conscient podcast

e183 imagining in public - cultural leadership in a changing world

Episode Notes

• I've been thinking a lot about the importance of connecting the value of the arts to everyday citizens and their own connection to creativity, whatever that might be. I think it's something we should be talking about now, not only within our communities and within the arts sector, but outside of as well : talking about the value of the arts to feelings of belonging and connection and the ability to build bridges that the arts uniquely have. 

- kelly langgard, june 5, 2024 imagining in public - cultural leadership in a changing world panel

I agree with Kelly Langgard that the arts have the capacity to build bridges and deepen feelings of belonging and the arts also have a lot of influence, and responsibility, in our changing world, as you are about to hear. 

So welcome to a special episode of the conscient podcast, brought to you by the Public Imagination Network in collaboration with Mass Culture - Mobilisation culturelle.

You’re about to hear a 90 minute conversation on the theme of ‘cultural leadership in a changing world’ that took place on June 5th 2024 on Zoom with about 100 participants from across Canada. 

But first, who is who. 

The conversationalists were Public Imagination Network Fellows Devyani Saltzman, Evalyn Parry and Shannon Litzenberger alongside Kelly Langgard, Director and CEO of the Toronto Arts Council and Michael Murray, CEO of the Ontario Arts Council | Conseil des arts de l'Ontario.

Now you might know that the Public Imagination Network is a group of leading artists and thinkers who are passionate about creative responses to issues of public governance and social justice and you can hear more about the origins of the Public Imagination Network, also known as PIN, in my March 28th, 2024 conversation with Shannon Litzenberger, e160 shannon litzenberger - a culture of collective thriving, of this podcast. 

This panel was co-hosted with Mass Culture - Mobilisation culturelle, which is an arts support organization that strives to harness the power of research to learn and generate new insights, enabling the arts community to be strategic, focused and adaptive. Mass Culture is led by Robin Sokoloski who was my guest on this podcast in episode 61 from 2021 and also will be my guest for a second conversation this summer so stay tuned for that. I suspect we will talk about… leadership, climate change, more than human beings and more.

So what is cultural leadership? Shannon Litzenberger offered this definition during the conversation:

• I think about leadership as our ability to respond generatively to what a moment is asking of us in service of collective thriving. So it's got a lot of layers to it… It's about our ability to respond. What are we responding to? How are we attuning to a moment? Are we just seeing what we're conditioned to see? Are we attuned to what's in the foreground : the arrangements in the background that are producing the condition that we're inside of? And are our decisions, are our responses, are they in service of collective thriving? To me, this is the big moment of relational turn that leadership needs to understand. 

And I think this is a good point of departure with an emphasis on whether we are 'in tune' with this moment.

To the organizers credit, this event was not a one-way conversation. The audience was invited to participate through a series of zoom chat storms. I had never done this before but it’s basically when comments and questions are sent at once at the end of a series of presentations.

It was quite overwhelming but a lot of fun to read such a rich array of options and responses all at once and you’ll hear during the episode quotes from comments and responses from the conversationalists.

You can also read the rich array of participant ‘chat’ comments at the end of the episode notes below. 

To make this recording easier to access, I’ve divided it into 6 parts, each divided by a soundscape composition from 1998 of mine called Au dernier vivant les biens.

1. 00:00 conscient podcast introduction and context
2. 8:49 Evalyn Parry, Shannon Litzenberger and Devyani Saltzman introduction
3. 19:28 What do we need to hold onto and leave behind?
4. 28:54 Practices of leadership : what new leadership capacities will support a transition away from a corporate, hyper-industrialized system?
5. 45:10 Flux, turmoil and the role of institutions : how do we stay in an ethical relationship to a world in distress?
6. 54:55 Questions and comments from the audience

To be honest my only critique of this conversation is that they did not speak directly about the climate emergency or the ecological crisis, which are the main areas of concern of this podcast however Evalyn Parry did note at the end of the session that we should have a separate session on this topic and interweave it into other conversations, which I believe is in the works. 

And I think it’s good to have multiple and contrasting conversations about these complex issues - be it leadership, capacity, social justice, societal collapse and so on - because they are all interconnected and all require our attention but maybe not all at once. 

So what I retained most specifically from this conversation on cultural leadership is that the arts not only have the capacity to build bridges and help us make connections and relations, but the arts also provide a positive vision of other worlds, other ways of being, while offering a reality check about our changing world. 

And dialogue, as well as listening, within the arts sector and beyond, are key to moving forward, so I would like to thank the organizers, conversationalists and participants in this session for sharing their wisdom and passion and I hope to do this again soon. 

Note: An edited version of the chat from this session is available here.  Please note that participants in this session have consented to have this summary of the chat shared as part of this podcast episode. Please do not quote this material without the permission of the author.

Episode Transcription

• I've been thinking a lot about the importance of connecting the value of the arts to everyday citizens and their own connection to creativity, whatever that might be. I think it's something we should be talking about now, not only within our communities and within the arts sector, but outside of as well : talking about the value of the arts to feelings of belonging and connection and the ability to build bridges that the arts uniquely have. 

- kelly langgard, june 5, 2024 imagining in public - cultural leadership in a changing world panel

• I think about leadership as our ability to respond generatively to what a moment is asking of us in service of collective thriving. So it's got a lot of layers to it… It's about our ability to respond. What are we responding to? How are we attuning to a moment? Are we just seeing what we're conditioned to see? Are we attuned to what's in the foreground : the arrangements in the background that are producing the condition that we're inside of? And are our decisions, are our responses, are they in service of collective thriving? To me, this is the big moment of relational turn that leadership needs to understand.

- shannon litzenberger, june 5, 2024 imagining in public - cultural leadership in a changing world panel