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Cultural economy means three things. First of all it's about widening
the boundaries what we on understand by creative industries or the arts, it's to
include all the things around us, things of profit, not-for-profit
community arts, high arts,
commercial, volunteer work, so it's broadening it out to
talk about an ecology of culture.
Second, it means that the values that we use
in approaching this sector are not just economic values, they are not just about
impact or even social impact, they are about cultural values.
And thirdly it's too say that as a cultural economy
it's perfectly OK for cultural values to inform how we organise the economy.
In the early nineties the guggenheim worked with the city of Bilbao, in Spain,
to have a new museum
designed by Frank Gehry, world-renowned architect,
in Bilbao. And its and old industrial city
and it was part of their attempt to regenerate that city
and develop new industries. So they plonked a huge
new Frank Gehry building right on the water font there.
And it was successful and many cities thought
right, we want that. And so they've tried to use these big
iconic art galleries to regenerate
their old cities. When Bilbao did this they thought about it.
It was part of their strategy. It was part of their
longer-term vision for the Basque Country and for that
region, so it was well thought out and they approach
Gehry, they approach the Guggenheim and had long discussions around it.
Now, it had a lot of problems and there's been lots of arguments around it, as you can
imagine.
but it more or less worked. When cities just adopt it
they, first of all see it as "oh, it has an economic impact, lets do that",
and they take the external shell of what they've done rather than the
the internal debates that go with it and they
try to impose it on their own city,
without thinking through what the context is,
and it usually ends in disaster. We try not to separate
cultural value in economic value. We try to integrate the two
because in this sector the economic value of any product or service
derise from its cultural value, so the two aren't
separate as if there's a business model here than there's some cultural values over
the top.
We've tried to look at how the two are integrated.
And so of course these be cultural businesses
make money, deal in money, exchange goods and services
but at the same time they're doing it for a cultural aim.
that culture is not there to help the economy of cities.
It certainly does that but but that cannot be the defining
value involved. It really should be about what is it to live in a good
City
what is it to live in a human city.