We are pleased to share with you our latest projects and activities as well as events and articles from other organisations you may find interesting as part of your journey to re-imagine working together across borders and cultures.
April 2024
In the wake of the Design Museum’s seminal exhibition on “Waste Age”, the Design Museum developed an excellent Exhibition Design Guide examining the opportunities for museums to reduce their carbon footprint across the exhibition life cycle including how to embed the consideration of impact reduction in the museum’s design process and the work with commissioned designers, contractors and suppliers. Culture Connect is delighted to have supported the dynamic exhibition team of the Design Museum with the dissemination of this Guide as broadly as possible across the globe. Wherever you are, you can now access the guide in any of the 6 official UN languages.
March 2024
Organised by Department of Culture and Tourism, Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with global partner organisations including UNESCO, Cultural Foundation, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, Economist Impact, Google, the Design Museum, Recording Academy, Berklee Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and IFACCA, Culture Summit Abu Dhabi is a global forum for knowledge exchange, debate, and policy development in the field of culture and the creative industries.
Culture Connect was delighted to have been appointed this year again to help with the curation and programming of this sixth edition in particular via bringing together partners of Culture Summit to curate the programme of the sixth edition, titled ‘A Matter of Time’, which took place from 3 - 5 March 2024. With over 90 sessions featuring over 180 speakers through the sub-themes “Time to remember (The passage of time)”, “Time to act (seizing the moment)”, and “Time to share (A never-ending time)”, artists, cultural leaders, thinkers and policymakers from across the globe and across the culture and creative fields explored how our relation to time is changing. How does this change impact the way culture is produced, received and consumed? What role could culture, which so often holds together past, present and future, play to help us navigate this moment of inflection in the way we relate to the notion of time, moving from what emerged with the rise of industrialisation as ‘mechanical time’ to a ‘new cultural time’ realigned with the rhythm of human awareness and nature? For further details, read the full theme overview here.
Visit the website below to see the full programme of speakers and visit the Youtube channel here to catch up on sessions.
November 2023
The conference "IM/MATERIALITIES: Museums between real and digital" was held at the Museo Egizio in Turin from the 28th November to the 1st December 2023, following the themes and topics of the 2019 exhibition "Invisible Archaeology" which involved more than 40 scientific institutions and explored objects and their unique histories.
Anaïs Aguerre was invited to contribute as a speaker under the sub-theme "IN/TANGIBLE", where practitioners in particular of philosophy, sociology, archaeology, cultural anthropology, material sciences, and history of design compared research, methods, and experiences to present a transdisciplinary introduction to the nature of objects at the intersection of tangible and intangible heritage. Her presentation explored sharing culture in the age of digital reproduction and the ReACH Declaration 2017.
To read more about the conference, visit below.
June 2023
The Cultural Diplomacy Symposium was held on 29 June 2023 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, organised by the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building to provide practical insights from former and current diplomats, art professionals and academics. Anaïs Aguerre was invited to chair a discussion on “Cultural Diplomacy in Action: Fostering Effective Diplomatic Practices” between Rosalie Kim (Curator, V&A Museum), Marta de Zuniga (Director, Polish Cultural Institute in London), Adriana Sandoval (Cultural attaché, Colombian embassy), and Tetyana Filevska (Creative director, Ukrainian Institute).
May 2023
Organised by Teo, the Touring Exhibitions Organisation, Teo Live is an annual online event dedicated to international touring exhibitions. The 2023 edition was held on 11 May, featuring a keynote presentation by Anaïs Aguerre and Otone Doi on the findings of Cultural Dialogue Survey 2023: The Future of Touring Exhibitions, alongside a marketplace of exhibitions and meet up opportunities. The event was recorded and can be viewed at the link below. To find out more about the report, visit our Cultural Dialogue Surveys page here.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi
October 2022
Organised by Department of Culture and Tourism, Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with global partner organisations including UNESCO, Cultural Foundation, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, Economist Impact, Google, the Design Museum, Recording Academy, Abu Dhabi Film Commission, Berklee Abu Dhabi, and Louvre Abu Dhabi, Culture Summit Abu Dhabi is a global forum for knowledge exchange, debate, and policy development in the field of culture and the creative industries.
