Sustainable Cultural Futures: COVID-19 and Resetting Cultural Policy

这个跨学科的项目将围绕三个问题进行主题结构：文化的价值；文化工作;数字化文化消费。它将侧重于表演艺术（如戏剧）和博物馆，这两个部门受到大流行的严重影响，正面临积极拥抱虚拟的巨大压力。首先，我们将通过系统的文献综述和大规模在线调查，重新绘制大流行背景下文化的意义和益处。由此，我们将确定并描述关于文化价值和文化政策目的的新的、正在形成的社会共识。第二，我们将审查影响文化工作性质的主要机构（艺术家工会、公共资金、合同、行业惯例和相关劳工政策）的职能，并确定可能的变化，使它们能够在疫情持续影响的背景下更有效地解决文化工作不稳定的问题。第三，通过对选定的表演艺术组织和博物馆的案例研究，我们将调查这些实体如何调和他们对物质和“生活”的传统信仰与生产和观众参与的数字化压力。跨国在线调查将让我们更全面地了解数字化文化内容的在线传播是否以及如何为文化带来更多、更多样化的受众。在这三个项目主题中，我们将采用混合方法，结合系统的文献综述、调查、讨论小组、访谈和案例研究。我们的许多研究活动将在英国和日本在线举行，并提供同声传译。虽然日本和英国的社会结构和国民对文化的态度不同，但在新冠疫情之前，两国一直在努力证明国家对文化的补贴是合理的，而且两国的资助制度并没有与艺术家和文化工作者个人直接挂钩。两国的文化政策制定者也对公众文化参与水平的不平衡表示担忧，并渴望知道这种情况是否会随着数字化文化消费的兴起而改变，以及如何改变。通过汇集研究团队的跨学科专业知识，并让两国文化部门的利益相关者参与进来，这项研究将帮助政策制定者通过跨国对话、学习和解决问题来参与文化政策的核心问题。文化厅（日本）、森美术馆、大原美术馆、英格兰艺术委员会和Equity已同意成为我们的项目合作伙伴，两国还将有更多的合作伙伴。我们将积极与文化从业者以及艺术家劳动、劳工政策和法律、合同、版权和数字技术等领域的专家合作，探讨具体政策措施，以应对疫情的持续影响以及不可预测的未来风险。项目结束后，英日项目团队将出版2本合编书籍（1本英文，1本日文）和至少4篇期刊文章（2篇英文/开放获取，2篇日文），在日本和英国以及国际研究人员和政策制定者中广泛传播项目发现。

This interdisciplinary project will be thematically structured around 3 issues: the values of culture; cultural work; and digitalised cultural consumption. It will focus on performing arts (e.g., theatre) and museums, two sectors that have been significantly affected by the pandemic and are under intense pressure to actively embrace the virtual. First, we will re-map the meanings and benefits of culture in the context of the pandemic via a systematic literature review and large-scale online surveys. From this, we will identify and describe the new, emerging social consensus regarding the values of culture and the purposes of cultural policy. Second, we will examine the functions of key institutions that affect the nature of cultural work (artists' unions, public funding, contracts, industry practices and relevant labour policy) and identify potential changes that would allow them to more effectively address the precarity of cultural work in the context of the continued impact of the pandemic. Third, via case studies of select performing arts organisations and museums, we will investigate how these entities reconcile their traditional beliefs in materiality and 'live' with the pressures to go digital in production and audience engagement. Cross-national online surveys will give us a bigger picture of whether and how the online delivery of digitalised cultural content can bring larger and more diverse audiences to culture. Across these three project themes, we will employ a mixed methodology, combining a systematic literature review, surveys, discussion panels, interviews and case studies. Many of our research events will be held online across the UK and Japan with simultaneous interpretation. Despite their differences in social structures and public attitudes toward culture, both Japan and the UK have continuously struggled to justify state subsidy for culture, and their funding systems were not directly connected with individual artists and cultural workers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cultural policymakers in both countries have also shown concern about the uneven level of public cultural participation and are keen to know whether and how this will change with the rise of digitalised cultural consumption. By pulling together the interdisciplinary expertise of the research team and involving stakeholders from the cultural sectors of the two countries, this research will help policymakers freshly engage with the core issues of cultural policy through cross-national conversation, learning and problem-solving. The Agency of Cultural Affairs (Japan), Mori Art Museum, Ohara Museum of Art, Arts Council England and Equity have agreed to be our project partners, and there will be additional partners from both countries. We will actively engage with cultural practitioners and with experts in artist labour, labour policy and law, contracts, copyright and digital technologies to explore specific policy measures to tackle the continued impact of the pandemic as well as unpredictable future risks. After the project ends, the UK-Japan project team will publish 2 co-edited books (1 in English, 1 in Japanese) and minimum 4 journal articles (2 in English/open access, 2 in Japanese) to widely disseminate the project findings in Japan and the UK and to international researchers and policymakers.