G: Mr Gerald Lidstone, Director, Institute of Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship (ICCE), Goldsmiths, University of London

R: Reporters (Ms LAM Ching, Elizabeth and Mr. CHUNG Yiu Cheong,Timothy)

R: We know that you were an arts manger, and then changed to be an art administration professor, what made you change your career?

G: I went to an art school at the beginning of my university career, followed by postgraduate teacher training. I then worked as a theatre-lighting and set designer. Afterwards, I pursued a MA in theatre. After this I designed and managed touring theatre productions extensively in America and in Eastern Europe during the communist period, which was quite hard. After doing this practical work with theatre companies for a while, my career started to change in teaching those subjects, from production management to lighting design or other related areas in the university. Being a production manager was different from teaching in a university. In production management the goal tends to be to work for larger companies while in university you can teach and develop new subjects in a new way which is more rewarding. Touring theatre is quite an unstable career and as you progress working in university becomes more attractive and stable.

R: How is it when teaching arts administration in university?

G: In Goldsmiths and many theatre departments in the UK, especially in the performance areas, probably more than 50% of the staff has rich arts/cultural managerial experience before they become lecturers. If he/she teaches arts administration or production management, it is expected that they have professional experience. The teaching staff will not just complete school and take a university degree followed by a Master’s degree to teach. Generally the staff who teach “Directing” will usually have practical experience in the theatre. The analogy would be with medical training at a medical school; you expect teachers to not only be theorists but a doctor with rich practical experience, or a bit of both, theory plus practice. Teachers can be effective developing the learning out of what they experienced. At my current stage, one of the biggest challenges is in teaching marketing or fundraising. We have to ensure that we stay ahead of the subject because of changes with new technology and media and new ways of thinking and developing funding in a tough financial climate. The subject is not a fixed thing and always keeps changing. So you need to keep pace with the real world.

R: What is your biggest reward of being an art administration teacher?

G: I think the reward is the response of alumni and students from many countries worldwide. The courses in Goldsmiths enrolls students from 30-40 countries every year. Some of them stay and get jobs in the UK, while some further study at other universities. In the majority, they go back to their countries and have successful careers. One of our responsibilities in the university is to help students to be critical, possibly difficult and disruptive to always question things, this will in the long run actually make them more employable as employers tend to like creative people. The best students are equipped with these capacities and get good jobs. It is important because students made a big investment coming to the UK for education. At the end of finishing their study, students will need the return on their investment. If they want a job, then they should be able to get one - hopefully.

R: Do you remember how many students you have taught over the countries?

G: I have no idea but we have been teaching our MA in Arts Administration and Cultural Policy for 16 years. In this year, we have about 70 students. Over 16 years, that is lot of students. Although the early years had less students. We also have other MA programmes in Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship, Cultural Policy, Relations and Diplomacy and MA Cultural Policy and Tourism. We also launched and ran a MA in Cultural and Creative Industries in Abu Dhabi from 2000 to 2000. I have also worked on a long-term project developing Arts Management for the Government of Viet Nam.

R: Will you still keep in contact with them?

G: Many of them yes. Facebook and LinkedIn make it easier. 15 years ago, we did not have that, and now we do, so keeping in contact is much easier with social media.

R: Why is cultural entrepreneurship become so important in the UK?

G: I think for a number of reasons. The first reason is that, over the last 20 years, the money for culture has gone up and down and there is a need to be sustainable, if you can find the way through being more entrepreneurial. Although it is easy to be dependent on state funding, this in most countries has declined and organizations want to have a balance between state and other income – earning more of their turnover. It makes more independent but also dependent on market forces.

What's interesting is that we now call everything a “Cultural Industry”. Since 2000, and the creation of categories for cultural industries governments have become more interested as they like the word industry as it sounds ‘business like’. We always had theatre, music, dance, design, film or the advertising industries. They have always been there. It is just that since we now use the term“Cultural Industries” it sounds as though they are something new.

Government become interested because it now understands in the UK that cultural industries account for about 8.5-9 % of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), which makes it an important sector of the economy. The other thing which is relevant is that the manufacture industry in the UK to some extent has diminished. The last UK car company [with small exceptions] have sold to China or India although the UK still ranks about 7th in world manufacturing there has been a trend to make money by selling ideas and developing intellectual property around for example music, new inventions, design, and also cultural areas such as television or film, which are able to make money. The UK is quite good in creating new ideas. We tend to be good at selling our ideas abroad to different countries, but not always good at scaling up or developing our own ideas.

