Senior Lecturer and Co-Director MA Arts Administration and Cultural Policy
Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship
a.brkic (@gold.ac.uk)
Alex is creatively balancing between the worlds of arts management and cultural policy research, teaching and practice.
Aleksandar Brkić, Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of the MA Arts Administration and Cultural Policy is a scholar in the field of cultural/arts management, creative entrepreneurship and cultural policy, with significant experience as a creative producer and arts manager, working in the intersections of performing arts, visual arts, and design. Prior to joining Goldsmiths in 2016, he worked at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore and the University of Arts in Belgrade. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and guest lecturer at the UNESCO Chair at the University of Arts in Belgrade; Sibelius Academy, University of Arts, Helsinki and Ben M'Sik, Hassan II University, Casablanca.
Dr Brkić is the Series Editor of 'Routledge Focus on the Global Creative Economy' published by Taylor & Francis and a member of the Editorial Board of The European Journal of Cultural Management and Policy.
Dr Brkić is open to supervising research on cultural and media policies in East/Southeast Europe and East/Southeast Asia; identity politics in Europe; cultural/arts management education; popular culture; hip hop studies and the music industry; performing arts; art festivals; art/creative collectives.
As part of the New Art Center from Belgrade and LP Duo, Alex contributed as a researcher and creative producer in the art science "Beyond Quantum Music" project supported by the Creative Europe (2019-2022), a collaboration between arts/music, quantum scientists and leading art science platforms such as Ars Electronica and TodaysArt.
Together with Professor Charlotte Scott, Alex was working on the art research project in the women's prison HMP Styal - "Women, Witches and Wonder" supported by the Arts Council England (2021).
Together with Professor Ruth Bereson, Dr Brkić was involved in the research project titled ‘An Ontology of Arts and Cultural Management Education’, supported by LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore (2014-2018). While he was located in Singapore and Southeast Asia, Dr Brkić was working on a research project titled ‘Collective Creative Practices in Southeast Asia’, focusing on progressive art collectives from the region.
Jointly with Adam Marple and Jean-Guy Lecat, Aleksandar led "The SPACE Project" - an interdisciplinary research project exploring the potentials for a "perfect performing arts space for Singapore" (2015-2016).
Aleksandar participated in the COST Action IS1007 - Investigating Cultural Sustainability research project (2011-2014). The project investigated and operationalized the concept of culture in the context of sustainable development (SD) through multidisciplinary approaches and analyses; examined the best practices for bringing culture into policy and practical domains; and developed means and indicators for assessing the impacts of culture on SD.
From 2000-2013 Aleksandar was involved in a number of research projects mostly focusing on performing arts, cultural centres, and cultural and media policies in Southeast Europe.
2019:
Byrnes, William J. and Brkić, Aleksandar, eds. 2019. The Routledge Companion to Arts Management. London: Routledge.
Perspectives from international scholars, educators, consultants, and practitioners sharing opinions, exploring important questions, and raising concerns about the field
2011:
Cultural Policy Research Award
European Cultural Foundation (ECF) and ENCATC award for the best proposal in applied, cross-cultural research in Europe, worth 10,000 Euros and a publishing deal
2004:
Chevening scholarship
Chevening Scholarships are an important element of Britain’s public diplomacy effort and bring professionals, who have already displayed outstanding leadership talents, to study in the UK.
Brkić, Aleksandar and Letunić, Ana. 2021. Produkcija umjetničkih događaja: Početni priručnik za buduće producente/ice. Rijeka: Rijeka2020. ISBN 9789538392009
Brkić, Aleksandar. 2013. Cultural policy frameworks (Re) constructing national and supranational identities: The Balkans and the European Union. Amsterdam: European Cultural Foundation. ISBN 9789062820610
Byrnes, J. William and Brkić, Aleksandar, eds. 2021. The Routledge Companion to Arts Management. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781032089324
Dinulović, Radivoje and Brkić, Aleksandar, eds. 2007. Theatre - Politics - City : Case study, Belgrade. Belgrade: YUSTAT - Centre for performing arts and technology. ISBN 978-86-910201-0-1
Brkić, Aleksandar. 2019. Roles of Cultural Networks in the Times of Quantum Reality. In: William J. Byrnes and Aleksandar Brkić, eds. The Routledge Companion to Arts Management. London: Routledge, pp. 173-186. ISBN 9781138492226
Brkić, Aleksandar. 2018. Death of the Arts Manager. In: Constance DeVereaux, ed. Arts and Cultural Management: Sense and Sensibilities in the State of the Field. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781138048447
Dragićević Šešić, Milena; Brkić, Aleksandar and Matejić, Julija. 2015. Mobilizing urban neighbourhoods: artivism, identity, and cultural sustainability. In: , ed. Culture and surtainability in European cities: imagining Europolis. Routledge, pp. 193-205. ISBN 978-1-138-77841-2
Brkić, Aleksandar. 2022. Questioning the Timing of Student Evaluations: BA Arts Management Modules. Anthology of Essays by Faculty of Dramatic Arts, 41, pp. 123-135. ISSN 1450-5681
Brkić, Aleksandar. 2019. Balancing between the notions of quality and attraction in teaching arts management. Anthology of Essays by Faculty of Dramatic Arts, 35, pp. 151-160. ISSN 1450-5681
Brkić, Aleksandar. 2013. In a Bigger Family. ARTICLE: The Singapore Biennale Review,
In parallel with his academic life, Alex is active as a producer and arts manager for more than 20 years. He is working as a creative producer with LP Duo, a piano duo signed to Universal Music Group (www.lpduo.com). Together with LP Duo and a team of engineers and designers, he is developing "Duality" - a portable device connecting classical pianos with the digital world. Aleksandar is one of the co-founders of the Green Art Incubator (GAI) focusing on supporting and strengthening of green transformation of arts and cultural organisations (www.greenartincubator.org). He is also involved in the (performing) arts education in prisons, with experience in HMP Isis (London) and HMP Styal (Wilmslow).
