‘Developing A Cultural Strategy For Liverpool’ is a strategy that sets out the vision for the cultural life of Liverpool up to 2030.
It provides a direction of travel for the cultural sector as it looks to rebuild and strengthen in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. This is a significant moment where race inequality in the city can be challenged, with the BLM movement providing the impetus and opportunity to change both institutional and structural inequalities through culture and every other aspect of the city’s operations.
Flexibility is key now due to so much uncertainty around the final impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit. As such, the strategy proposes ideas for delivery but does not set out a firm action plan for how we will achieve that vision. Instead, the focus of activities will be on the sector’s immediate survival and recovery.
The strategy follows the 2010-2018 strategy, during which time momentous progress was achieved in maximising the momentum of European Capital of Culture 2008 and the subsequent growth of culture in Liverpool. Times, however, have significantly changed and a new strategy is now required to provide a framework to guide the cultural sector through a changing political, environmental and financial landscape – to address major challenges and take advantage of opportunities.
Building upon the strengths of the cultural sector developed through more than a decade of investment and growth, the strategy reappraises the structural weaknesses of Liverpool’s creative economy, laid bare by the Covid-19 pandemic. It considers how Liverpool’s artists, creative enterprises and cultural organisations can collectively develop a new model that is both more creatively ambitious and outward looking, and more resilient to external shocks, whilst opening up opportunities for new funding and investment.
