IBUg 2011 the festival of urban culture in Germany goes into its sixth edition this year. From 26 August on more than 50 artists will transform a former textile combine in the West Saxon city of Meerane during a week-long creative phase into a work of art by graffiti, street art, urban art installations and performances. Also this year, many national and international artists like Ta55o, Tshunc, Flamat, Andy K, Jens Besser, Wurstbande, Atem, Hifi (all Germany), Chromeo (Switzerland), Ruskig (Sweden), Emilone (Austria), Faunagraphic und Rocket (Great Britain), Pixelpancho (Italy) Eon 75 and Subone (USA), Rallitox and Eme (Spain), Amin and Marchal Shaka (France), Enes (Netherlands) and many more have announced to IBUg.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Office of Research & Analysis will offer, for the first time, grant opportunities to researchers. The grants will support investigation of novel and significant research questions about the value and impact of the U.S. arts sector through the analysis of existing and/or newly established datasets. The NEA anticipates awarding roughly 25 grants, generally ranging from $10,000 to $30,000. At the end of the award period, grantees will submit a research report for posting on the NEA website.

According to a research conducted by Korea Arts Management Service and Korea Labor Institute in year 2008, professionals working at arts management get job satisfaction from psychological reward and high expectation about future prospects despite of their hard working conditions regarding long working hours, low income, poor welfare and services for employees, and conditions of employment .

Cellsbutton is the first media art festival in Indonesia which celebrates its 5th year. The organizer is House of Natural Fiber (HONF), Yogyakarta new media art laboratory, which was founded in 1999. Their main focus is artistic development and innovation of the arts. To achieve this goal, they strive to introduce new media art projects and workshops to the cultural environment of Yogyakarta. Every program is aimed at interactivity with the people and their social and cultural environment.This year´s Cellsbutton edition will be focused on the problematics of education in new technologies and their use in daily lives of ordinary people.The festival itself aims at creating a working and efficient platform for artistic exchange and collaboration.

The house of natural fiber, yogyakarta new media art laboratory, was founded in 1999. Our main focus is artistic development and innovation of the arts. We intend to achieve this goal especially by introducing new media art projects and workshops to the cultural environment of Yogyakarta. Every program is aimed at interactivity with the people and their social and cultural environment.

Thinking forward, positivity and creativity is the vision for our community. This vision is implemented in every program: we try to develop a symbiosis between art and technology. In our concept of the future of art and technology, the analysis of the specific role of technology within the arts in itself is crucial.

A new study by the Research Center for Arts and Culture (RCAC) at Teachers College Columbia University launched today at Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, finds that aging artists are models for society especially as the workforce changes to accommodate multiple careers and baby boomers enter the retirement generation.

Evidence for this claim is provided in the first needs assessment of aging performing artists in the New York and Los Angeles metro areas now available in the RCAC report: STILL KICKING - Aging Performing Artists in NYC & LA Metro Areas: Information on Artists IV. The study is the first of its kind to understand how performing artistswho often reach artistic maturity and artistic satisfaction as they ageare supported and integrated within their communities, and how their network structures change over time. It complements the RCACs 2007 study of aging visual artists, published as ABOVE GROUND. The artists studied are actors, dancers, choreographers, musicians and singers.

Aging artists belie stereotypes: They are passionate about their work, and put the good news and bad news into it. They feel validated as artists and rank high in life satisfaction and self-esteem; 86% in NYC and 92% in LA would choose to be an artist again. Nor are aging artists isolated: More than half of them communicate daily or weekly with other artists, and more than half continue to be working artists and do not expect to retire until they are 90.

Australian arts audiences are using online resources to help shape and inspire their arts experience with 40% becoming aware of an arts event online, 75% using on line resources to research their event and 66% going on line after the event to share their experience.

Connecting:// arts audiences online, new research released today by the Australia Council for the Arts, demonstrates the use of online media at each stage of the audience journey from the point of first becoming aware of an the event, to attendance through to sharing their experience afterwards.

Europe needs a Warhol Economy instead of a war economy said European Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht, at the opening of the ENCATC-UA debate on managing the impact of the financial crisis in Europe.

