LARSEN | KEYS – arts, cultural and non-profit consultancy

Isolation (re)reading recommendations

When the world gets hard, I turn back to my bookshelf. Re-reading is solace, my superpower and my safe space.

Changing the culture of arts governance

A new report from the Australia Council for the Arts, the Institute of Community Directors (ICDA) and Our Community has shone the spotlight on arts governance in Australia.

Digital, flexible and accessible: launching Our Hybrid Future

Here are two things about me: I work from home. And I manage teams remotely (or I have done in the past). At the start of 2020, these things – while nowhere near unique – were still rare in the circles I worked in. Most of my friends, colleagues and clients went to work each day in offices, and most of them worked with or managed people within the same buildings they shared.

The art of governance

Australia’s arts boards are broken. The very ground on which our arts organisations and institutions are built is unpredictable, unsteady and (increasingly) unsafe.

All hole and no plot: fixing Australia’s literary sector

If you could do one thing to ‘fix’ Australia’s literary sector, what would it be?When recently asked to recommend a high-impact, culture-shifting initiative, I found myself flummoxed. More funding? More support? More, um, of the above?

Reading and writing in 2020

2020 was a strange and difficult year. One in which worry replaced creativity, and in which I returned to re-reading, great TV writing and easy reads in search of distraction from the drama outside, and to multi-book series for the relief of staying within the same world for longer than one book alone could provide. But in spite (or because) of all this, I still read 134 books in 2020 (just 13 short of my personal best).