Christie's’ Post

It was wonderful to chance upon the work of our good friends Alice G. Munro and Gavin Munro at the Arts Derbyshire fundraiser last week. 👀 just look at these magnificent grown pieces, and if you don’t know of the work of Full Grown and of their international reputation including the following, then you ought to check out their website. - they were a part of the Louis Vuitton 200 year anniversary celebrations the year before last, named one of the 200 visionaries assembled by LV to celebrate with an international touring art exhibition. - they were included in despatches about sustainability by the World Economic Forum - they’ve had pieces acquired to be a part of the permanent collections of National Museums Scotland, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, and the The Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collection. - they were awarded Gold by the Royal Horticultural Society for the Louis Vuitton display as part of Chelsea in Bloom in 2022. - they’ve been featured on BBC Countryfile, The One Show, BBC Radio 4’s You & Yours, CBS News and Stations, and in countless newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, Le Monde, Daily Mail, Financial Times, Interior Design Magazine, Country & Town House , Lampoon Magazine and so many more… We think that the attentions of the likes of Google, Alphabet Inc., Microsoft, Meta, Apple , Tesla, Volkswagen Group, NVIDIA, Berkshire Hathaway, AstraZeneca, Toyota Motor Corporation, GSK, Unilever or Shopify would be a great next step. Imagine the great Google orchard in Silicon Valley, or a commitment to offsetting emissions by VW by investing in the concept of harvestable and renewable forests of furniture… In meantime whilst they are figuring their next steps, check out the website here: https://fullgrown.co.uk #sustainability #sustainablefutures #furniture #art

Hello Humans! This article brings home the idea that context matters!

Philanthropy and Arts and Culture institutions can be powerful allies in shifting the cultural hierarchies that permeate our daily lives by addressing inequalities in who and what gets funded. To do this, we must reflect on our donor relations practices, what exhibitions are in our museums, and why small box theatre companies constantly struggle to sell out smaller productions. Read our Op-Ed: Upending Cultural Hierarchies in Arts & Culture, An Internal Assessment for Change by Monica Fernandez to learn more: https://buff.ly/3qPAyDZ.

The recent instances of protesters, including those affiliated with Just Stop Oil, attacking artworks in museums and destroying cultural heritage, are deeply troubling. While the urgency and passion behind environmental and social causes are understandable, resorting to vandalism undermines the very essence of the values these movements seek to promote. Art, regardless of its form, serves as a universal language that transcends boundaries and connects people across time. Museums are the custodians of our shared heritage, preserving the narratives and expressions that define who we are as a society. Attacking these cultural treasures not only erases a part of our history but also jeopardizes the potential for constructive dialogue and understanding. Effective activism should strive for positive change through peaceful means, encouraging open conversations and collaboration. Destruction of artworks not only distracts from the core issues but also risks alienating potential allies. Let us champion our causes with respect for the diverse tapestry of our shared humanity, recognizing that cultural heritage is a bridge that unites us rather than a casualty in the struggle for change. #PreserveOurHeritage #CulturalRespect #PeacefulActivism

The #mena community in the #usa is diverse and continues growing. Although #lebanon is a tiny country with a population of no more than 6M, Lebanese-Americans top the list of MENA communities in the USA, amounting to more than 685,000 individuals. In contrast, a massive country like Egypt, with over 100 Million people, has almost 400,000 Egyptians in the USA.  These figures are alarming and explain Lebanon's brain drain and the massive migration waves of the Lebanese, especially following the bloody civil war, due to conflicts driven by sectarianism, nepotism, clientelism, corruption, incompetency, and mismanagement in the public sector, to name some. The recent episode of such "behavior" yielded the socioeconomic collapse in early 2020 in #lebanon. Lebanese migration will not improve; it will worsen by the month! #lebanon #usa #mena #migration #braindrain #corruption #sectarianism

ACTIVISM (OF ALL SORTS) AND ART VANDALISM In recent years, climate activism groups or racial/ethical/political activists staged a large number of non violent but disruptive attacks to artworks or museums. ARCA collected open source data reporting 142 such events from 2020 to date, as shown in the attached slide (created by Ibrahim Bulut and Alice Bientinesi). This is becoming a permanent nightmare for museum directors and security officers, that are gradually changing the way artworks are exhibited, creating more and more barriers between the artworks and the public or even deciding to remove some works from public view. Of course, the purpose of the actions is not so much to damage the artworks (which sometimes are actually damaged, nevertheless), but to take advantage of the visibility linked to a masterpiece or a museum. A solution envisaged was to permit these groups to stage actions in front of the artworks, with the consent and under the control of the museum. However, this will attract much less media attention and is probably not going to be of much interest to activists. Even raising the punishments for acts of art vandalism- as Italy did with its new art 518 duodecies of the Criminal Code - does not seem to have much effect, as these episodes continue to increase. Thus, additional controls and more sophisticated museum security protocols seem the only solution at this point. #ARCA #artvandalism #museumsecurityprotocols

Moments that ignite change. Reflecting on our previous photo exhibition where stories were told, awareness was raised, and connections were made. We are back with yet another photo exhibition. Dates: ➡️ September 1st to 3rd at The Hub, Karen - https://lnkd.in/dM23P5qM ➡️ September 8th to 10th at Junction Mall - https://lnkd.in/d-TXsues Time⏰: 10 Am - 6 Pm  See you then. #ClimateChange #Humanitariancrisis #ClimateCrisis  

This strategy is crucial in outlining how the resilience of the cultural sector will be supported:

Most human rights complaints (50 to 60%) are and have been grounded in disability discrimination ... and yet govts and human rights commissions do little to nothing about disability discrimination (despite signing the CRPD under Harper and the Liberals, NDP and other pretending to support it)... its been painfully obvious that govt has been recruiting race based complaints to bolster their unsupported decisions to prioritize campaigns against racisms while ignoring discrimination based on disability. and here we have another campaign to address a relatively uncommon form of discrimination relative to how frequently the disabled face discrimination.

Absolutely delighted in the quality, breadth and depth of the Unlimited shortlist, but also want to highlight the data behind it which shows the real need for more funding in this area of work. Unlimited's budget for commissions this round is just over £600,000 – now that’s a lot, over half a million pounds. However, to fund everyone who applied, Unlimited would need over 30 times as much: £18,217,517. Even to meet the needs of all the shortlisted artists we'd need four times as much: £2,284,721. We had to say ‘no’ to a record number of people this year: 431. That’s incredibly distressing for those artists and for us, especially in these times. We have only shortlisted 11% of those who’ve applied, we are likely to fund a quarter of them meaning the number we are likely to actually fund will be under 3%. More arts organisations and funders need to be funding disabled artists. With 22.7% of the population being disabled people, all arts organisations and arts funders need to be ensuring that at least 20% of what they award goes to disabled artists. Can we get asking this question - "what percentage of these awards/this programme/this season is going to disabled artists?" more often please?