Culture Syndicates CIC

   First posted: 8th March 2015  In  Industry Trends And Critical Analysis Neville Stankley explores the repercussions of the 2015 elections for the heritage sector As one of the most unpredictable election campaigns in recent history unexpectedly lead to a single party majority Conservative government. Those of us working in the cultural sector might be worried, but would we have been better off with Labour or a centre-left coalition? The Labour Party – What would they have done? For one thing they would have continued to fund free entry to national museums. However, their regional agenda also gets a mention. Their manifesto offered a vague commitment to universal free access to great art and national heritage ‘in all parts of the country’. Nothing concrete or tangible is added to this promise. It leaves us to speculate what might have been. Interestingly for those of us who went through ‘Renaissance in the Regions’ years they would have required all organisations t...

   First posted: 8th March 2015  Industry Trends And Critical Analysis ,  News And Opportunities Andrew Taylor investigates the schools of thought on the reintroduction of extinct species back into Britain. Reintroduction is defined as ‘restoring a species to parts of its natural range from which it has been lost.’ There is currently a large body of thought that suggests that species extinct in Britain for many years should be reintroduced. There is currently a push towards reintroducing species such as bear, lynx, wolves, wild boar and beavers back into Britain. It can certainly be argued that these species are largely extinct in Britain as a result of human intervention and meddling. The way in which these species are planned to be restored in Britain is through rigorous land management and tight, procedural conditions to be made by people. If we intend to reintroduce these species into Britain’s wilderness, the first serious question to ask is what we mean by ‘wil...

   First posted: 8th March 2015  In  Industry Trends And Critical Analysis Amy Williams discusses heritage sites as war commemorations There are many museum exhibitions now that focus on war – depicting how nations, groups and individuals are affected by conflict, how they have remembered the devastation and how they have commemorated these events. However, over the past few weeks while one heritage site has been attacked another has reopened after 12 years – both during the current conflict in Iraq. It is intended here to examine how museums have been affected and how they have reacted to wartime circumstances by concentrating on WWI, WWII and current struggles. It can be argued that museums have played four roles during wartime conditions; they have been subjected to lootings and damage, they have been forced to close to safeguard their collections, but museums have also produced ‘patriotic exhibitions’ to inspire the nation and consequently exhibited works that ha...

  First Posted: 3rd March 2015  In  Industry Trends And Critical Analysis ,  News And Opportunities Recently there has been an increased focus directed towards how Britain remembers the Holocaust – emphasised by David Cameron’s launch of the Holocaust Commission. The pledge is that ‘the commission will work to ensure Britain has a permanent memorial to the Holocaust and educational resources for future generations’. As Andrew Pearce puts it – within the ‘last quarter of the twentieth century’ the remembrance of the Holocaust has undergone ‘a profound transformation in Britain’. However, Britain’s Holocaust consciousness is more complex than first thought because teaching aims within schools and within exhibitions, such as the Imperial War Museum, have adopted a national master narrative that limits our ability to ask difficult questions. The focus at a recent conference “Between Obsession, Routine, and Contestation: Remembering the Holocaust in Europe today” revealed...