Just published…

19 December, 2017 by Leave a Comment

3717-encact-vol-7_portadaWe’re pleased to see that the latest edition of ENCATC’s Journal of Cultural Management and Policy is now out, featuring Jon Price’s article The Construction of Cultural Leadership, which draws together the last ten years of research on artistic and cultural leadership at On The Edge Research. Available for free download to all. There’s plenty of good reading elsewhere in the publication so please do check it out (we’re particularly interested in David Edelman and Jennifer Green’s The Mind of the Artist/The Mind of the Leader) – what else can you do with these long winter evenings?

This also draws another research year to a close, so let us take the opportunity to wish warm season’s greetings to all our readers, visitors, collaborators and friends. We’ll be back in 2018 with a subversive final (?) entry in our cultural leadership blog series from Tim Collins plus more ideas, projects and events.

Filed Under: Leadership, News

Artistic leadership: the flâneur, the gardener and the physician

18 May, 2017 by Leave a Comment
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Brewery Green, The Tetley, Leeds (photos: Jon Price)

In another of our occasional series of guest blogs on artistic leadership, Brussels based musician and philosopher Kathleen Coessens asks how we can think about leadership from the perspective of the artist, whether the artist can be a leader, and – if so – what kind of leader?

Kathleen, a participant in our Brussels seminar during On The Edge’s Cultural leadership and the place of the Artist project in 2016, looks back to that discussion through the lens of her own artistic identity and three productive metaphors.

As always we invite further responses to continue and connect our thinking.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Debate, Leadership Tagged With: ,

Making Dummy Jim: an artist’s journey to self-determination

30 August, 2016 by Leave a Comment

11203608_10153923676859465_3644178654622771780_oIn the first of a series of guest blogs on artistic leadership, artist filmmaker Matt Hulse reflects on the long and bumpy road that led to eventual production of his full-length feature, Dummy Jim. Matt’s account includes reference to his involvement in the Artist as Leader research in 2008 and its influence on his thinking. Matt’s longstanding connection with On The Edge research and his articulate reflection on the creative process make for a fascinating insight into an individual artist’s relationship with policy, personal determination, and the possible meanings of ‘leadership’.

Now living and working in Beijing, Matt was also a participant in the Edinburgh seminar for our Cultural leadership and the place of the Artist project in May 2016. He described the story of Dummy Jim during that event and we are grateful that he agreed to write this up as an article for us here. This series will feature more contributions from project partners and seminar participants over the next few weeks.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Leadership, News

Thinking Public

8 July, 2016 by Leave a Comment

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Last week on 22nd June, the day before the referendum, Jon Price delivered the keynote of ENCATC’s 6th policy debate focusing on our current AHRC funded research into Cultural Leadership and the place of the artist. We attended this Day of Cultural Leadership on the invitation of ENCATC, the European network of cultural management and policy. ENCATC is one of four partners in our current research within OTE including Creative Scotland and Clore Leadership Foundation.

Professor Annick Schramme of University of Antwerp’s Management School and President of ENCATC skillfully threaded the key issues of the debate that included a panel of discussants from the arts and cultural organisations: Koen Broucke, artist; Jan Bloeman, Managing Director of the Arts Centre Z33, Hasselt, Belgium; Phillip Dietachmair, Programme Manager Tandem Cultural Managers’ Exchange, Amsterdam; Sue Kay, cultural sector researcher from England and Marjolein Verhallen, Leadership in Culture (LinC) project, University of Utrecht. Artists, leaders of cultural and arts organisations from across ENCATC’s 40 member countries as well as policy officers in the European Commission joined the discussion.

Looking back, this was a poignant moment in the UK’s relationship with Europe. It marked one of many extraordinary opportunities to engage in discussion with European partners, widening our horizon of understanding across national borders, expertise and experience. This opportunity for debate now seems remarkably precious.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Leadership, Uncategorized

Art and influence: On The Edge at the ENCATC policy debate

17 June, 2016 by 1 Comment

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On The Edge’s Jon Price has been invited by the European network ENCATC to give a keynote address to its upcoming 6th Annual Policy Debate in Brussels on Wednesday 22nd June. The event addresses European Cultural Leadership and the Role of the Artist and is targeted at cultural professionals, researchers and policy makers from all over Europe. Jon will be talking about his recent work on the Discourse of Cultural Leadership as well as the wider trajectory of On The Edge research on related topics, from the Artist as Leader onwards. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Debate, Events, Leadership, News Tagged With: , , ,

Holding the paradox

28 May, 2016 by 2 Comments
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photo: Chris Fremantle

How can art respond to complex social and ethical problems? When should the demand for solutions be resisted? And how might this affect our understanding of cultural leadership?

These were among the questions keenly debated in the first of our series of full day seminars on Cultural leadership and the place of the Artist which took place in Edinburgh on Friday 20th May.  Our thanks go to the artists, researchers and cultural organisers who attended and contributed so fully.  The day brought together participants from various phases of On The Edge research alongside new friends and colleagues from our project partners Creative Scotland and ENCATC.

