Arts Leadership – LARSEN

Don’t break our arts this election

Arts and culture in Victoria are in crisis. Funding for artists and small-to-medium cultural organisations has declined 35% since 2022. Artists are leaving the sector. Cultural organisations are closing. Creative Victoria has lost the sector’s trust. Victoria’s reputation as ‘the cultural capital’ has been decimated. And the sector’s viability is at significant and immediate risk.

And another thing: Parkinson’s Law

Does your board want to reduce its meetings but thinks its too busy to do so? This month’s ‘and another thing’ vlog explores the concept of Parkinson’s Law.

Looking for hope: censorship versus care

The recording of my Greg Binns Memorial Lecture on looking for hope amongst almost unprecedented arts censorship in Australia is now live on the Art Gallery of Ballarat website.

And another thing: the governance industrial complex

What happens when for-purpose and for-profit governance consultants and training providers become so entwined with common-practice systems and requirements they pursue their own interests over those of the orgs they support, or what those organisations are trying to achieve? This is the governance industrial complex, and the subject of my latest ‘and another thing’ vlog.

And another thing: introducing Artist Corporations

Did you know that you don’t need to incorporate as a not-for-profit organisation for your work to serve a purpose?

My latest ‘and another thing’ vlog is about an exciting new governance innovation that’s come out of the US this year: The Artist-Corporation or A-Corp.

Have your say on Artificial Intelligence in Australia

The Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence is calling for submissions to a broad parliamentary inquiry about the opportunities, impacts and regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Australia.

And another thing: board officeholders

Arts boards, did you know that you don’t need a Chairperson? And that you don’t need a Treasurer either?

Palestine as a governance issue

By my count, 87* Australian arts and cultural organisations have now been accused of many more instances of censoring, threatening or otherwise harming their own artists, cultural workers or audiences between 2023 and 2026 alone (*updated 5 November 2026).

And another thing: board (lack of) diversity

This month’s ‘and another thing’ rant is about the newly-released Board (lack of) Diversity Index and our lower-than-low definitions of success.

Disrupting the arts

Art is the business of disruption.

No matter the medium, platform or level of professionalism, the act of making is innately transformational: whether it turns thought into matter (or the other way around), brings different elements together or breaks them down to be shared or understood in different ways.