QUB AMCP (Arts Management & Cultural Policy) is delighted to welcome University of Southampton researchers, Professor Dan Ashton and Dr Kai Syng Tan (profiles below).  They will offer considerations of different forms of arts and cultural leadership; establishing the strategies and policies that shape its contexts and offering provocations on the multiple possible futures in two short presentations. This will be followed by a Q&A chaired by Dr Ali FitzGibbon. This Brown Bag Lunch Seminar is a lunchtime event at which those attending can bring their own packed lunch, so please bring your lunch.

Presentations:
Cultural strategies and futures – Professor Dan Ashton, University of Southampton
 In the UK, cultural strategies documents are widely used by local government and culture trusts (and other emerging collectives and partnerships) to plan and coordinate cultural activity within a specific place. This presentation will introduce the ‘Cultural strategies, compacts and futures’ project (funded by Public Policy Southampton), reflect on some of the findings of the project around priority themes (place, health, environment) and introduce for discussion the twelve recommendations suggested in the project report. 

Arts and Cultural Leadership: What’s wrong? What works? What’s next? Dr Kai Syng Tan, University of Southampton
Drawing on their research and practice since 2015, including a current work in progress publication, Neuro-Futurising Leadership: An A-Z with Artful Movers and Shakers for 2050 (Palgrave MacMillan 2024), Dr Tan will raise a few creative and critical provocations on what ‘leadership’ in the arts and culture. 

Dr Dan Ashton is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries. At the University of Southampton, Dan (he/him) is the Programme Leader for the MA in Arts and Cultural Leadership at Winchester School of Art, Theme Leader for Data with Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities, and Co-Director of the Work Futures Research Centre.

Dr Kai Syng Tan FRSA PFHEA, Associate Professor on the MA in Arts and Cultural Leadership, University of Southampton: Kai (she/they) is a tentacular and hyperactive artist-academic-agitator who is passionate about diversifying, decolonising and neuro-queering ‘leadership’. She is a trans-disciplinary research innovator (including working on three books currently entangling creativity, futurity, anti-oppression, leadership with neurodivergence).

This event is open to all those (researchers and others) interested in exploring what cultural leadership means, how it emerges and what change is needed for the future. This event is part of the QUB AMCP Seminar Series.