Covid arts - the impact of the pandemic on artists : case study in Malta (original) (raw)
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The Arts as a Form of Comfort During the Covid-19 Pandemic
The Societal Impacts of Covid-19: A Transnational Perspective, 2021
Society turns to the arts for comfort, escape, healing, entertainment and intellectual challenge. By attending performances, festivals and events, visiting museums and galleries, studying the arts formally or informally, or producing art either professionally or for leisure, the arts assist with building a sense of individual and community identity. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only denied global societies and audiences with opportunities to engage with the arts in live settings, but it has had a profound effect on the arts sector, with institutions closing their doors, festivals and events cancelled, and the production of art either severely restricted, in hibernation, or at worst abandoned. Millions of artists and arts workers around the world are now unemployed and given the short-term, casual and project-driven nature of much of the sector, many are unable to access government support initiatives designed for more conventional business models. While there are many current challenges for the arts as a result of the pandemic, there has been significant engagement with the arts during lockdown periods, largely through digital technologies and virtual formats. This continued engagement with the arts proposes that once COVID-19 is brought under control, the sector will rebuild and prosper again.
Art Organisations during the Pandemic – Catalyser for Best and Worst
2021
Contemporary creative sector endured a lot of problems and challenges during year and a half of the pandemic turbulent presence. Public policies had uneven reactions regarding three different sectors: public cultural sector got most of its needs while private and non-profit civil society sector developed lobbying and advocacy actions or used its own strategies to develop resilience and achieve minimal level of sustainability (Dragicevic Sesic and Dragojevic 2005). This paper will present ways and methods of resilience of all three sectors in fighting negative impact of the pandemic. Data were collected from April to September 2020 within the scope of different international and national research projects: (1) Cultural relations platform and University of Sienna, Isernia P. and Lamonica A. - The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the cultural sector and its implications for international cultural relations. (A scoping review of the Western Balkan by Dragicevic Sesic M.); (2) Cultural leadership and memory narratives (museums, theatres, etc.) during the pandemic: the digital turn (Dragicevic Sesic M. and Stefanovic M.); (3) research projects on social status of artist done by Independent Cultural Scene of Serbia and Association of visual artists of Serbia (Cveticanin P., Ramujkic V. et al.). This presentation will focus on bottom-up cultural policies – innovative and unexpected solutions that were developed in public cultural system (museums and theatres), as well as in civil society (visual arts and performing arts independent scenes). Analysing different approaches of cultural organisations in defending public interest and culture as a public value during the pandemic, it will be shown why the autonomy of the cultural sector is a necessary precondition for its development. Also, the research will analyse how and why the digital turn made a huge impact on cultural practices and how all digital resources and digital competencies had been used for the best during the pandemic by those that had already acquired digital (transmedia) literacy. New reality caused by the pandemic demanded a change of priorities in cultural work, so new horizons of ethics and aesthetics of solidarity, care and hospitality had been opened. This usually refers to civil society and a certain part of public cultural institutions under strong but participative, shared leadership (Dalborg & Löfgren 2016). Institutions adapted, re-positioned, and re-focused their work using diverse digital tools and presenting previously acquired digital archives (such as archive of theatre performances). As responsibility to change was not a common practice of cultural institutions (in many countries public cultural policies have not imposed or inspired subsidised institutions to adapt their practices in both production and dissemination to the circumstances), it was clearly visible that one part of cultural institutions opted for hibernation, having the pandemic as an excuse. On the other side, both private and civil society sectors had to find methods and forms of practices that can be safe (for both artists and audiences) as there would be no other way of survival for them. The data are showing extreme productivity of film and audio-visual sectors as well as of book publishing during the time of pandemic. However, in some other domains of creative industries, the impact of pandemic was of greater importance (as both market forces and unequal and uneven distribution of public resources (i.e., huge priority in film financing), had contributed to that). Special attention will be given to innovations in creative work, its ways of organising during the pandemic that was heavily related to self-organisation, peer actions of solidarity and hospitality toward colleagues from independent sector (freelance artists and cultural workers). Although facing huge risks themselves, numerous cultural organisations had offered their skills and expertise as well as their technical, informational, and human resources to others, less fortunate ones. Thus, it can be concluded that the pandemic acted as a catalyser for the best and for the worst in art and creative sector producing on one side ethics of indifference and passivity (hibernation), while, on the other side, ethics and aesthetics of solidarity, care and hospitality.
Life Disrupted and Regenerated: Coping With the ‘New Normal’ Creative Arts in the Time of Coronavirus., 2021
A global pandemic caused by COVID-19 virus since December 2019 has developed into a fearsome situation more than any common global contagion. In combating COVID-19 worldwide, governments instigated a precautionary cordon sanitaire in various degrees. Live music, cinema and film festivals were inevitably cancelled, causing artists to become alienated from their audience. This paper aims to illuminate how practitioners of the creative industry cope with the drastic disruption due to the COVID-19 outbreak as well as the means of regenerating 'life', which refers to that of a creative artist in a narrower sense, and to that of the industry in a broader sense. Adopting a combined methodology of autoethnography and virtual ethnography, the authors explore their encounters with the informants and the development of the creative arts scene. The subject of disruption and regeneration in the creative arts industry is approached through feasible methods and tools they could render in this unique lived experience. They hope to construct a view containing some perspectives on the transcendence of creative practitioners from the disruption to the survival of the pandemic's impact, as well as the regeneration of how creative arts would persevere in the 'new normal' of the post-COVID-19 era.