This year's Communicating the Museum conference is being held from 6th to 8th July in the elegant, creative and historic German city of Düsseldorf. Our theme this year is the Visitor Experience and the vital role it plays in building and retaining audiences. Leading international speakers and practitioners will present important and ground-breaking thoughts and ideas on:

* creating the very best experience for all visitors

* cutting edge visitor research from around the world

* generating income from visitors

* the dynamic and creative relationship between marketing and the visitor

experience - the unified tone of voice and customer service

* brand and the visitor experience

* interpretation and learning

* the future of the visitor experience - on-line and beyond

Following the tradition of engaging each year in a major policy debate, ENCATC, in close partnership with the Universiteit Antwerpen/Antwerp Management School, Master Cultuurmanagement will be organising this year in Brussels on the 7th of July 2011 the European debate Opportunities of crisis: Managing the impact of the financial crisis in Europe, designing innovative strategies and forecasting possible futures.

The purpose of this event is to debate what the crisis ultimately means for policy-makers, leaders and managers in the cultural sector. This policy debate is implemented in close partnership with the Universiteit Antwerpen/Antwerp Management School, Master Cultuurmanagement. It follows the ENCATC tradition of engaging each year in a major policy debate. The event is expected to gather about 50 participants, from Europe and beyond (AIMAC participants). It is meant for policy-makers, leaders and managers in the cultural sector, artists, academic, researchers and anyone interested in this topic.

The EC is proposing to set up a new fund for cultural and creative industries. It will be part of a new 1.6bn euros 5 year programme called Creative Europe, which will include loan and equity financing instruments to be administered by the European Investment Bank. The new programme would start in 2014. The EC published its proposal last night.

This new financial instrument is expected to help increase lending to music and other cultural companies by guaranteeing loans by national banks. This would address the existing market failure in terms of accessing finance and growth capital. IMPALA estimates that up to 400 million euros could be allocated to loan guarantees and other financial instruments.

Berlin. From the Bolshoi Theatre to stage technicians from Melbourne, from the Norwegian National Theatre to Korea to the USA: for three days, SHOWTECH became the international stage for the stages of the world, thus impressively emphasising its role as the worlds most important forum for the stage. Significant growth in the number of international trade visitors, a noticeable increase in the willingness to invest and the qualified dialogue between experts and colleagues from all over the world were the characteristics of this years SHOWTECH. SHOWTECH has further consolidated its position as the leading international meeting place for the industries it serves, said Hans-Joachim Erbel, Managing Director of SHOWTECH organiser Reed Exhibitions Deutschland GmbH.

With a total of 7,520 visitors, SHOWTECH remained only just below its previous record (7, 813 in 2009). The trade show recorded a noticeable increase in visitors from abroad, with the share of international trade show visitors going up five percent to currently 32 percent. Here, the biggest growth was in the number of visitors from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. A total of 322 exhibitors presented the latest trends and innovations in stage and event technology at this years SHOWTECH. This years trade show demonstrated that the industry has left the crisis behind for good and is looking forward with realistic optimism, said SHOWTECH Event Director Markus Jessberger at the close of the trade show.

Although Google has halted its own newspaper scanning project, the tech giant is still working to make books available freely online. The company announced Monday that it is working to digitize some 250,000 out-of-copyright volumes from the vast holdings of the British Library.

Scanned items, which will be selected by the British Library and handled (as well as paid for) by Google, will be made available for free at books.google.co.uk and the British Librarys website. Users can download and read items through Google Books, as well as conduct full-text searches.

Reporting from the 66th Conference of the League of American Orchestras in Minneapolis St. Paul is really tricky: some 1000 participants from a broad range of orchestras are dicussing problems for orchestral organizations from the US and Canada. Volunteers, donors, board members, musicians, conductors, staff members from the fulltime professional orchestras are mixed up with those from youth orchestras, community and non permanent orchestras. There is a big awareness of the necessity of a change in business models, in safer capitalization of orchestras, in new patron models, in new accessability for audiences and in new dialogues between management and musicians before (!) collective bargaining. Two third of the major US orchestras do have a deficit in their bugdets and they will need a robust innovation. The recent bankrupty of Honolulu, staff cuts, shortening seasons, the six month strike at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the financial problems of the Philadelphia Orchestra are symptoms for the topic turmoil situation of US orchestras, after the economic downturn.

American orchestra managers do have a very special problem: nobody does want to tell bad news to his board members, donors, patrons or sponsors. Nobody wants to jeopardize giving and contributions with bad news. There was a great willingness at the conference to talk more open on the real problems of orchestras than in earlier years. There seems to be a need for the renewal of dialogue cultures in American orchestra organizations.

In the past fourteen years Musa Heritage Gallery shortened Mus'Art has been active in propagating the Nso' cultural heritage. The museum named in memory of Nso' carvers Daniel Kanjo Musa and his elder son John Yuniwo Musa has been at the forefront of promoting Nso traditional artistry and craftsmanship. This art and cultural institution by the Musa family opened her doors to the public on the 18th December, 1996. MusArt Gallery has a collection of over 400 objects most of which were created between 1970 and 2000. These varied and diverse objects range from bamboo work to wood carvings, basketry to pottery.

