Cultural policy during and after the pandemic: international insights into the recovery of the performing arts. Special Research Grants: COVID-19 Awards, British Academy, 2020-2022

Before Covid-19, the cultural sector was already in crisis - precarious labour conditions, intersectional inequalities and insufficient public funding, particularly but not exclusively in the global South. Now, performing artists have been hit hardest due to venue closures, restrictions in public space and the fact that many cannot perform to digital audiences. While public emergency funding helps cultural workers and arts organisations, its scope and impact vary internationally across socio-economic and institutional contexts as well as different approaches to lockdown. Through in-depth interviews, focus groups and policy workshops with performing artists in the UK and Argentina, together with secondary analysis of ongoing surveys, the project will examine how the pandemic is affecting cultural workers from a sociological perspective. By discussing the work strategies that 80 musicians, actors, dancers and circus artists are now deploying, suggestions will be made about how cultural policy can best support the recovery of the sector.