Crisis & Resilience: Cultural survival, independence, and adaptation in times of disruption
The 8th edition of the Arts and Cultural Management Conference (ACMC) is scheduled for 30-31 October and 1st of November at the Amerlinghaus Cultural Centre in Vienna, and it is themed Crisis & Resilience. We are officially inviting MA students and PhDs to submit contributions that wrestle with what this means in real, messy, lived terms. We’re not only interested in theoretical speculations and solutions, but we also want to hear from those sitting in the tension, those asking uncomfortable questions, those addressing real case studies. The selected authors will be invited to present their work at the conference which will be published in the peer reviewed online academic journal Nexis Key, a Journal of Research and Scholarship.
The artistic world is intrinsically susceptible to change and precariousness. Crises are not an exception but a frequent state of being. Nevertheless, nowadays cultural initiatives and artistic expression are especially undervalued and forced into a for-profit and consumeristic discourse in which they don’t belong and are likely to be subdued. Moreover, neo-colonialistic wars, the rise of authoritarian right-wing governments, the increasing cost of living, and progressive dismantling of the social state, underpinned by the COVID-19 and climate crises, have resulted in a progressive downscaling of financial support to artists and cultural institutions across the world. Europe was not exempt from these developments, and as we witness a progressive devaluation of the cultural sector, we cannot help but notice the toll on societal and individual development. But resilience is not only about “bouncing back.” It can be about holding ground, resisting erasure, creating shared meaning in fractured times, and building new practices and new ways of engaging with the public.
Across history, artists, cultural workers, and communities have used creativity to endure and respond to disruption, war, colonisation, pandemics, economic collapse, and displacement. But in 2025, “crisis” feels less like an event and more like a structure. Climate breakdown, the erosion of trust in democratic institutions, digital monopolies, and widening inequalities—all seem to be compounding at once. So, we’re asking: what does resilience look like now? And more importantly, what are we resilient for?
This year, we want to shift the focus from isolated acts of survival to collective practices of community building. Resilience isn’t only about bouncing back; it can be about reaching out, forming new alliances, nurturing care-based cultural ecosystems, and imagining alternative futures.
Please submit the full paper at acmccoordinator@gmail.com address with Submission Crisis and Resilience 2025 and your name in the subject line.
Submissions are accepted until 31 August 2025 and the ACMC will notify the selected authors by the 15th of September at the latest. Early submission is encouraged as the papers will be screened on a rolling basis.
The ACMC Committee
