OCArt Digital Series

In cooperation with the School of Management of the Universidad de los Andes and the Master in International Arts Management, we held the first webinar of our Digital Series: Managing Crisis in Arts Organizations: Three International Cases Tuesday, May 5th. Our three panelists: Charles Beavers, Robert O'Brien, and Virginie Lacombe, as well as the moderator Mónica Muñoz are all MMIAM alumni and their jobs focus on artistic and cultural organizations, both in the academy and in the management of different types of organizations. During the conference we had the presence of more than 80 people from different countries such as Colombia, the United Kingdom, Qatar, the United States, Canada and Scotland.

The panel started with each one of the speakers explaining their role within the organization and how they have had to assume different and unexpected positions in their organization in order to keep them going throughout the COVID-19 crisis. With a heavy reliance on public participation and big gatherings, cultural organizations have had to rethink the way they do things, from canceling events to shifting to digital platforms, our speakers proposed different points of view on how they have tackled the problems that have raised due to the pandemic and how other cultural organizations might do it. There was also input from the audience as to what is needed to be done to make cultural organizations sustainable in the long run, considering all the physical changes and adjustments that might be required.

There were two key concepts in which all three panelists agreed upon, flexibility and cooperation. Cultural organizations, and their workers, need to become more flexible in the way they handle their businesses and processes, because currently things change from one day to another and they need to be able to adapt. On the other hand, while being one of the most affected industries worldwide by the pandemic, culture and arts organizations need to cooperate with each other to become stronger and overcome the challenges that they are facing.