In response to the multiple urgencies of our times, how do arts and cultural institutions remain relevant? How do we enable and enact ethical leadership and empowered organizations? Munro will explore the importance of listening to our constituents and artists as we forge new models for challenging traditional hierarchies between curatorial and educational practices, drawing on BALTIC’s emerging Centre for Public Practice—a site for both critical research and creative operational delivery.
Never before have cultural leaders had to deal with such complexity, from ensuring mission relevance to operational and institutional sustainability in a fast-changing global environment. In response to the multiple urgencies of our times, Sarah Munro will draw on lessons learned from her leadership journey over the last twenty-five years working in the arts to address a number of interrelated questions within her lecture.
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art is the largest visual art gallery in the UK. With no public collection and over 3000 sq. m. of arts space (four galleries and a flexible performance space), artists' studios, cinema/lecture space, shop, a contemporary art library, and archive, BALTIC works in partnership with a vast range of collaborators. Sarah Munro was appointed the first women Director of BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in fall 2015. Over the last three years Munro has led on the design and implementation of a renewed mission and vision for BALTIC. This has incorporated shifting from a founding focus on "cultural led economic regeneration" in the face of postindustrial decline, to a new urgency that emphasizes the building of social and cultural capital. Munro will question how institutions address their social biases and strengthen links between their values and operations.
The lecture is part of the series “Theories and practices of cultural leadership” organized by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in collaboration with the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy.