Culture Connect was delighted to have been appointed to help with the curation of the rescheduled fifth edition of the Culture Summit Abu Dhabi, titled ‘A Living Culture’, which took place from 23 - 25 October 2022, reconsidering the potential of collectivity, cultivating culture ecosystems, and embracing culture as lived experience through sub-themes of ‘Living Cultural Ecosystems’, ‘Living in Culture’, and ‘Culture, Identity, Power’.
Additionally, on the 25th October, Anaïs Aguerre also moderated on behalf of the Louvre Abu Dhabi the panel “From Treasure House to Modern Agora: The Rise of the Museum as a Civic Space” with Latifa Saeed (visual artist) and Alia Al Shamsi (artist and Cultural Programming Manager at Louvre Abu Dhabi), focusing on how museums could act as a modern day ‘agora’ or ‘Majlis’, opening new opportunities for museum practitioners, artists and the public.
Visit the Youtube channel below to catch up on sessions.
June | September 2022
Culture Connect launched its first online masterclass, “Navigating International Collaborations”, on 29 June 2022, followed by a second masterclass on 9 September 2022. This half-day masterclass aims to help cultural professionals from around the world to develop a new collaborative mindset to lead successful cross-cultural projects and make the most of their international engagement. To find out more about the masterclass, read the leaflet below.
March 2022
In March 2022, the British Council in collaboration with Cultural Associates Oxford (CAO) launched the inaugural edition of the online course, Supporting the creative economy: a programme for policy makers, for approximately 300 policymakers and civil servants working in local, regional, and central government in countries in Wider Europe to embed the creative and cultural industries into their policy areas. Anaïs Aguerre was invited to contribute as a guest speaker exploring with the participants the mechanics of cultural diplomacy. To read more about the course, visit below.
February 2022
The Art Fund runs monthly Inspiration Coffee sessions for their staff, inviting guest presenters to talk about their expertise and engage in open discussions with staff members afterwards. Anaïs Aguerre was invited on 10 February 2022 to discuss the topic of “Re-thinking the museum’s international engagement in a hyper-connected and hypersensitive world”.
June 2021
ICOM France in collaboration with Institut national du patrimoine organised a debate on 3 June 2021 around “Does the intelligence of museums have a price? The new deal in cultural engineering” (“L'intelligence des musées a-t-elle un prix ?”). Anaïs Aguerre was invited as a speaker for this debate alongside key players of the French museum landscape including Agnès Saal, Hervé Barbaret, Claude Mollard, Michèle Antoine, Laurence Chesneau-Dupin and the President of ICEE-ICOM, Antonio Rodriguez. The discussion focused on exploring how cultural engineering would play a role in the reconstruction of the museum of the future and its limitations, particularly in light of recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. For the full debate translated into English, please visit the link here and the detailed programme here.
NOVEMBER 2020
Reframing Museums is a major symposium gathering museum professionals and scholars from across the globe to re-think collectively the future of museums.
Culture Connect was invited to conceive it on behalf of Louvre Abu Dhabi and New York University Abu Dhabi. We also led the curation of this major global event across their teams.
The virtual symposium which took place on 16-18 November 2020 gathered 73 speakers, moderators and facilitators from across the globe, 1,000 registrants from 65 different countries and received over 5.7k views on YouTube after a week.
It was a fantastic and rewarding adventure for Culture Connect. We invite you to listen to the numerous meaningful and genuine conversations which took place across these three days by visiting the #ReframingMuseums channel.
October 2020
Culture Connect was invited to speak at the Designing for Empathy virtual summit 2020, the 3rd Annual Empathy Summit organised by the Empathy-Building Through Museums Initiative from 28 - 30 October 2020, bringing together an innovative group of professionals who are committed to solving the problem of empathy-deficit in our world through individual, institutional, and collective actions. As part of presentations exploring empathy-building in cultural settings through leadership, values, dialogue, and design, Anaïs Aguerre offered personal reflection drawn from experiences of working with colleagues from around the world and expanded on the critical role that empathy plays in fostering sustainable and enriching partnerships.
