Culture Summit Abu Dhabi | Programme

A Matter of Time

While our modern world has often been equated with velocity and acceleration, the pandemic with its forced unprecedented ‘global pause’ has offered to the world a total re-think putting into question, all at once, our relation to the past, the present and the future.

Many of us have experienced difficulties to keep track of time over the past three years. Cultural institutions have been pulled between contradictory claims to engage with the buzz of the moment while being asked to revisit their connection to the past and ensure they were futureproof for generations to come. Creative industries have also seen their business models disrupted by the speed by which new artistic productions could be accessed while cultural leaders and policymakers have been confronted to ongoing crisis forcing them to reinvent how to wisely deal with urgency. Time has become of the essence and power seems to be measured increasingly in minutes rather than in money. Some of our major contemporary challenges such as climate crisis, the erosion of critical thinking, extreme polarization or the revived quest for eternal life, seem also to find their roots in the ever-accelerating mechanical time that has characterized our industrial era.

Individuals, organizations and communities are struggling to find their tempo and balance as they navigate these complex time encounters. Calls for taking back our time, slowing down and re-enchanting our life are growing. In this complex and somewhat contradictory context, understanding and managing time seem to be critical to thrive today.

During the three days of the Summit, artists, cultural leaders, thinkers and policymakers from across the globe and across the culture and creative fields will explore how our relation to time is changing. How does this change impact the way culture is produced, received and consumed? What role could culture, which so often holds together past, present and future, play to help us navigate this moment of inflection in the way we relate to the notion of time, moving from what emerged with the rise of industrialization as ‘mechanical time’ to a ‘new cultural time’ realigned with the rhythm of human awareness and nature?

DAY 1

Time to remember (The passage of time)

How are we making sense of the passage of time in an era where everyone’s attention span is altered but simultaneously everything is recorded to be remembered forever?

In that context, what is the role of culture in creating collective memories and can we reconcile past, present and future to create new productive common grounds? What alternatives to the linear concept of time can we bring forward to re-think a more sustainable relation to time?

DAY 2

Time to act (Seizing the moment)

Today, everyone seems to be expected to have a subjective control of the accelerated speed of life and work.

However, technological advances are making it increasingly difficult to seize the moment. As a result of this ever-accelerating time, ‘fast culture’ is spreading and erodes little by little critical thinking and our capacity to deal with complexity. Moreover, the emergence of a hybrid world blurs the frontiers of the ‘here and now’ creating major disruptions in the way culture is produced, received and consumed.

In this context, how can contemporary practices be adapted in particular when considering business models, crisis management and audience engagement? How can culture and creative fields help us slow down and consequently navigate uncertainty and complexity with greater ease and agency?

DAY 3

Time to share (A never-ending time)

The volatility and complexity of our time make it difficult to envisage what looks like an increasingly uncertain and fragmented future. Considering a ‘shared long-term’ seems however critical to address the challenges we are facing today, such as the climate emergency and its related crises.

In this context, how can time act as a space for bringing people together and reconciling humans and nature? What response(s) can culture bring in the wake of new long-time horizons emerging from the progress of medicine – pushing back the frontier of mortality, the introduction of the notion of ‘deep time’ and the rising calls to become good ancestors? How will this transform the way we relate to time, space and one another? Can this bridge the generational gap which seems to be widening?

Organised by

14:25

14:25

14:25

15:20

15:20

FIRST

16:10 -

ERENA

DANIEL

WOMEN

16:10 -

LACRETIA

17:40

TRANSMITTING

16:55

KEYNOTE BY Nikos Papastergiadis