Simone Wesner
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Overview
Overview
Highlights
My work focuses on understanding cultural producers (artists and crafters) and their practice. In particular, I am interested in constructions of cultural value and artistic identity as placed in the interface between cultural policy and arts management.
My book Artist’s Voices in Cultural Policy, Careers, Myth and the Creative Profession after German Unification, was published in 2018 by Palgrave Macmillan/Springer.
Currently, I am working on the Dataweave project, investigating cultural value creation such as provenance at the intersection of traditional cultures of making and digital maker culture.
Qualifications
- BA Cultural Studies (Kulturwissenschaften), University of Leipzig
- MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Administration, University of Warwick
- PhD , University of Warwick
Web profiles
Administrative responsibilities
- Programme Director, MA in Arts Policy and Management
Professional activities
Book review editor, Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy, transcript-Verlag, Bielefeld
Honours and awards
- Public Engagement Award - Innovation, Birkbeck, March 2022
ORCID
0000-0001-9927-7314 -
Research
Research
Research interests
- artists cultural policies
- craft cultures (weaving values and provenance)
- methodologies (grounded theory, longitudinal research, participatory databases)
Research overview
My research focuses on artistic and cultural careers and the development of working and cultural practises as seen through a cultural policy lens. I am largely interested in non-economic value creation and how cultural, political and social change influences career development and artistic practice over time. I designed and work with data from the Visual Artists Cohort Study, one of the first longitudinal projects in this field that investigates the long-term impact of East/West regime change on career development. As cultural policy researcher, I work inter-disciplinarily, drawing from cultural and communication studies, human philosophy, artist management and cultural sociology. In methodological terms, I feel at home when using a grounded theory approach to explore and interpret experiences.
Research Centres and Institutes
- member, Birkbeck Interdisciplinary Research in Media and Culture (BIRMaC)
- FMACS representative, Birkbeck Institute for Social Research
- member, Birkbeck Institute for Data Analytics (BIDA)
Research projects
Provenance and the crafts: Warping the loom
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Supervision
Areas of research supervision:
- Arts policy and artists’ careers,
- Artistic identity and professionalisation of artists,
- Cultural value creation in craft production,
- Virtual arts environments,
- Grounded theory
Teaching
In my teaching, I bring together current cultural policy developments and interpretations of culture with practical managerial issues in a reflective and critical approach to arts management.
Teaching modules
- The Arts: Perspectives and Possibilities (ARAR008S3)
- Inside Out of Culture: organisations, placements and practice (ARMC160S7)
- Comparative Cultural Policies (ARMC221S7)
- Dissertation (ARMC223D7)
- Understanding Arts Policy and Management (ARMC251S7)
- Research Methods in Media and Cultural Studies (FDAP019Z7)
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Wesner, Simone (2022) Cultural values as policy directives: techniques, technologies and symbolic work. International Journal of Cultural Policy 28 (7), pp. 858-874. ISSN 1028-6632.
- Lee, H.-K. and Wesner, Simone (2018) Lorraine Lim: a tribute. International Journal of Cultural Policy 24 (1), pp. 142-143. ISSN 1028-6632.
- Wesner, Simone (2010) Cultural fingerprints – the legacy of cultural values in the current cultural policy agenda in Germany. International Journal of Cultural Policy 16 (4), pp. 433-448. ISSN 1028-6632.
- Hitchcock, M. and Simone, Wesner (2009) Vietnamese values, networks and family businesses in London. Asia Pacific Business Review 15 (2), pp. 265 -282. ISSN 1360-2381.
- Wesner, Simone and Hitchcock, M. and Putra, D.I.N. (2007) Walter spies and Dresden: the early formative years of Bali's renowned artist, author and tourism icon. Indonesian and Malay World 102, pp. 211-230. ISSN 1363-9811.
- Müller-Rolli, S. and Wesner, Simone (1992) Kulturarbeit in Dresden 1989/1991. Neue Sammlungen 3, pp. 405-424.
Book
- Wesner, Simone (2024) Researching the creative and cultural industries: a guide to qualitative research. Routledge Research in the Creative and Cultural Industries. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780367753054. (In Press)
- Wesner, Simone (2018) Artists' voices in cultural policy: careers, myths and the creative profession after German Unification. New Directions in Cultural Policy Research. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillian. ISBN 9783319760568.
- Wesner, Simone, ed. (1998) Herausforderungen an Kulturpolitik und Kulturmanagement in Mittel- und Osteuropa. Leipzig, Germany: Universitätsverlag Leipzig.
- Wesner, Simone and Palka, A. (1997) Challenges of cultural policy and cultural management in Central and Eastern Europe. Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe.
Book Review
- Wesner, Simone (2022) Howard S. Becker: Art Worlds. Berkeley (University of California Press) 2008 [1982]. Alison Gerber: The Work of Art: Value in Creative Careers. Redwood City (Stanford University Press) 2017..
- Wesner, Simone (2020) A cultural policy anthology (Anthologie Kulturpolitik) - introductory contributions to the history, functionalities and discourses of cultural policy research by Martin Tröndle and Claudia Steigerwald, Bielefeld, transcript, 2019, 697 pp., € 54.99 (paperback), ISBN: 978-3-8376-3732-8.
Book Section
- Wesner, Simone (2022) Art activism and community engagement. In: DeVereaux, C. (ed.) Managing the Arts and Culture: Cultivating a Practice. Abingdon, UK and New York, U.S.: Taylor & Francis. pp. 347-373. ISBN 9780367622619 and 9780367622633. (In Press)
- Ferdinand, N. and Wesner, Simone and Chidzey, M. and Rossetti, G. (2021) The international events environment. In: Ferdinand, N. and Kitchin, P.J. (eds.) Events Management: An international Approach, Third Edition. Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Management. London, UK: Sage. pp. 41-60. ISBN 9781529730791.
- Wesner, Simone (2017) The international events environment. In: Ferdinand, N. and Kitchin, P.J. (eds.) Events Management: An International Approach. Sage. ISBN 9781473919099.
- Wesner, Simone (2013) Avatars, art and aspirations: the creative potential for learning in the virtual world. In: Childs, M. and Peachy, A. (eds.) Understanding Learning in Virtual Worlds. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer. pp. 117-133. ISBN 9781447153696.
Editorial
- Wesner, Simone and Woddis, J. (2022) Artists and cultural workers in cultural policy and creative practice: from the big break narrative to mutual aid and collective care. Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy 8 (2), pp. 11-29. The Association for Cultural Management. ISSN 2701-8466.