September 2020
Experience UK and the Department for International Trade organised Connecting Culture 2020, a virtual conference and expo on 9-10 September 2020, which was attended by museum and heritage professionals from across the globe. Culture Connect's founder and director, Anaïs Aguerre, moderated the session "Reimagining collaboration, the artist perspective" with guest speakers Farooq Chaudhry and Soulaf Khalifeh. The discussion explored the infinite space of imagination required for fruitful collaboration - the role of uncertainty and courage in fostering collaboration, the need to think outside-of-the-box, and the call for interdisciplinary collaboration between artists in unlocking collective intelligence.
June 2020
Last year, Culture Connect worked with the exhibition organisers on the reception of Mandela: The Official Exhibition, which was presented in London at 26 Leake Street Gallery (8 February – 2 June 2019) and then travelled to Berlin.
Through our analysis of 6,112 comment entries in the exhibition’s visitor books, it was extraordinary to see how the legacy of an activist and leader such as Mandela could be brought back to life through the medium of an exhibition. The entries show an appetite for exhibitions that remind people of the complexities of historical events and that link the past to the present and inspire individual change. In the current context, Culture Connect is regularly exploring with its clients how their civic role can be harnessed and how in particular museums can become a re-imagined public space.
May 2020
The Art Newspaper and Factum Foundation organised a series of live discussion on TAN YouTube Channel on 1-3 May 2020. Anaïs Aguerre contributed to the second episode on “The Circulation of Objects: the Politics of Recording, Training, Preserving and Sharing”. A discussion to be continued to further explore - as pointed out at the end of the conversation – the notions of stewardship and new global ‘common’ and ultimately what our collective responsibility towards our ‘shared culture & heritage’ could mean in the 21st century.
March 2020
With the culture, heritage, and arts sector monitoring the effects of the ever-changing situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the dependence of visitor attractions on physical footfall is increasingly striking. Across the world, museums, galleries, archives, theatres, heritage sites, concert halls, stadiums, arenas, and studios have been forced to close temporarily, calling into question how such institutions can fulfil their public-facing role. Many have naturally turned to digital technology and social media channels to emphasise that they are still open to the public, displaying collective solidarity and focusing on the public’s need for the arts to promote mental well-being, health, positivity, and creativity in the face of growing fear and uncertainty. People are creating content through video from their own homes: professional dancers have started streaming daily dance classes; theatres have taken to Twitter to “sing” through their shows;
and late night television show hosts are posting short versions of their shows online.
Culture Connect’s research assistant, Otone Doi has compiled some of the most interesting initiatives that have emerged as immediate responses to the ‘world lockdown’.
October 2019
Culture Connect was invited to join the University of Oxford’s GLAM Cultural Sector Talks series. Addressing Oxford University’s Gardens, Libraries and Museum teams, Anaïs explored in her talk “Museums and International Engagement – Building New Common Grounds”:
· What does a culture of inclusion look like when we move beyond the walls of our museums and the frontiers of our countries?
· How can we re-think international engagement in today’s hyper-connected and yet fragmented world?
· How can the museum be a force for good in our complex and volatile times?
Imagining and building new common grounds to enable new, and sometimes unexpected, but always constructive dialogues and encounters is at the heart of the work of Culture Connect.
february 2019
“Record, Replay”—the kinetic cornerstone of digitized heritage—was the subject of Columbia University’s 2019 Fitch Colloquium, organized by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Culture Connect was invited to deliver an address and participate in a panel discussion, speaking alongside notable academics, digital architects and other leading innovators.
November 2018
We are delighted to announce the launch of Culture Connect’s calendar of global conferences to celebrate our first year of operations.
A year and half ago, I decided to start Culture Connect with this strong belief that the cultural sector had a critical role to play at this pivotal time in human history and could be a major agent for (re)building bridges between people, institutions and countries. Moreover, first-hand experience and the vision of many leaders in
our sector with whom I have been lucky to work closely, have taught me that integrating a global outlook to your local work is a major factor of success to thrive - no matter your size - in an increasingly complex globalised environment where business models, approaches to digital and partnership frameworks have to be re-invented.
