We are delighted to announce a partnership with Cumulus, the global association which serves art and design education and research. It is a forum for partnership and transfer of knowledge and best practices. Cumulus consists currently of 257 members from 54 countries. The secretariat is located in Helsinki in Finland.
Cumulus aims at building and maintaining a dynamic and flexible academic forum which brings together top level educational institutions from all parts of the world. Cumulus collaborates not only with institutions and organizations from the field of art, design and media; the encouragement of co-operation with industry and business is important as well.
To stimulate design actions, projects and research leading to a more sustainable society, Cumulus representatives signed the Kyoto Design Declaration in March 2008. To implement the ideals of the Declaration, the Cumulus Green award was established. Cumulus Green is an international award focused on cultivating and leading global cultures, societies and industries towards more ecological and responsible solutions.
Following our Co-Editor’s involvement with In This Place, the Cumulus conference at Nottingham Trent University (UK) in 2016 and the review published by Sally Bassett in this journal, we met with Cumulus last year and agreed that we will work together over the coming few years. We will publish abstracts/papers from the next few bi-annual conferences. Given that there were five prize papers from the Nottingham conference we thought we would start with those and the abstracts below have links to the main conference report.
For members of Cumulus we have agreed special publication rates which you can find out either by emailing the Editors at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. when you have something you’d like to publish and letting us know you are a Cumulus member or by contacting Eija Salmi at the University of Aalto secretariat. The secretariat will also be publicising our partnership through the Cumulus online newsletter.
ISSN 2050-5337 - ISSUE 6 Find us in EBSCOhost Academic Search Ultimate Collection
Venu Dhupa
Venu Dhupa has just completed nearly three years work with Creative Scotland as Director of Creative Development as part of the senior start-up team. Her responsibilities included the Arts, a number of Investment Programmes and International Strategy and Engagement. Prior to working at Creative Scotland she was working as a consultant and had her own publishing company.
Former employment has been: World-wide Director of Arts for the British Council where she led and completed the first international consultation/review in 25 years on the Council's global arts strategy; Director of Creative Innovation at the Southbank Centre, London (Europe's largest cultural centre). The Creative Innovation unit was imagined as a tool for introducing new partners to the organisation as well as an organisational development tool; Fellowship Director at The UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) where she managed a portfolio valued at £13million; Chief Executive at the Nottingham Playhouse; and Producer (Mobile Touring) at the Royal National Theatre.
She was the inaugural Chair of the East Midlands Cultural Consortium appointed by the Secretary of State at the Department of Culture Media and Sport. Her career history has always balanced creative exploration and strategy with implementation and delivery. This has been an important balance in developing a judgement for accountability with risk. Her motivation remains good customer service, good value and positive social change and these continue to drive her as an activist.
She is or has been a Trustee of the Theatres Trust, a Member of University College London's Heritage Committee, the external examiner for UEA MA in Creative Entrepreneurship; a Governor of Guildford Conservatoire, a Council Member of Loughborough University, a Member of the Institute of Ideas and a Member of the European Cultural Parliament. She is a patron of the Asha Foundation. She has been awarded the prestigious National Asian Woman of Achievement Award for her contribution to the Arts and Culture.