings in his new book titled ‘Managing Arts in Times of Pandemics and Beyond,’ he discussed how art organisations in different parts of the world have, especially in the current post-COVID scenario, begun to make creative use of digital technologies. Professor Damodaran spoke about relevant topics such as NFTs, metaverse and blockchains in the context of the arts world and highlighted the immense scope that the digital world holds for art and culture in terms of making it more accessible, interactive and integrated with other sectors.
Session 8: Funding of the Arts by Vaibhav Chauhan (Co-founder and CEO, Cultre)
The concluding session of this Arts Management workshop revolved around a subject that needs a great deal of attention and thorough understanding. In today’s day and age when funding in the arts and cultural sphere is quite scarce and limited, it is important for young professionals entering the field to be aware of the possibilities and opportunities as well as the organisations, sources and sectors that provide the requisite funding for heritage initiatives they may undertake. The session with Vaibhav Chauhan drew largely from his personal experiences working in heritage management over the years, and was informative and engaging. The students were shown examples of funding proposals and grant applications, which provided them with a taste of how to go about resource mobilisation.