8th World Summit on Arts & Culture 2019 - register now

Registration is open for the 8th World Summit on Arts & Culture, to be held in Kuala Lumpur 11-14 March 2019. The 8th World Summit on Arts and Culture will bring together leading policy makers, researchers, managers and practitioners from the arts and culture sector from around the world to address the issues of Mobile Minds: Culture, Knowledge and Change, and examine how governments, cultural organisations, creative practitioners, and citizens can – and do – work together to actively lead change.

The times in which we live are marked by profound and ongoing transformation. Globalisation, technology, climate change, and migration reshape societies, create complex challenges and invite new solutions. Connectivity creates interdependencies and increased contact between individuals with different values, worldviews, knowledge, and cultural expressions; these in turn can challenge existing power relations and bring unequal outcomes. In the face of such change, existing local and global systems can seem neither fit for purpose nor sustainable. However, there is opportunity to cultivate new and diverse forms of intercultural cooperation and to join emerging communities around the world to discover creative ways to challenge current conditions. The arts and culture present a myriad of perspectives and are uniquely positioned to inspire, provoke and enrich how we navigate shifting environments. Change is relative, contextual and varied, and it inspires different reactions and solutions. However, inclusive participation is key to our ability to meet complex challenges and requires equitable cooperative vision, negotiation, and realisation of alternative futures.

In this context, delegates at the 8th World Summit on Arts and Culture will examine how governments, cultural organisations, creative practitioners, and citizens can – and do – work together to actively lead change. The programme will explore how actors from across the cultural ecosystem and beyond converge or diverge in their response to change using traditional, contemporary or future-oriented perspectives that strengthen adaptive capacity and resilience, and achieve purpose and coherence within dynamic conditions. It will also consider how cultural policies address and support innovation, hybridity, diversity and digitalisation; how approaches differ across regions, societies and generations; what role governments may have to balance respect for the past and cultural roots with transformed senses of self, innovation and contemporary practice; how collective and cultural knowledge, and artistic practice can inform development; how diversity and differences can enable positive change; and what mechanisms can establish priorities and support fluid responses to change. With shared experience and new insight, delegates will convene on the final day of the Summit to identify how we mobilise our minds to start creating our futures.

In the spirit of change, to enhance dialogue we have also redesigned our session formats to be more participatory, to ensure the greatest possible contribution from the experts in our network (by which we mean you). This includes a Lepak session that will bring all delegates together to explore ideas of continuity, tension and change in a world café style format; a series of Future Crafting participatory workshops led by creative practitioners; as well as long tables and case study sessions. Delegates will also hear from leaders in the field, who will share their insights and provoke new ways of thinking about current issues.

The World Summit is presented by the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies / IFACCA and The National Department for Culture and Arts, Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Malaysia / JKKN