Cultural relations is about conversations between people. There was no lack of this at Counterpoint's recent The Inner Lives of Cultures conference in Brussels. For two days Counterpoint brought together keynote speaker Tzvetan Todorov, leading lights from the academy, authors, filmmakers, scientists and cultural relations practitioners from around the world. They were there to decipher the whispered, or tacit, discourses of individual cultures, so the dialogue between us all can become deeper, more informed, and more productive. Speakers from Mexico, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Russia, Romania, China, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, and Iran dug up and thought through cultural secrets.
Counterpoint supported the BMSD at this conference, the first of its kind, on Islam, the arts, and the importance of reacting against the suppression of creativity. Speakers included Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (political commentator), Sair Khan (Businesswoman), Ayesha Tammy Haq (organiser of Pakistan’s Fashion week), Tahmena Bokhari (Professor and Mrs Pakistan 2010), Razia Iqbal (BBC), Joan Smith (novelist), and Anwar Akhtar (Director of ‘The Samosa’). The discussion was concerned with how fourteen hundred years of Islamic contributions to art, culture, literature, and history are currently being pushed aside in favour of a hardline interpretation of religion that denies the legitimacy of any form of artistic expression whatsoever.
Counterpoint is launching a vital debate for our time. The rise of cloud computing is not only creating the battle for global internet control: it will soon change the very ways in which we exercise our creativity and forge relationships. In our ground-breaking report, Charles Leadbeater asks what will Cloud Culture be like? Who will own the cloud? How can we keep it open? And how can it empower the world’s poorest people?
The Counterpoint podcast series brings leading thinkers and practitioners from a wide array of fields to discuss some of the most important issues in cultural relations today. An archive of all our podcasts and interviews can be found here.
Technology writer and journalist Bill Thompson took some time out from his busy schedule to talk to Nick Wadham-Smith and Ari Magnusson of Counterpoint. We discussed the current state and future prospects for Creative Commons licences, Rupert Murdoch's proposed charging for online news content, emerging models for media organisations to distribute content and new technologies that may shape our society in the next 5 to 10 years.
Benjamin Barber, Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Director of CivWorld and Senior Fellow at Demos US spoke to Catherine Fieschi of Counterpoint in this two part interview. In the first section of the interview he talks about the role of the arts in a capitalist society.
In part two, Benjamin Barber discusses the impact of Barack Obama since being elected US President over a year ago.
During the 1930s and 40s, the British Council commissioned hundreds of short films detailing aspects of British life before, throughout and after World War Two. During the 'Welcome to the Social Planet' event, hosted on 3rd of December, Al Robertson introduced some of his favourite British Council films such as 'The Little Ships of England' and 'Women in Wartime'. We hope to be able to be host some of these wonderful films on the Counterpoint website in the near future for all to see.
With some help from its friends at the Tuttle Club, Counterpoint has been pondering how to make the most of the British Council’s rich experience as the UK’s No.1 cultural relations institution for the past 75 years...
