March 8: Entrepreneurship and Cultural Projects Innovation in the Cultural Milieu of Barcelona with Lluis Bonet

Today we were honored to listen to Dr. Lluís Bonet’s lecture on “Entrepreneurship and Cultural Projects Innovation in the Cultural Milieu of Barcelona.” When I first saw the topic, I wondered, “what is the cultural milieu in this context?” Cultural milieu often refers to a person’s setting and environment, including social and cultural aspects of life, such as The School of Athens, the internet, etc., which I am very interested in. Dr. Lluís Bonet is a professor at the Department of Economics and Director of the Cultural Management Program of the University of Barcelona. Professor Bonet has been a research fellow at MIT and the University of Montpelier and a speaker in almost 50 countries. Winner of the CAC Research Prize, he has been President of the Jury of the Cultural Policy Research Award and a jury member of many other research prizes. 

In the lecture, Dr. Bonet talked about the difference between the definition of creativity and innovation in cultural milieu and arts, precisely characterizing innovation in art and cultural heritage, the evolution of still alive and interconnected paradigms of cultural creativity, and cases in Barcelona analysis. The lecture begins with a distinction between creativity and innovation, that creativity alone is “the capacity to create and produce new knowledge or new meaning, and innovation is “the process by which creativity generates new economic/social value added to a product or a process.” Dr. Bonet mentioned that we need some open-minded cultural venues willing to take risks to create a creative cultural milieu to push innovation. In the current period, it is easier to innovate as a collective group that is team building innovation than individual innovation. It is a connection between different individuals and getting creativity from individuals. 

He presented the graph of innovations in the cultural milieu and the main mediator players in recognizing innovation. This clearly shows the relationship between pre-existent value and innovation value in the process and life cycle that is varied by the centralized & collaborator, incremental and disruptive. And he gave examples of innovation in the Castells of Spain’s traditional culture, which can be innovated. Following the theoretical background, Dr. Bonet applied innovation to case analysis in Barcelona, where we visited creative factories in the morning and “Gata perduda” at the Liceu Opera House later in the week. This lecture came in great timing because we went to actual site visits and case studies to get a better view of the theoretical information. The detailed presentation helped with a clear understanding of the innovation pushes art and culture and vice versa. The lecture is full of information and is taught rapidly, which I still need time to digest and chew through it. And as art administrators and cultural managers, what can we do to help and improve the cultural milieu?

Author: Emily Qi