ACE plans successor to State of the Arts

A jointly funded commission by Arts Council England (ACE) and the British Council will see a ‘TEDx’ event  for the arts and cultural sector taking place as part of a wider series of lectures, conferences and debates exploring new ideas that could shape the future of the sector. The series is evolving out of ‘State of the Arts’, ACE’s single annual conference, and is intended to be a catalyst for “thought leadership” which will provide opportunities to develop new ideas for responding to the changing political environment. It includes the seminar series ‘Towards Plan A: a new political economy for arts and culture?’, being jointly hosted by ACE and the RSA, aimed at developing and articulating a new case for investment in the arts and culture.

TEDx events are based on a US model pioneered through the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design)conference , featuring speakers who are given a maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas in innovative and engaging ways. Speakers are not paid and agree to their sessions being edited and shared under a Creative Commons licence . The State of the Arts event, to take place in Bristol between October 2013 and February 2014, will generate an archive of digital content which will be available through the TED YouTube channel. It will also be preceded by a programme of activity to “encourage free-thinking, debate, collaboration and ideas-sharing” within the arts and cultural sector. A budget of £160k has been earmarked for the commission: under TED rules, events are prohibited from making a profit and there is a cap on admission fees for events.