Content

Our Podcast:
The Three Bells

What is happening around the world on those busy, sometimes congested, crossroads of cultural and urban life? What does the cultural sector’s search for ‘relevance’ mean in a period of accelerating social, economic, and technological change? The Three Bells examines how our cultural ecology is changing and why – especially within the dense concentrations of human activity in urban areas. Through interviews with cultural, civic, and thought leaders we explore their preoccupations, insights, and self-confessed blind-spots. Our ambition is to alert our listeners to emerging developments; help to make sense of a challenging time; identify latent opportunities; and navigate those busy crossroads a little more confidently.

Culture for health: Implications and opportunities for cultural districts

2024

Authored by Rosie Dow for GCDN, Culture for health: implications and opportunities for cultural districts, explores how cultural districts can promote health and wellbeing through arts activations; the challenges they face in doing this work, and potential ways forward for new partnerships, policy reform and shifts in ways of working to better serve communities.

This report, developed in partnership with the Social Biobehavioural Research Group, University College London (UCL SBB), provides leaders, artists, scholars, and policymakers with the strategies and considerations to promote public health outcomes in cultural districts, including ensuring sustainable and equitable access through arts activations, community-centred events and more.

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AEA Consulting’s 2023 Cultural Infrastructure Index

GCDN is pleased to present AEA Consulting’s 2023 Cultural Infrastructure Index (CII), a measure of major investments in capital projects in the cultural sector with budgets of US$10 million or more, that were either announced or completed in 2023.

Now in its eighth year, the CII provides a long-term view on trends in the field. An analysis of projects that were completed or publicly announced in 2023 shows relative stabilization following a post-pandemic boom: the number of projects completed increased in both volume and value when compared to 2022, while the value as well as the number of projects announced fell from a record high in 2022. However, if we look back to 2016, when AEA began tracking the CII, we see a more complex picture, as we find the volume of new projects – both announced and completed – increasing, while we see the value of investment decreasing, reflecting the current economic uncertainty affecting both the public and private sectors.

In addition to value and volume of new projects, the Index tracks trends on the number, type, location, and budgets of cultural infrastructure projects announced and completed every year, demonstrating activity across project types as well as uses, geographical spread and year-on-year changes.

Explore more of AEA’s findings in the 2023 Cultural Infrastructure Index.