Covid commentaries: London’s cultural landscape

DB: The perspective I bring to this is from my work on the London Transition Board, which is a board co-chaired by Robert Jenrick MP and the Mayor of London, which is aiming to oversee London’s transition out of the COVID pandemic. It was active in the first six to eight months of the pandemic, and it is just about to stand up again after it went into a sort of abeyance during the second lockdown. As part of my role on that board, I set up an Arts and Culture Strategy Group, which really was aiming to bring intelligence from the sector – broadly conceived – and escalate ‘asks’ to both the Mayor and Government. I think what was useful about that was I brought together people with a legitimacy to represent around 14 sectors within what might constitute London’s cultural landscape. That can never be definitive, but a lot of the focus through the pandemic, driven by the Cultural Recovery Fund, has been institutions and buildings and organizations. And actually, we know that within London’s wider cultural ecology, they are only a part of the picture. So, I was very keen that sectors like outdoor arts, for instance, or children and young people, would be seen within the mix. So, that’s the kind of perspective I’m bringing to this conversation.