In today’s performing arts landscape, leadership is no longer simply about managing resources or establishing institutional frameworks. It is also about creating space for artistic practice and the people who sustain it during uncertainty.
Amid policy pressures, institutional governance, and shifts in the cultural sector, leaders of cultural institutions and arts organisations find themselves in an increasingly complex and often contradictory position, as well as acknowledging growing concerns among arts workers over labour conditions, mental health, and long-term sustainability.
Framed around the idea of creative leadership, the series explores how leaders continue to pave way for artistic practice despite institutional and practical constraints, while responding to artists’ expectations for fairness, dignity, imagination, and a sense of future possibility.
The series brings together Louis Yu a cultural leader with extensive experience in international arts governance and former Executive Director of Performing Arts at the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority and Director of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, with three cultural leaders from Taiwan working across different sectors.
Through the perspectives of public cultural institutions, arts education, and urban cultural practice, the conversations explore two central questions:
How can artistic practice continue within institutional frameworks?
What will shape the future for artists and the performing arts?
6/2 (Tue) 19:30–21:00: Leading Public Cultural Institutions： Balancing Vision and Reality
Large-scale art & culture venues are more than physical infrastructures; they often serve as flagships that shape the public’s cultural direction. When artistic vision meets policy requirements, operational realities, market expectations, and sector pressures, how do leaders navigate these competing demands?
Lecturers: Louis Yu, Yi-Ruu LIU
6/3 (Wed) 19:30–21:00 : Where Future Artists Begin: From Academy to Industry
Arts education is not only about developing skills. It also shapes how artists understand themselves, respond to setbacks, and navigate the professional world. Starting with the role of arts academies, this session explores how educational leaders design pathways that genuinely respond to future needs while balancing academic priorities, administration, and resource allocation.
Lecturers: Louis Yu, Hsi-Chuan LIU
6/4 (Thu) 19:30–21:00 Leading Across Culture and the City
When art embraces urban governance and local development, cultural leaders often take on multiple roles: creative initiators, public communicators, and interpreters of cultural values. This conversation explores how culture works across different stakeholders and whether the arts can become lasting relationships with the city instead of one-off events.
Lecturers: Louis Yu,Ying-PING LEE
Organizer