"The Show Must Go On". Ethnography of the Art Market Facing the COVID-19 Pandemic
2021
This paper aims at understanding, from the inside, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying restrictive administrative measures on the art market. It is based on the interviews and ethnographic surveys made by graduate students from the Ecole du Louvre, from September 2020 to May 2021. This methodology makes it possible to demonstrate that, during the crisis, art market professionals were driven by the motto “the show must go on”. On the one hand, they wished to keep a straight face and remain silent on their individual difficulties, preferring to talk about their vocation and the positive effects of the crisis. On the other hand, the commercial activity continued despite everything; if the pandemic accelerated the digital turn of the art market, the physical contact with the works and the collectors remained primordial. The art market thus remained physical but accelerated its digital turn. The proportion of each interactional framework—physical and digital—is still uncertain, difficult to measure today and to predict in the long run.
Frontiers in Public Health, 2022
Although the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on the arts and cultural sector due to the closure of galleries, museums, arts venues, and other cultural assets represents a significant health risk, new opportunities for arts and cultural engagement have arisen. Interviews with 24 representatives including service providers and creative practitioners from 15 arts and cultural organizations within the Liverpool City Region were conducted. The aim was to examine the impact of COVID-19 on arts and cultural provision and on organizations and people providing these services, as well as to understand the perceptions of service providers and practitioners of the effects on those whom arts and cultural organizations serve, including those who would usually access arts through formal healthcare routes (e.g., through collaboration with health partners). Interview data were analyzed using framework analysis. Four overarching themes were identified: Response: Closures, adaptations, and new ...
Global Art Market in the Aftermath of COVID-19
MDPI Books, 2022
Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.
Creative and Cultural Sectors during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Resilience and Economic Intelligence Through Digitalization and Big Data Analytics, 2021
Year 2020 brought new challenges for the cultural-creative sectors, mostly due to the physical distance requested in order to limit the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges have important effects on managing crisis and induced propagated complex changes within these sectors. The COVID-19 pandemic has generated and amplified challenges that economic and social sectors have to deal with in order to provide proper and effective answers even in a short time. At the same time, they also offered some opportunities for further medium and long term development. The paper aims at identifying the main characteristics of this dynamic and turbulent environment including social media and communications management. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the activities of these sectors have suffered and thus largely challenged the public, social and cultural institutions that have been forced to find new ways to reach and capitalize the technological and communication benefits of digital platforms and more complex networking functioning better within the virtual space. In addition, the paper intends to offer more alternatives asking for a reflection and dialogue in order to find better solutions for the complex issues related to people's need to access cultural and creative sectors before and after COVID-19.
White Paper: Breaking out of the COVID-19 Crisis for the European Cultural and Creative Industries
Restarting the Cultural Creative Industries is at the centre of an open and sustainable Europe, 2020
Today Cultural Creative Industries are at the core of the European identity, recognised as an indispensable driver of growth and jobs and cherished as facilitator of innovation throughout the economy. Because of the “Coronavirus” lock-up measurements this major European motor is stalling. First data from the CCI across Europe, provided by approximately 7.000 survey participants, indicate that the shutdown is not merely a pause of economic activities which will continue as they were before stopped. The governments lock-down because of the COVID-19 virus turned an economic slump into a system crisis: While around 60% of those surveyed have already experienced or anticipate a drop in sales of over 30%, numerous companies point out that they expect significantly higher failures in the future. Due to the design of the study and the bias of the respondents the estimated magnitude, still to be regarded as a conservative assessment, amounts to worrying numbers: CCIs from having an it’s a 5.3% share of the total European Gross Value Added (GVA), (Doerflinger 2016) expect to lose a sum of €273 Bn in turnover until the end of 2020. Based on this estimation the ECBNetwork concludes that the critical time where the crisis starts to affect the European creative sector spans from beginning of April to the beginning of June. This indicates a tight timeframe for governments and European measures to be taken to avoid a complete collapse of the European creative industries sector. Given this system crisis of Cultural Creative Industries, Europe's societies, cities and economies, are endangered. CCI turn noise to music, letters to poetry, stones to architectures, and places into venues for diverse cultures and platform of the freedom of expressions. CCI are the base for free press, open society and citizen controlled democracy. CCI are innovators and change makers for the future of smart cities and green economy. If CCI are stalling, the Europe we know today will suffer a heart attack. Given the severity of this European crisis ECBN issues this white paper with four scenarios where the CCI might stand by the end 2020 and from where we may have to restart the CCI. This white paper aims to raise awareness that the restart of the Cultural Creative Industries is central to the future of European society. It calls on the European policy makers to engage in a vigorous debate for the best ways to restart the Cultural Creative Industries in a sustainable, innovative way to turn this historical system crisis to a once in a century chance to move forward to a more sustainable and inclusive Society than before.
In Greece, as in other countries, the cultural sector is among the most affected by the coronavirus crisis, bringing to the surface structural problems that these sectors have been facing. As the first Greek state's first support measures were ill-adapted to cultural sectors' forms of employment, artists' unions mobilised and new solidarity groups and campaigns such as Support Art Workers (SAW) emerged. Based on findings deriving from qualitative research, the article examines the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the employment conditions and livelihood opportunities of actors/actresses in Greece ; their mobilisations during the same period. Findings show that despite the constraints imposed through containment and social-distancing measures, the enforced inactivity and the exposure of vulnerability incited collective discussions and triggered collective processes, due to fewer time constraints, but mainly because of the actors' own awareness of the precariousness of their working conditions.
Beyond the Bailout: Toward a Post- Pandemic Art World
East of Borneo , 2020
In response to the COVID-19 global pandemic and recent mass firings of art workers by multiple museums, it’s time we demand a collective and anti-capitalist art world. One of a new two-part feature from contemporary art historian Nizan Shaked, today on eastofborneo.org