Orian Brook - University of Edinburgh

Theatres, museums, clubs, cinemas, the whole cultural sphere is under lockdown in many places all over Europe and beyond – and this is just the beginning. The economic and financial crisis which surely is going to follow the current public health crisis will be no less dangerous to the arts. So we must protect them and their role for a thriving, open, liberal and liveable society.

But is their role for society actually this good?

In Conversation with Martin Zierold

"Culture is bad for you" is the title of a recent book, co-authored by today’s guest Orian Brook together with Dave O'Brien and Mark Taylor. She shows how the cultural sphere has been a place of inequality and exclusion at the intersections between race, class, and gender for decades, and why it proves so difficult to overcome the mechanisms of exclusion. As most of our attention is focussed on surviving the covid crisis, we run the risk of ignoring other burning issues which also need to be addressed urgently.

Orian Brook, my guest today, is currently an AHRC Creative and Digital Economy Innovation Leadership Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on social and spatial inequalities in the creative economy. She holds a doctorate from the University of St Andrews and has worked in marketing and audience research in the cultural sector prior to her academic career.

Weblinks
Orian Brook
"Culture is Bad For You", Manchester University Press
Book excerpt