John Kieffer has worked in cultural policy, arts management and programming for over 20 years. He spoke about what he feels are the biggest challenges facing the cultural sector.
Social challenges for the arts
"I do worry about the huge numbers of people coming through these courses and whether there are going to be jobs for them."
"I think class is probably the biggest issue for the cultural sector.
"There's been a lot of success in other areas within the arts and cultural sector, but in other ways it's still quite difficult.
"You do not meet many working-class people in the arts and cultural sector at senior levels or controlling levels.
"I often think if I hadn't had elocution lessons at school, would I ever actually have made it in arts and culture? Overall I think that's still the biggest barrier there is."
Arts graduates getting work
"I do worry about the huge numbers of people who are coming through these courses and whether there are going to be jobs for them.
"I often ask people 'Do you want to start your own thing?' I came up with a generation where people were starting things for the first time, and quite often people don't want to do that. They want to go and work at the ENO or a games designer, they have very strict ideas about where they want to go.
"I think people are going to have to start their own things up a bit more."
Learning management skills
”People are going to have to start their own things up a bit more.”
"When I was starting off, there wasn't anything called 'arts management'. Nobody talked about it, really.
"So I just started putting on things that I wanted to see, and hoping that the audience came along to it. I'd put on music I liked, exhibitions I liked, and I got involved with festivals and so forth.
"It was very much an extension of my own enthusiasm about things. I didn't know I was getting into a career."
Lack of public funding for the arts
"I've gotten in a bit of trouble for saying this, but I think there's a certain sense of entitlement that the arts have which is very much a turnoff for the public. We're not very humble in what we say, we're actually quite assertive about what our rights are in relation to having funding and so forth.
"That's even more extreme with some of the younger producers who've come into the scene. They assume they're going to get all this kind of support and funding and interest, and I think that maybe isn't going to be the case forever.
"So there's a lot of adjustment in terms of ambition for individuals and also the industry as a whole."
Issues facing cultural leaders
Emerging cultural leaders
What does the future hold?