The work we’ve conducted during this first year has brought Culture Connect to many corners of our planet and my founding belief is stronger than ever. Enabling diverse individuals to work together across borders and invite their publics to broaden their horizons is vital to build the necessary trust and understanding our world needs to face the global challenges of our time. Culture and the Arts have the extraordinary power and ability to create a sense of belonging beyond the comfort of the ‘known’. Facilitating the circulation of people, ideas and art is key to help us live better together, make the most of this hyperconnected world and jointly shape our tomorrow. Meeting colleagues from various institutions, cities, countries and keeping in tune with the latest thoughts and experimentations of colleagues from across the globe is a powerful way to foster these necessary cultural exchanges.
Now you can easily search for your next sector outing without scouring the Internet.
Aware of both our fast-paced lives and the striking amount of events organised by dedicated teams and innovative organisations worldwide, we offer to filter out your search by presenting most relevant events for you as well as highlighting deadlines for call for papers. Culture Connect calendar compiles upcoming events, symposia, and conferences on arts management, museums and cultural diplomacy/soft power across the world. This, we hope, will help you find the right platform to share your views, experiences and ideas.
We invite you to use the Culture Connect calendar to stay informed and build your global network. Wishing you many productive connections!
October 2018
Culture Connect was invited to join a panel discussion engaging critically with the VASTARI report on the occasion of its launch at Christie’s Education. Anaïs Aguerre joined Neil McConnon (Head of International Enterprises at the Barbican Centre), Gillian Fox (Assistant curator, Hayward Gallery Touring at the Southbank Centre) and Bernardine Bröcker Wieder (VASTARI co-founder and CEO) to discuss some of the findings of this consultation of over 500 museums across the world. A first global attempt to gather hard facts and data on touring exhibitions and an interesting insight into museum touring practices worldwide. Data are updated on a regular basis.
(Panel discussion - London, UK)
Credit: Japan House London
September 2018
Culture Connect visited Japan House London, a new venture that was launched on 22 June 2018 by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and creative director Kenya Hara "presenting the very best of Japanese art, design, gastronomy, innovation and technology". This was an opportunity to see how Japan represents its culture and values abroad in light of the Cultural Olympiad building up to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and ahead of the upcoming UK/Japan Season of Culture 2019/2020. Some reflections by Culture Connect’s Research Assistant, Otone Doi.
August 2018
Kadamati at the Edinburgh International Festival
No Culture Connect news but simply the desire to share an extraordinary demonstration of the power of collaboration when diversity and unity dance together.
Choregraphed by Akram Khan, this amazing piece performed at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh during the Edinburg International Culture Summit on 22 August is a ‘spectacular outdoor mass performance which brings together communities of all backgrounds and abilities to experience a collective creative process’. The piece draws on the themes of identity, migration, and hope'. Kadamati which means ‘clay’ in Bengali conjures up the idea that we are, somehow, all connected. A few weeks later over than 700 dancers performed it in the forecourt of the Parvis de l'Hôtel de Ville in Paris, France.
July 2018
Mailing of Copy Culture: Sharing in the Age of Digital Reproduction completed.
Through essays, interviews and project profiles, 'Copy Culture' edited by the talented Brendan Cormier draws from the ReACH consultation and dialogue exploring how we can, collectively, better understand the challenges and opportunities for making, storing, sharing and using digital reproductions of works of art and cultural heritage in the 21st century. It was a pleasure to support Brendan on this other important outcome of the ReACH initiative and co-sign the introduction. Being true to the open access spirit of ReACH, the book can be downloaded from the V&A website and below.
(Publication - London, UK)
June 2018
Anaïs Aguerre organised as Reach Project Director a conference with UNESCO presenting the conclusion of a year of an unprecedented global consultation she led on behalf of the V&A to explore the challenges and opportunities that digital reproductions represent today and how we could collectively shape new responses to ensure that these latest technologies could help us better study, preserve and share our cultural heritage. One of the major outcomes of this initiative is the ReACH Declaration signed by museum and heritage community's leading figures. Moreover, the ReACH initiative has been a fantastic opportunity to explore how the total of our collective contributions could help us address global issue more effectively when the right international collaborative framework is created, a core mission of Culture Connect. The reception of this Declaration has been extremely positive as the desire to share best practices in the field is growing. Feel free to join, the #ReACHDialogue remains open!
