What is your background and research interests?

I am an Australian who has spent many years working in France, the UK, the United States, and Singapore.  My early professional experience led me to understand that there was more to Arts Management than simply presenting artistic works to an audience. This led to me asking questions about the relationship between the Arts and Society.  My scholarship resides within the fields of Arts and Cultural Management, Cultural Policy and Cultural Leadership.  My central research interest concerns the relationship between governmental policies and their effect on the arts internationally and over time.  This inquiry was formed from my early days as an arts practitioner when I came to the realisation that artists and their works and reception are inevitably shaped through the relationship which nations have with the cultural sector and the policies which they develop to shape the arts.  To my mind Arts Management as an academic subject should have at its core the central question of ‘Why Manage the Arts?’, whereas all too often the impetus is to work within the confines of ‘how to’.  I have published and lectured extensively in this field, led international research projects and designed and led programs in Arts Management and Cultural Leadership.

What are your plans as a guest researcher at the institute?

The Theme Public Art and the New Commons opens up a number of ways in which to broaden my research interests. I am looking forward to engaging with a multi- disciplinary team of researchers on the Theme. This is a unique opportunity to engage in a real dialogue with a broad range of scholars who will contribute their specialisation to augment research in this field. I will also be joined by colleagues from practice in the United States in public art performance and governmental affairs, so we can together develop some case studies with counterparts from Lund and its surrounds, to see whether there are some universal points of inquiry which can be developed.

This is a unique opportunity to engage in a real dialogue with a broad range of scholars who will contribute their specialisation to augment research in this field

How do you hope to benefit from your work with the Theme?  

I would like to see what can come from the exchanges we have set up and how that can inform some of the reflective thinking in the field.  I am looking forward to the benefits of dialogue and the freedom which the Institute affords its scholars and to learn from my new colleagues.  I would hope that this will help me refine my consideration of the question of the public sphere and artistic production, presentation and reception.

What do you think your contribution to the Theme will be?

I hope my contribution will be to provide a breadth of perspective to the theme. My work throughout Asia, Australia and the Pacific, as well as The United States and Europe means that I should be able to contribute some international knowledge of the public art and commons. Hopefully this will have an outcome in the form of new thinking and published articles. It is always interesting to extrapolate from the local to the global.

Read more about Ruth Bereson on her personal website

Read more about the Pufendorf IAS Theme Public Art and the New Commons