Culture: Restart

Why should artists remain hungry? Creative industries are not just about art and culture. Nowadays you can name as creative lots of things, but what hides behind this term? What sectors form creative industries and what stops them from becoming a powerful economic force?

Creative hubs are a relatively new concept that rapidly spreads across Ukrainian cities. They become a point of intersection of different creative sectors uniting ateliers, museums, art platforms, concert spaces, coworkings and theatres. What is a creative hub? What is the difference between traditional cultural centres and creative hubs? Why creative hubs appear in old areas such as factories or castles?

While our world is constantly changing and new opportunities emerge, our education faces the same old challenges: excessive theory and lack of practitioners. At the COVID-19 times, informal education has attracted audiences, prestigious universities, museums and multimedia platforms open online access to visitors. How art education in Ukraine differs from foreign one? Do all groups of the population have equal access to education? What influences artists’ development the most?

Creative entrepreneurship, like any other kind of entrepreneurship, aspires to grow. Having stable and satisfying financing is not enough – entrepreneurial skills and knowledge in financial management are required. What channels of project financing previously existed in Ukraine, and what are present nowadays? What are the main challenges of creative businesses? Where to find money when you have just started your business?

Gender equality is declared one of the 17 Global Sustainable Goals of the United Nations and remains a key EU’s priority. It is not only about an equal amount of women in the labour market, but also equal compensation for work and equal career opportunities. Arts and culture stand as an efficient instrument for mainstreaming equality in society. What is the situation with gender equality in creative industries nowadays, and how it had been before? Are women the only discriminated in creative industries?

The cultural policy holds an important but not always a priority place in Ukrainian society. While more essential questions are discussed, libraries, art schools and museums cease to grow. Creative youth leave towns and villages to seek development in big cities. How can culture become an instrument for sustainable social development? How and why should towns and villages gradually fulfil their potential?

Creative industries are a business which sells ideas and emotions to people. The new trends call companies to think not only about their profit but the social and cultural impact of their products. What models are the most demanded in the creative sector, what influences their change and if having a social enterprise is profitable? How Ukrainian creative products are assessed abroad?

Together with Radio The Ukrainians, we gathered the main ideas from the special project “Culture: Restart” and created a range of podcasts called “Have an idea”. Seven episodes of more than an hour in total will allow you better understand the creative industries and get a more integral vision of the sector. To receive in-depth knowledge on a topic, find the link to the text version of the special project in the description of each episode.