Some images from the You Are Here event at the #SouthbankCentre on Sunday:

https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/you-are-here/

Co-created, directed and designed by Danny Boyle, Carson McColl, Gareth Pugh and Paulette Randall, with Sabrina Mahfouz and Natasha Chivers, it was billed as a 'journey through 75 years of British music, dance, theatre, fashion and film'.

This review pretty much captures it: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/may/03/you-are-here-review-danny-boyles-postwar-pop-culture-tribute-lets-it-all-hang-out

#DefundCulture #culture
#resistance #UKPolitics

Like this line from The Revolution Will Not be Funded: Beyond the Non-profit Industrial Complex, edited by INCITE!

‘Do you think the system is really going to fund you to dismantle it?’.

Should be adopted as a motto.

Full text: https://files.libcom.org/files/incite-the-revolution-will-not-be-funded-beyond-the-nonprofit-industrial-complex-2.pdf

#DefundCulture #culture
#resistance #funding #nonprofit #notforprofit

The recording of my discussion about Defund Culture on Breaking Culture Live is now up on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QbYJ2JwSn4

Defund Culture: A Radical Proposal is available open access on a CC4r basis in a variety of formats: https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal

'Drawing on contemporary debates around platform capitalism, cultural #elitism, #openaccess publishing and the crisis of the #humanities, Defund Culture makes the case for a bold rethinking of how cultural production is organised and resourced. Rather than defending existing institutions in their current form — or merely calling for incremental reform — it proposes a strategy of defunding as redistribution: redirecting resources, authority, and legitimacy toward more community-led, experimental, and socially responsive forms of cultural practice.'

#DefundCulture
#culture #class #UKPolitics
#copyright #theory #culturalstudies
#culturewar
#WorkingClass

I’ll be taking part in the next episode of Breaking Culture Live this afternoon, broadcasting on their YouTube channel at noon NYC time (5 pm UK): https://www.youtube.com/@BreakingCultureLive/streams

We’ll be discussing my new book, Defund Culture: A Radical Proposal – available #openaccess on a CC4r basis in a variety of formats (https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal) - addressing what serves as its sub-subtitle: “Why the #arts are so white, male, and middle-class, and what we can do about it.”

‘Breaking Culture Live is a Cultural Studies Association affiliated program hosted by Past President Sean Johnson Andrews. Every Wednesday we spend our lunch hour breaking down the breaking news with cultural studies scholars and activists, discussing their work ... ‘

Subscribe to the Breaking Culture Live YouTube channel and tune in at 11:00 am Chicago, noon NYC time, 5 pm UK: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakingCultureLive/streams

#DefundCulture #culture #class #copyright #decolonisation #UKPolitics #theory #culturalstudies #culturewar #WorkingClass

Great to hear from Eva Weinmayr and Femke Snelting that the Collective Commitment to Reuse (cc2r) now has its own dedicated site, thoughtfully designed and developed by Sarah Magnan and Ludi Loiseau.

Take a look: https://cc2r.net/

There’s also a downloadable PDF you can print as a 12-page booklet.

#copyright #IP #culture #FreeSoftware #SettlerViolence #feminism #decolonisation
#DefundCulture

That was fast. My discussion on Monday about #DefundCulture with Seth Wheeler for the Minor Compositions #podcast, hosted by Stevphen Shukaitis, is already online.

Minor Compositions Podcast - Season 2, Episode 5: ‘Defund Culture by Any Means Necessary'

https://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=1885

YouTube: https://youtu.be/mk-j2uh9cdk

'In this episode we are joined by Gary Hall and Seth Wheeler for a conversation on cultural #funding, radical #publishing, and the changing conditions of collective #knowledge production.The discussion begins with Hall’s recent book Defund Culture, which challenges conventional calls to increase #arts funding by asking a more fundamental question: what – and who – is cultural funding actually for? Hall proposes the current #crisis in arts funding might be an opportunity to rethink the entire landscape, redistributing resources away from entrenched, upper-middle-class infrastructures toward more collective, plural and relational forms of cultural production....'

Great conversation last night about Defund Culture: A Radical Proposal with the independent #artist and researcher Seth Wheeler for the Minor Compositions #podcast, hosted by Stevphen Shukaitis.

At a time of #political upheaval, institutional #crisis and growing disillusionment with #liberal #democracy, Defund Culture: A Radical Proposal argues that the problem is not simply that #culture is underfunded - but that it is funded in the wrong way, by the wrong structures, for the wrong ends.

So we explored the #politics of cultural funding and what a more radical (less white, male and #middle-class) approach to creating culture might look like.

Should go live soon. In the meantime, the book is here:

Defund Culture: A Radical Proposal: https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal

And you can listen to the Minor Compositions podcast series here: https://www.minorcompositions.info/?page_id=1102

#DefundCulture #UKPolitics

'Being a #celebrity, it can be easy to forget that the constant interviews and accolades are not an indication that you are genuinely important or even worth listening to; more that the industry platforming you is benefiting in some way from your public presence.' - George The Poet

#DefundCulture #culture #UKPolitics

Looking forward to launching a more politically and environmentally responsible set of badges.

They’re designed as a creative and critical response to the extractive, exploitative and dehumanizing logics that lie behind the idea of putting a logo on #books to certify they were written by #humans - such as the new scheme launched by the UK’s Society of Authors.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/10/uk-society-authors-logo-identify-books-written-by-humans-not-ai

Rather than reinforcing a simplistic human vs nonhuman divide, the project asks what kinds of #labour, resources and #infrastructure are being obscured by these kinds of labels.

#DefundCulture #SettlerViolence #environment #ai #societyofauthors