Cultural Engineering Group

Cultural industries are as old as human society. They are one of the roots of today’s creative economy. When ancient traditions of cultural work and cultural industry- designing, making, decorating and performing – began to be woven together with a wider range of modern economic activities – advertising, design, fashion and moving-image media – and, even more importantly, began to be given much greater reach through the power of digital technology – that was the moment when the ‘creative economy’ was truly born. 

British Council arranged on Saturday the 19th of February, a lecture by Pro. Kate Oakley. BC was looking to develop and apply such new terms and social activities in Syria and to encourage the investment at the cultural sector.

The lecture aimed to draw the attention of policy makers, cultural managers at every level, and people working, or intending to work, in the creative industries – artists, musicians, writers, designers, performers, arts students.

Pro. Kate Oakley; is a writer and policy analyst, specialising in the cultural industries, cultural policy and regional development; focused in her lecture at the cultural role and basis at any social or industrial development.

Pro. Oakley firstly lectured about Creative Economy and Culture Policy along with Cultural Industries terms in definition. She shed lights at UK programme which had been applied in Europe & UK and show how this contributed at giving a space to many of Cultural Activists, such as Artists, Musicians and Designers, to be part of industry and economy at their own society and basically to support their own living; even though they were so confused about what they are going to do and how to invest their talents.

Pro. Oakley explained how we can push many social activities (Visual Arts, Music, Movies, Media, Local Heritage…) and enroll them to be facilitated as Industries. She also focused at the role of such creative economy and industries to support Educational prospects and social development.

Many students, cultural managers and people attended the lecture and made a discussion with Pro. Oakley. Questions scanned and debated some issues related to Creative Economy and Industries, in addition to Local Heritage and Globalization crisis.

All issues all over the lecture were supported and pushed by quotas from similar social activities, which were hold by the British Council in UK, India, Australia and other Commonwealth countries.

This lecture was part of three days workshop, which was basically part of the British Councils’ ongoing large scale programme “Creative and Cultural Economy”.

This was the second visit for Pro. Oakley to Syria, and the first as a visited professor to the British Council in Damascus. She expressed joy and admire at Syrian Cultural Heritage.

DP interviewed Pro. Kate Oakley along with Ms. Alma Salem (Assistant Director at British Council in Damascus) to talk about “The Creative Economy” workshop and programme in Syria.

Source  : British Council.

Filed under: Analyses, Expériences, Gouvernances, Ingénieries, Politiques culturelles, Economie créative, Economie de la culture, Gouvernance culturelle, Industries culturelles, Ingénierie culturelle, Politiques culturelles