Creative Culture Making: Policy Directions for Arts Sector Development in Bahrain

Despite a storied history of artmaking, Bahrain’s arts sector currently exists in a state of arrested development. A recurring explanation for this claims that the country’s small population is simply unable to yield a sizable arts market and industry.

However, research findings prove otherwise. This study directly engages arts sector stakeholders to contextualize the current state. Arts sector governance, environmental conditions, and artmakers’ ways of working are analyzed through a systems lens – revealing a lack of active development processes, along with an amalgam of challenges that span across sociocultural, socioeconomic, and sociopolitical boundaries. In their totality, these challenges impair Bahrain’s creative value chain, thereby nullifying Bahraini society’s ability to engage in bottom-up creative culture making processes.

This report seeks to inform cultural policymaking by uncovering challenges and distinguishing between fundamental and symptomatic issues. Moreover, it identifies openings for change, and proposes a set of alternative policy directions aimed at transitioning Bahrain’s arts sector towards a state conducive to its flourishing.

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