Bruised, exhausted and burnt-out

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The article takes the pulse of cultural workers’ mental health and well being after the pandemic. It starts from reports from network members and compares them to the Culture in Crisis research report by the Centre for Cultural Value.

It suggests ways for managers of cultural centres to react, and discusses how cultural organisations in general can straighten out their human resources practices.

It also offers recommendations on how policy can support improvements, promoting safety, well-being and future perspectives for exhausted, overinvested and relatively low-paid professionals of cultural organisations, thus strengthening the stability and vibrancy of the sector at large.

Overview: 

• Mental resilience is very low: a photography of human resources in cultural centres after the pandemic

• “The main crisis is still to come.”

• Burnout in culture: what’s the deal?

• The skewed trade-off, or “It must be so cool to work in the cultural sector.”

• How to make the misunderstanding explicit… and fix it

• How can cultural organisations get better at dealing with HR?

• What could be a regenerative approach to human resources in culture?

• How policymakers can support cultural staff on medium to long-term