Contributors

Orian Brook is Chancellor’s Fellow in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh. She researches social and spatial inequalities, particularly in the creative economy, and has a special interest in the use of administrative and linked data. She has a PhD from the University of St Andrews, and previously worked as a researcher within the cultural sector.

Danielle Child is Senior Lecturer in Art History at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research explores the relationship between contemporary art and capitalism through the lens of labour and work. Her book Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism was published in January 2019 with Bloomsbury Academic, and she is currently working, as editor, on The Routledge Companion to Art and Capitalism.

Ben Dunn is Lecturer in Performance and Creative Practice at the University of Leeds and co-principal editor of Performing Ethos: International Journal of Ethics in Theatre and Performance. Informed by a background as a performance practitioner in contemporary and applied settings, his research incorporates theatre, place and cultural policy, with a focus on the social and political dynamics of performance in social contexts.

Tal Feder is a post-doctoral fellow at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Prior to this, he was a post-doctoral fellow at Indiana University and the University of Sheffield. He is a sociologist with interests in cultural policy, sociology of art and culture, inequality, consumption and quantitative research methods. His current research studies cultural justice and cultural inequality from a spatial perspective.

Ali FitzGibbon is Senior Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries Management at Queen’s University Belfast. She researches and publishes on decision-making, ethics, leadership and labour in contemporary cultural production. She has over twenty-five years’ experience as a multi-arts producer, programmer and consultant. She continues to pursue collaborative, useful and practice-informed research and is regularly called upon as an advisor, particularly supporting arts and cultural policy bodies, festivals and working with cultural companies to develop strategies and change management.

Rebecca Florisson is Principal Analyst at the Work Foundation, at Lancaster University, where she leads the Insecure Work research programme. Alongside this, she is a part-time PhD candidate at Queen Mary, University of London, conducting an ESRC-funded study on the impact of precarious work during the early career on life course employment trajectories.

Abigail Gilmore is Senior Lecturer in Arts Management and Cultural Policy at the University of Manchester. Her research concerns cultural policy, participation and place, and she has published articles and books on local cultural policy, devolved industrial strategies and the municipal public park. She is an Affiliate of the AHRC Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre; she is also the lead for culture on the ESRC Strategic Coordination Hub for Local Policy Innovation Partnerships.

Karen Gray is a Senior Research Associate in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. Karen’s research interests centre around the role played by arts and culture in society and the intersection there between policy and practice.

Sue Hayton is a creative industries professional with a career that spans visual and performing arts, publishing and heritage. Heading the Cultural Institute at the University of Leeds, Sue developed Leeds Creative Labs as a tool for collaboration between creative practitioners and academic researchers. She was Associate Director of Policy Engagement at the Centre for Cultural Value, at which she is now a consultant. Her interests include creative knowledge exchange, exploring the role of artists as researchers and as catalysts for innovation.

Rachel Johnson is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Leeds. She researches cultural institutions and transnational flows of culture, specialising in film festivals and policy-making. Rachel is also co-founder of the DIY film club Leeds Cineforum.

Jenny Kidd is Reader in the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University. She has published widely on new media, cultural institutions and digital heritage. She is a Managing Editor of Museum and Society, and a Series Editor for Bloomsbury Studies in Digital Cultures.

Trevor MacFarlane is Founding Director of Culture Commons, a policy design and advocacy organisation supporting the UK’s creative and cultural ecosystem, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Trevor is a former policy and political advisor to senior parliamentarians, including the Vice President of the Culture and Education Committee in the European Parliament, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK) and the Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Oliver Mantell is Director of Evidence and Insight at The Audience Agency, where he has worked in a variety of audience research and consultancy roles since 2012. His areas of focus include audience analysis and segmentation, collaborative benchmarking and the national cultural behaviour and attitudes survey, the Cultural Participation Monitor.

Siobhan McAndrew is Senior Lecturer in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Sheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield. Her research interests are in the quantitative study of culture, perceptions, moral values and pluralism. She is currently examining cultural and moral responses to crises, both historically and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eva Nieto McAvoy teaches and researches digital cultures and media at the School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University. Recent work includes the ‘pivot to digital’ in museums and galleries during COVID-19 and algorithmic memory.

Dave O’Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Manchester. He is the co-author of Culture is Bad for You and the Creative Majority report, as well as numerous papers on the creative sector. He is currently co-investigator on the AHRC-funded Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, as well as working on projects about class in the television industry, diversifying creative higher education and taste in contemporary Britain.

Ania Ostrowska is a Research Manager at the British Film Institute, supporting its activities as an Independent Research Organisation, including building and maintaining partnerships with UK-based academics and universities and managing Collaborative Doctoral Awards. Building on her experience of researching British film-makers (culminating in her doctoral thesis defended at the University of Southampton) and UK film and TV industries (working with Cardiff University and the Centre for Cultural Value at the University of Leeds, among others), she also helps commission and supervises external research projects into all aspects of British film, TV and gaming industries.

Gwilym Owen is a researcher who uses statistics and data to better understand the causes and consequences of social inequalities. He has particular interests in health, culture, environment and housing and has worked at the Universities of Liverpool, Sheffield and Bristol. He worked in the first few months of the COVID-19 project tracking trends in the numbers of workers in cultural and creative occupations with the UK Labour Force Survey.

Mark Taylor is Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Methods (Sociology) at the Sheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield. His research interests are in the sociology of culture: in consumption, production and education and its relationship to inequality, as well as in quantitative methods, particularly data visualisation. He leads research on the Arts, Culture and Heritage sectors for the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre.

Anne Torreggiani is founding CEO of The Audience Agency – a UK charity for research and development in cultural participation – and Co-Director of the Centre for Cultural Value at the University of Leeds. She is a specialist in audience research, data and trends with particular interest in human-centred design and organisational change. She works as a facilitator and adviser.

Ben Walmsley is Dean of Cultural Engagement at the University of Leeds (UK) and Director of the national Centre for Cultural Value. He is an Expert Advisor for the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Prior to his academic career, Ben worked as an arts manager for ten years, most recently as Producer at the National Theatre of Scotland. Ben has published widely on arts marketing, arts management, cultural policy and cultural value.

Harry Weeks is Lecturer and Head of Art History at Newcastle University. His research focuses on socially engaged art practices and labour and contemporary art. His work has been published in the Third Text journal, and he co-edited a special issue of this journal on art and anti-fascism in 2019.

John Wright is a research associate with the Centre for Cultural Value, University of Leeds. He has previously worked as a visiting lecturer at Leeds Arts University on the BA Fine Art programme and as a module leader on the MA Critical Studies programme at Bradford College. In his professional life before academia, he co-founded the artist-led collective The Retro Bar at the End of the Universe and developed a curatorial background in museums, galleries and in artist-led activity.