Reflections from The Three Bells: S6#4
Title
The party is over… or is it?
Contributor
Adrian Ellis
In this new episode of Reflections from The Three Bells, Adrian Ellis marks the 10th edition of AEA Consulting’s Cultural Infrastructure Index by asking what slowbalisation, geopolitical volatility, and changing public expectations mean for the future of cultural infrastructure.
Date of Recording
1 April 2026
Date of Publication
23 April 2026
[00:00:00]
THEME MUSIC
[00:00:05]
Adrian Ellis: Hello, and welcome to The Three Bells. This podcast is part of the sixth season produced by AEA Consulting for the Global Cultural Districts Network. The focus is, as always, the relationship between cultural and urban life, and the ways in which cultural life contributes to urban vitality and vice versa.
The series and supporting materials can be found at www.thethreebells.net. And if you like our content, please subscribe and give us a positive review on your favourite podcast listening platform.
I'm Adrian Ellis, the chair of GCDN, and the director of AEA Consulting, and I'm happy to share some reflections from The Three Bells.
This year is the 10th in which AEA has tried to measure the level and type of investment in cultural buildings around the world – the Cultural Infrastructure Index, and I want to mark that decade by returning to a theme that I've hammered on about in one way or another for a long time: the relationship between the cultural infrastructure boom and economic liberalisation. But I want to focus this time on what the IMF has called slowbalisation, the current chapter we're in, and what it means.
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About our Contributor
Adrian Ellis is the founder of AEA Consulting (1990) and the Global Cultural Districts Network (2013). He has worked in senior management and as a board member in both museums and the performing arts and as a strategy consultant to leading clients in the cultural, public, and business sectors around the world. +