2019-2022:
Beyond Quantum Music
Exploring the spaces of encounter of music and quantum physics, especially focusing on potentials for creative development, reflection and bridging of STEM and STEAM polarisation
2018:
Belgrade is not Hell. It's Purgatory.
Adam Marple: A story about Belgrade, Singapore, New York, but also about Sonja, Andrija, Adam, Aleksandar.
2023:
Challenges for Higher Education in Arts, Culture and Creativity in Post-Brexit UK
Culture shapes our future. The role of culture in the framework of economic, social, environmental and cultural development, Economia della Cultura, Rome, Italy, 1-2 December
2022:
From STEM to STEAM: LP Duo and Translating and Interpreting Between Art and Science
"Seven Years of Quantum Music and Beyond", International Conference, Serbian Academy of Science and Arts, Institute of Musicology
2022:
Arts Management as a Function in Collective Creative Practices
30th ENCATC Congress, University of Antwerp, Belgium
2021:
Cultural Management 2020 - Retrospective and Prediction
European Sociological Association (ESA) / Social Effect of Art, Helsinki, Finland / together with Constance DeVereaux, Pekka Vartiainen and Richard Maloney
2019:
From 'neofolk culture' to 'the people’s hip hop': Are Rasta, Senidah and Coby ruining your kids?
NEW HORIZONS Of Culture, Arts and Media in the Digital Environment, Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade
2019:
Who Needs an Organisation?
Keynote speech at the Creative Backslash conference, Belgrade / Part of the Connect for Creativity project developed by the British Council
2018:
Theatre in a Mosque: Borders and the Art in Singapore
10th midterm Conference of the European Research Networks, Sociology of the Arts & Sociology of Culture, University of Malta
2017:
Ecosystem of funding for theatre: European/UK Experiences
Cyprus Centre of ITI, Nicosia
2017:
Where are we headed? Crisis, sustainability and other stories
Perspectives of national cultural policies development in the EU context: critical dialogues / Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO)
2016:
Singapore’s market-based authoritarian cultural policy between cultural participation concepts of Excellence and Engagement
2016 International Conference on Cultural Policy Research, Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
2016:
Cultural Networks and Quantum Reality: Rise of cultural education networks in Asia
2016 International Conference on Cultural Policy Research, Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Aleksandar's professional grounding is in performing arts. He has worked as a theatre producer and arts manager for different organizations in Serbia, such as the Yugoslav center for performing arts and technology (YUSTAT), under the direction of Radivoje Dinulović and Belgrade international theatre festival (BITEF), under the direction of Jovan Ćirilov. There he had the privilege to work besides artists such as Robert Wilson, Arpad Schilling, Paolo Magelli, Tomas Ostermeier, Tomi Janežić. As part of an art collective, he participated in the Venice Biennale (2004).
Aleksandar was a producer of national exhibitions of Serbia on Prague Quadrennial (2007, 2011) and producer/organizer of a number of theatre performances and site-specific projects, collaborating closely with choreographer Jozef Nadj, new media artist Dorijan Kolundžija, scenographer Dragan Stojčevski, graphic artist Branko Pavić, theatre director Jelena Bogavac. In 2011 he founded 8010, an art production company focusing on the projects of international cooperation in the fields of performing and visual arts, music, and design (www.8010.rs).
When it comes to the music industry, Aleksandar was a production director at Studio Berar company from Novi Sad, working on concerts of Metallica, Vernon Reid, Dele Sosimi, Esma Redžepova, Šaban Bajramović, Louis. As an events manager, he was engaged in the production of numerous conferences, biennials, festivals, opening and closing ceremonies, and state spectacles. Since 2018 he is engaged as a creative producer of LP Duo (www.lpduo.com).
Alex has over 20 years of international experience as a trainer, coach, and consultant in the areas of project/events and strategic management, cultural policy, and intercultural dialogue through arts, working with organizations from Europe, the US, Africa, and Asia. Together with Audrey Wong, he was the coordinator of the Asia Pacific Network for Cultural Education and Research (ANCER).