With the study of Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship we have a lot of students now, who do not see themselves working in an organization, but may want to create their own business. In Goldsmiths, experts, who are terrific in assisting student to start their own businesses and become sustainable. It is very difficult to start a business, and probably even more difficult to scale up. Not everybody wants to run a large business, but if you do, then you need this additional skill.

R: What do you think about the value in pursuing overseas study in professional art management in art administrators' career development?

G: I believe it is useful to look at different cultures and the different way people do things. You can always learn a lot in different national systems. For example, Germany and France have very high state funding, in theatre, permanent companies and actors. The system is very different from the UK, America. Looking at those different cultures, you begin to understand the mechanism. The way certain things work. As with international touring, and the more countries you work with, the better you become at working across those cultures. It is not only about language. Language helps, but it is about understanding the needs of that other culture. It is very different in every country, ways of working are very different. So studying internationally and meeting with students from around the world can be very beneficial.

R: As culture is a regional factor, is it challenging to teach art administration in different countries?

G: I think that what we have learnt in the last 20 years, teaching in a lot of countries is to remove cultural content. This might sound strange. For example, if you are teaching marketing in Germany or Vietnam, it will be very different because of the different politics and cultural background. But if you are teaching through a series of questions and processes , then you can do that in any culture, as it is not culture specific. You ask students to bring their own culture in and develop their own solutions. So if you work our technique in Vietnam, the end result will be completely different from that of Germany because the cultures, answers and infrastructure are different. But you can answer the same question.

R: How about start a new program in different countries, is it challenging?

G: Yes. I think we have recently created a new programme in Abu Dhabi and ran for 3 years in cultural entrepreneurship. We decided to stop doing that for a whole range of reasons. But that was very interesting. As we are the art administration teachers, we have to understand some of the Gulf Arabic culture for that to work. We have to adapt to it and listen a lot to the people in the country as you can transfer good practice from Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Germany or anywhere. Globally there is a lot of good work that the people in the UK can learn from, so it is not just one way. It is two way communication. You can always learn from other cultures.

R: From your knowledge of Hong Kong, what special opportunities and challenges are facing by cultural manager here?

G: I think it is pretty difficult to start small companies in Hong Kong. When students finish their education and start a new theatre company, music company or gallery after 1-2 years, it is tough and difficult. Maybe it is also the same for middle level companies because the money tends to go to Big 9. There needs maybe to be more infrastructure funding to develop creative talent in Hong Kong. It seems there are either struggling organizations or very successful ones, but in the middle bit can be hard to develop and grow.

It is an interesting phenomenon that Hong Kong is a very entrepreneurial culture in business, but in art terms, people still rely on applying for grants. So funding can be one problem. Giving more grants is not always the answer. One solution could be to diversify funding sources, find ways in which you can earn money from doing theatre or music, etc. But this can only work if the infrastructure is there to enable companies to be more self-sufficient.

Another big problem is the space. Space is expensive in Hong Kong, whereas in lots of countries, there are old buildings, disused areas or areas that are cheaper, where artist come and start to work. Cheap space could provide encourage new arts communities. For small companies finding cheap space for rehearsal, is difficult in Hong Kong.

The last problem is with regional halls, like Sha-Tin Hall, and others, they are really good venues. But maybe they too big. You need small community spaces where people can try things out or they can fail. They get it wrong, and then get it right. Hiring a big hall can be expensive, so the pressure to succeed means that the work might be quite conservative rather than experimental.

Maybe government can help because there is lots of creativity here in HK in young people. But it is difficult for them to develop. If people get frustrated with that, they will move to New York, UK or somewhere else, which means the creativity is exported. The young creative talent should have a good reason to stay here rather than leave. Government has to encourage them to stay. I notice that for designers, for example in the airport, there are shops run by the government or by associations, which promote Hong Kong designers and their products. But you do not see the same thing for the music, theatre or dance. I think maybe government needs to move a little money towards infrastructure in these areas to help that creativity stay.

R: What do you do for leisure?

G: Not a lot [if I can] because work in the university does not leave much time for leisure, but I am fond of watching films. I like going to international restaurants as it is really interesting to learn about food and food culture from different countries. London is quite good for that because it is a city with many cultures. About 30% of London is not ethnically English, so it has a great variety of food from the different communities. If I go on a holiday, I prefer to choose quite remote areas where there is nothing; like the north of Canada or the north of Scotland, escaping from crowds is nice.