The Reach Declaration translated in all the official UN-languages can be found below as well as the list of the initial signatories.
(Project / Conference - Paris, France)
May 2018
On 18 May 2018, ICOM celebrates International Museum Day. The theme for this year is “Hyperconnected museums: New approaches, new publics”. With this in mind, Culture Connect shares some tips on easy ways to communicate and virtually meet your global colleagues to foster international collaboration.
April 2018
Culture Connect worked with the Chilean Ministerio de la Culturas, las Artes y el Patrimonio to explore how international engagement could become a positive aspect of museums’ work in Chile. The workshop ‘working locally, thinking globally’ we planned and delivered at the Ministry in Santiago for Chilean museum professionals took place as the Ministry recently launched a new museum policy following the report on the state of museums in Chile published in December 2017. Chile is a fascinating country which hosted in 1972 the seminal roundtable organised by UNESCO in Santiago on “The Role of Museums in Today’s Latin America’ which remains a turning point for museology in Latin America.
(Workshop - Santiago, Chile)
March 2018
Culture Connect was invited by Tonya Nelson, Chair of ICOM UK to take part in the ICOM UK / NMDC Annual Conference on working internationally. Anaïs shared her thoughts and insights on ‘re-thinking museum international engagement in a hyper-connected world’ as part of the ‘Working locally, Thinking globally’ panel.
(Conference - Edinburgh, UK)
February 2018
As project director for ReACH, Anaïs contributed to the panel “Policies of Ownership” in the context of digital reproductions and their dissemination alongside Claudia Schnitzlein (The British Museum), the Berlin-based artists Nora Al-Badri and Nikolei Nelles and Babette Schnitzlein (Bilderfahrzeuge Project). The panel was organised in connection with the exhibition “Metadata” by the international research group Bilderfahrzeuge. Aby Warburg’s Legacy and the Future of Iconology and Central Saints Martins University for the Arts.
(Conference - London, UK)
January 2018
Article in The Art Newspaper:‘Digital obsolescence is a growing problem and ReACH commits itself to producing a set of standards that will be revised as technology evolves.’
January 2018
The first edition of ‘Cultural Diplomacy in Action’ was delivered to the UCSC MA in Cultural and Digital Diplomacy’s students.
(Lectures - Rome, Italy)
December 2017
Article in Apollo Magazine: ‘If ReACH can provide both a framework and a network for future debates, it will be a step in the right direction at a time when international cooperation is needed more than ever.’
December 2017
After an unprecedented global consultation, the ReACH Declaration Promoting the Reproduction, Storage and Sharing of Works of Art and Cultural Heritage Through Digital Technologies was successfully launched during a public summit held at the V&A. Among the initial 19 signatories: the V&A, the Louvre Museum, the Hermitage State Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the Van Gogh Museum, the National Galleries of Scotland, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Yale Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, Factum Arte, Yale Center for British Art, The Warburg Institute, National Gallery of Victoria and the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism in particular.
Through Culture Connect, Anaïs structured and led on behalf of the V&A this major international collaboration on the reproduction of works of art and cultural heritage spearheaded by the V&A collaboration with the Peri Foundation. The completion phase runs until June 2018.
(Project - London, UK)
OCTOBER 2017
During Frieze, Culture Connect was invited to curate a panel on 'Authenticity in the Digital World: how will the aura of the original evolve in the 21st century?' as part of the “Blueprint Breakfast Briefings” series co-organised by Cromwell Place and Vastari. Anaïs explored with Brendan Cormier (Senior Curator, V&A), Sam Jacob (Principal, Sam Jacob Studio) and Chance Coughgenour (Programme Manager, Google Culture Institute) how the notion of authenticity is challenged by the 4th industrial revolution and this affects the cultural and heritage community.
(Conference - London, UK)
SEPTEMBER 2017
Anaïs delivered the keynote for the 2017 annual conference of ICOM – ICTOP (International Committee for the Training of Personel) looking at “Why do people matter? Museums and capacity building in the 21st century”.
(Conference - Windhoek, Namibia)