Cultural News

The premiere of “Mandela: Struggle for Freedom,” at Holocaust Museum Houston is finally here.

The rich sensory experience uses imagery, soundscape, digital media and objects to explore the earthshaking fight for justice and human dignity in South Africa, as well as its relevance to issues of today.

On view now through Jan. 3, at Holocaust Museum Houston’s Lester and Sue Smith Campus, at 5401 Caroline Street, visitors can experience the tiny cell where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison, take a stand in front of a giant 22-foot-long, 9-foot-tall armored vehicle, make a virtual protest poster on a digital light table, or enter a secret apartment for freedom fighters forced underground.

Lord Cultural Resources provided the Canadian Museum for Human Rights with tour management services for this travelling exhibition, including developing an offer package, identifying and coordinating venues, and managing tour schedules and logistics.

“More and more culture-sector leaders recognize that IDEA Planning is not just the ‘right’ thing to do, but that it also makes their institution more successful and resilient,” says Lord Vice President Joy Bailey-Bryant. “Often, they are ready to make change, but are not sure how. We have proven tools, processes, and measures to manage IDEA Planning strategically, to make substantial change possible that all stakeholders can support.”

Lord Cultural Resources offers planning to facilitate building Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access strategically into your cultural organizations. Lord consultants and thought leaders can guide institutions through “IDEA Planning” either as a standalone initiative, or as part of a strategic plan, master plan exhibition, or expansion plan.

This month’s Cultural News features the Newburgh Arts and Cultural Commission and the City of Newburgh, which are undertaking the city’s first comprehensive inventory and assessment of its diverse arts and culture ecology. An hour’s drive north through New York’s Hudson Valley, the Kingston Arts Commission has also launched a Master Arts and Cultural Plan to serve their city of 23,000.

In these, and many other cities around the world, cultural planning has been completely upended in the past year, with new willingness — and need — to reckon with systemic racism, pandemic effects, economic upheaval, and other potent disruptors. Who creates cultural experiences? Who participates in them? How do they promote inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility? Lord Cultural Resources is facilitating the Newburgh Cultural Plan and the Kingston Arts and Culture Master Plan, helping them navigate these uncharted waters.

This issue of Cultural News features a story on Artists’ Rights Society partnership with the Plywood Project, a new public art initiative inspired by recently boarded storefronts.

The Plywood Project, whose founding partners include Lord Cultural Resources’ own Eve Moros Ortega, will commission new works by artists from historically marginalized groups for New York's storefronts, and also create a living database of protest and street art in the wake of George Floyd's death.

This month, along with our usual roundup of culture-sector news, we are focusing on stories related to Black lives matter and to the movement to fight back against anti-Black racism. Our feature story highlights a new Fellowship created in partnership between Lord Cultural Resources and the Association of African American Museums.
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This edition of Cultural News features analysis from Lord's COO and Senior Practice Leader Kathleen Brown on reopening strategies.

Canadian Art Magazine interviewed Kathleen as well as leaders at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and Quebec City’s Galerie3 about strategies for reopening to the public. Lord currently offers strategic reopening planning as part of a new suite services to help museums and art galleries recover and thrive. These integrated services also include digital strategies, future proofing and resilience planning, strategic communications and shovel-readiness for government and other funders’ recovery projects.

This Special Edition of Cultural News features our new suite of services to help cultural institutions emerge from the pandemic shutdown stronger and more resilient than they began. The services address immediate concerns about engaging with audiences, supporters, and communities, as well as longer-term strategies for reopening, adapting, and thriving in the months and years to come.

Museums and galleries face enormous challenges as they are forced to close their doors in the wake of COVID-19 - but this doesn’t mean they can’t connect with their public. The potential for online collections, concerts and virtual tours to provide a refuge of calm and fill the void created by social distancing is unprecedented.

This Special Edition of Cultural News, a curated collection of stories about how the global pandemic is affecting cultural institutions and how they are rising to the challenge by increasing their digital presence online, features Ayala Museum's Online Resources for Learning & Creativity Online. Join Ayala Museum's #ArtFromHome Challenge, binge some of their Youtube videos, explore their Google Art and Culture online exhibitions, and more.
View Our Work with Ayala Museum

This month's Cultural News features the Leading Culture Destinations Awards, which will be announced at a major ceremony in Berlin on March 4. Known as “The Oscars for museums,” this year’s awards include an incredible shortlist of nominees for the Soft Power Destinations of the Year, which are run in partnership with Lord Cultural Resources.

As January draws to a close and we begin to mark Black History Month, this issue of Cultural News features the International African American Museum. Construction has begun on this prestigious project, which has been designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners to honour the site at which enslaved Africans were brought into the US. Initially proposed in 2000 and now scheduled for completion in late 2021, the 41,800sq ft (3,900sq m) facility is being constructed on Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston, South Carolina. It is estimated that up to 80 per cent of African Americans in the US today can trace their ancestry to the wharf.

“For many Africans headed into the forced labor of slavery, Gadsden’s Wharf was the beginning, the landing place, after a treacherous Transatlantic journey. The International African American Museum at this site is an incredibly important opportunity to connect America — especially the nearly 80% of African Americans, that can potentially trace an ancestor to arrival in Charleston — with the stories of ancestors whose names we will never know,” said Joy Bailey Bryant, Vice President at Lord Cultural Resources.

Lord Cultural Resources is proud to be a trusted partner with IAAM, having completed the Business Plan in 2018 in preparation for groundbreaking.

See Our Work with International African American Museum.