Resource – LARSEN

We can do better than Boards

Following my collaboration on AICSA’s Rethinking Arts Governance event last year, I articulated some issues arts organisations have with arts Boards and shared examples of Boards making the best of the current situation.

In doing so, it became depressingly clear that our sector has learned how to bend without breaking when it comes to arts governance. But if the cause of most of our Arts Boards’ dysfunction is the governance model itself, perhaps a break is what we need – to throw the model out and start again.

What does ‘less is necessary’ look like?

It’s been a difficult few years for everybody. With the pandemic joining floods, bushfires and nearly a decade of arts funding cuts, Australia’s arts sector has never been more vulnerable.

As a result, we now find ourselves in the midst of a new crisis: one characterised by sector-wide burnout, staff shortages, ‘post’-pandemic exhaustion, and breaking (or already broken) teams. Which puts a whole generation of artists and arts leaders at risk.

Post-COVID or post-burnout: less is necessary

As a sector, we came together in 2020 and 2021 with extraordinary responsiveness and resilience, and began this year with the hope 2022 would be better, easier, or at least somehow different. Australia had reopened, interstate and international travel was once again possible, and our organisations equipped with new skills to meet artists’ and audiences’ changing needs.

Bad news Boards

The suggestion that Australian arts organisations should reset (or even remove) their Boards has clearly struck a nerve.

Within days of my provocation at the 2021 Reset Conference, I was inundated with responses from all over the world. This included hundreds of social media posts, pages of emails and dozens of interviews that acted both as an overwhelming affirmation of the proposal and a depressing indictment of the state of the sector and the broken governance models we’re forced to work within.

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Art of Governance survey findings

In preparation for my Bundanon residency in May 2022, I launched a survey (which you can still contribute to) asking the Australian arts sector to share your experiences of being on, employed or contracted by, or reporting to arts, cultural or not-for-profit organisations governed by managing Committees or Boards.

I am so very grateful to all those who shared their time and thoughtfulness (and, in many cases, trauma) to contribute to the survey, which will provide the basis for my ongoing work in this area – including an initial analysis coming soon. And, as promised, a summary of the survey’s key findings follows here.

Preparing a cultural policy scorecard

After nearly a decade without a national policy, and a Federal election in sight, the cultural sector is suddenly awash with plans to make a plan.

Resetting our arts boards

Many (if not most) of us are part of the hugely messy and even more misunderstood space that is not-for-profit governance in Australia.

We report to boards, or report to people who report to boards. We apply to the organisations they oversee for our jobs, grants and opportunities. We are board members ourselves.

But this governance model is broken. Even when they’re working well, our boards are usually much harder work than either board members or staff members would like. And good boards can become bad boards in the space of one AGM.

The art of connection

In addition to its many theatres, museums and galleries, Adelaide’s city centre is home to dozens of smaller cultural spaces in which artist and creatives make, share and sell their work.

I was commissioned by City of Adelaide to produce The Art of Connection, a research and advocacy paper about the importance of inner city artist spaces.

List of Aussie publishers

It’s been a while since I updated my list of Aussie publishers, which is still one of the most-read pages on this website.

So, with the end of another year and everyone’s new year writing resolutions back in sight, here are some of the Australian trade publishers currently or soon to open to unsolicited manuscripts.