The museum continues to acquire contemporary Cameroonian arts and crafts while maintaining a major focus on the Western Grass-fields region. This region is internationally renowned for having produced masterpieces of African art. Unfortunately these objects were appropriated by colonial missionaries and officers and removed from their place of origin to museums in Europe or the United States of America. Masterpieces of Grass-fields art are today in foreign museums and it is most likely they will never be returned. The statue of Ngonnso founder the Nso kingdom is presently kept in a museum in Germany. In Nso there is an outcry for this statue to be returned to its people.

We are happy to inform you that the program schedule for the upcoming AIMAC Conference on the Management of Arts and Culture is online. From 3 to 6 July we will welcome about 200 academic researchers and professionals, specialists in the management of cultural organizations and creative industries. You can still participate, but inscriptions will close on June 20th!

The parallel sessions of the conference are devided in several thematic clusters: consumer behavior, strategic marketing, strategic management, organization and management, human resource management and cultural policies. The topics cover a broad array of subjects (creative city, product and brand management, governance and organizational behavior, leadership, heritage, performing arts, audiovisual media, social media, festivals,...).

This newsletter issue includes a report about the new ways churches are being used culturally. We believe that in numerous regions, where churches are being forced to close their doors due to shrinking congregations, smart and careful concepts are needed to transform them. The article by the Kansas-based writer Wayne Hilburn offers several solutions. You will also be able to read an interview with Ancuta Vamesco, a project manager from Romania.

This timely and thought-provoking book explains how museums can help shape public opinion towards a more sustainable future. The book also examines the practical steps museums and cultural organisations can take to reduce their carbon footprint.

With high levels of public trust and often playing a central role in communities, museums are the perfect organisations to engage the public and society at large in environmental issues. In an authoritative and influential publication highly-respected leading voices in the global greener museums movement explore how museums can rise to the challenge and make a difference by contributing to learning, raising awareness and greening their communities.

The 15th annual network meeting of Arts Management Network will be in Tallinn, Estonia, from June 15th to 19th. As an open part of this visit, we organise a round table discussion about Cultural Districts and Entrepreneurship on Friday 17th June, at 4 pm in the Telliskivi District. Please feel invited to join the round table and the following dinner in order to share ideas and contacts! The aim of the Round Table is to share and change ideas about cultural districts and hubs; how are they useful? What are the expectations of city developers and politicians and how are cultural districts sustainable?

The world's premier international art show for Modern and contemporary works, Art Basel features nearly 300 leading galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. More than 2,500 artists, ranging from the great masters of Modern art to the latest generation of emerging stars, are represented in the show's multiple sections. The exhibition includes the highest-quality paintings, sculptures, drawings, installations, photographs, video and editioned works.

62,500 people attended Art 41 Basel, the last edition of this favorite rendezvous for the global artworld, including art collectors, art dealers, artists, curators and other art enthusiasts.

The former director of Vienna State Opera, Ioan Holender, one of the most famous Romanians in the world, Honorary Citizen of Timisoara, the city of his birth where he lived until the age of 24, was more then welcome by the municipality and all the citizens.

On the 20th of April, the mayor Gheorghe Ciuhandu offered a diploma of "honorary ambassador for the support and promotion of Timisoara application for the title of European Cultural Capital."

Last year in Vienna thousands of people, including Austria's president and other key political leaders, gathered at the farewell concert organized in honor of Ioan Holender, who led the Vienna State Opera for 19 years, between 1st April 1992 and 30th August 2010 and was the longest in the history of the institution's directorate.

Back in the city of his birth, in the evening of 27th May, former director of the Vienna Opera was in the Opera Square both the film character and the spectator.

The two hundred seats brought to the center by the municipality were not enough for those who wanted to see the film "Holi", projected on a large screen, film which was made years ago by TVR Timisoara and Brândua Armanca, the director of Romanian Cultural Insitute from Budapesta. People were standing to hear the stories about the capital of Banat, about ... "the life and the miracles" of a legendary character, Ioan Holender itself. At the end of the film, he brought his wife and two children, Alan and Alina, in front of the people applausing. The evening continued with sequences from the maestro's farewell concert, organized in Vienna in June last year. "I invite you all tomorrow night at the Philharmonic concert. All tickets were sold, but we will handle it, said "Holi" to the spectators.