Discussion ranged across different understandings of what is meant by leadership and how it relates to artistic production.  This led on to questions about the role of art in public life.  Some compelling suggestions were made about the distinctive capacity of art to embrace contradiction, to find potent material in the midst of uncertainty.  In a world of ‘wicked’, irresolvable problems, there is a value to being able to hold conflicting ideas in creative tension. Can art therefore help us to live with our difficulties?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Activities, Debate, Events, Leadership, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Introducing our artist in residence

4 May, 2016 by Leave a Comment
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Image from ‘what remains and is to come’, a performance installation by Katrina Brown and Rosanna Irvine

On The Edge’s recent artist in residence call resulted in a wonderful response with high quality applications received from seven European countries across numerous different art forms.  We are delighted to announce Rosanna Irvine as the selected artist, and Rosanna has already attended the pilot event for Cultural leadership and the place of the artist at Woodend Barn, Banchory.

Based in Glasgow, Rosanna is an inter-disciplinary choreographer working with performance, digital media and writing practices. She works independently and in collaboration with choreographer Katrina Brown. She is also a researcher and lecturer with an interest in relational aesthetics and non-representational poetics. Her work offers an entirely different way of responding to the discussions, presentations and texts through which this project will develop. We welcome her to the team and look forward to seeing what form her interpretations will take.

We’re also very grateful to the other respondents to our call. It was a point of principle for us that there should be artistic input to this work and we were spoiled for choice. It was only disappointing not to be able to take more ideas forward. However, a really positive development is that a number of the artists who made proposals have chosen to stay in touch with the projects, correspond on the issues and contribute as participants to the forthcoming events.  Their perspectives and contributions are vital complements to the policy and training expertise contributed by our partners, and will help to maintain the central place of artists in this research.

We’re now looking forward to our first main project seminar which takes place in Edinburgh at the beautiful City of Edinburgh Methodist Church on 20th May. More to follow on this site about the key questions and ideas discussed at that event.

Filed Under: Leadership, News, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Questioning cultural leadership

1 April, 2016 by 2 Comments

Who do you depend upon to make your role in the arts possible? Who looks to you for support? What form of change would you most like to see happen – and who can help you bring it about?

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Photos: Graeme MacDonald

On The Edge posed these questions to a diverse group of artists, researchers and organisers at the first event of its new AHRC investigation, Cultural leadership and the place of the artist, on 14th March at Woodend Barn, Banchory. Each question was approached through the viewpoints of a range of archetypal roles: artist, funder, teacher, policy maker, board member, parent, venue manager, volunteer.  We built a network in miniature of the relationships and forms of influence through which our actions are shaped in aesthetic, organisational and social contexts.  Opening up issues of leadership in culture beyond the operation of hierarchies, we tried to understand the interplay between policy and practice; artist and institution; individual and structure; action and influence. Among the discussions that followed we introduced the ten-year trajectory of On The Edge research from The Artist as Leader onwards and tested ideas for the new project. [Read more…]

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Artist in residence call

4 February, 2016 by 1 Comment

On starThe Edge research (Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen), with partners The Clore Leadership Programme, Creative Scotland and ENCATC, is pleased to announce a call for an artist in residence role connected with our current AHRC funded project Cultural Leadership and the place of the artist.

We are looking for an artist in any discipline to act as creative respondent for series of international seminars taking place this summer in Scotland, Belgium and England. A fee of £1300 plus expenses is available.

Deadline for applications: 26th February 2016. Full details about this opportunity and how to apply are available here: Grays Artist in Residence brief Feb2016

Filed Under: Leadership, News, Opportunities Tagged With: ,

Cultural leadership and the place of the artist

21 October, 2015 by 3 Comments

Traditional Sicilian puppets at Rustico's restaurant, AberdeenOn The Edge has secured a new £100,000 international project to develop professional engagement with its research into artistic and cultural leadership at Gray’s School of Art. Establishing new relationships with the Clore Leadership Programme, Creative Scotland and ENCATC (the European network of cultural management and cultural policy education), the work will generate events and discussions with the cultural sector in London, Edinburgh and Brussels. New publications will be produced and the project aims to inform new developments in cultural leadership training, theory and practice.

The year-long initiative is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) with further support from the three partners. It builds on the longstanding ‘Artist as Leader’ research as well as Jonathan Price’s Ph.D research into ‘Discourses of Cultural Leadership’ (2012-2015).  Price will co-ordinate the new project while Professor Anne Douglas and Chris Fremantle, the co-authors of the Artist as Leader report, will be Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator respectively.  Douglas said: ‘This AHRC award and the support of our cultural sector partners is welcome recognition of the quality of the research at Gray’s and its significance in the professional field. This opportunity allows us to build on our earlier work and on recent doctoral research in the School, shaping debates in the UK and Europe.’

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Filed Under: Activities, Leadership, News Tagged With: ,