Blog

May 30th 2025, Seoul, South Korea.
Hosted by Soohye Jang, PhD Student, Hongik University and founder of Connect A.
Title: Cultural Policy in Canada and Socially Engaged Arts Today
In this keynote, Drs. Afolabi and Ünsal introduced a general framework to understand the cultural policy and structure in Canada. They explored how socially engaged arts foster dialogue, equity, and social change.

Between May 28-30, 2025, Drs Deniz Ünsal and Taiwo Afolabi attended the 10th World Summit on Arts and Culture organized by International Federation of Arts Council and Cultural Agencies in Seoul, South Korea. They gave a presentation titled “From the Ground Up: Reflections on Ethics of Care and Cultural Policy” at the Open Session on May 29, 2025.

Invited by Socially Engaged Musicians Network, May 26, 2025 at Heyground, Seoul, South Korea. In this session Drs Deniz Ünsal and Taiwo Afolabi discussed findings from their recent research in Canada in a global context on the role of socially engaged artists in the creation of social value through community-based art practice.

Drs. Deniz Ünsal and Taiwo Afolabi were invited by Dr. Eunyoung Lee, Professor and Sound Artist at Hoseo University, to participate in a two-day forum in Asan/Cheonan. On the first day, they engaged with community members and local cultural stakeholders, initiating dialogue on socially engaged art and placemaking. The second day was spent with undergraduate students in the Liberal Arts program at Hoseo University, where they shared insights from their research on art and leadership.

26-28 June 2024, Guadalajara, Mexico.
Dr. Afolabi and Dr. Ünsal have attended online to the 2024 workshop to present and discuss their research paper titled “Can we reimagine policy-making in the field of culture from a care ethics perspective?”  The workshop focused on Decolonizing Public Policy: struggles, ideas and experiences from the Global South (T06W03, Session 4) and was chaired and moderated by Rosana Boullosa (University of Brasilia/Brazil and Enap/Brazil), Ana Claudia Farranha (Universidade de Brasília), Mireille Manga (IRIC, University of Yaoundé II), Paloma Villagómez-Ornelas (University of Guadalajara).

Dr. Afolabi and Dr. Ünsal have curated and moderated a panel at the 2024 Conference of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research on June 6, 2024. This curated panel brought three distinct yet connected research papers focusing on justice, ethics of care and cultural policies across different places. Using different methods, papers examined how cultural policies impact performing artists’ living and working conditions— immigrants and refugees.

Dr. Ünsal and Dr. Afolabi presented their research at the Conference on Communication Ethics in Communication organized by the School of Communication and Culture at Royal Roads University on February 21 – 22, 2024. The Conference focused in 2024 on Equity, ecology, culture.
Dr Ünsal and Dr Afolabi shared their reflections on the impact of precarity and erosion of relationality in the arts ecosystem that centers on the economic value of the arts. The online panel introduced care/relational ethics and ethical questioning as a framework to rethink cultural policy in Canada.

Sarah Garton Stanley and Yvette Nolan discuss Canadian cultural policy, how we got here and how we move forward. Hosted by Taiwo Afolabi and Deniz Ünsal. In this virtual conversation, Yvette Nolan and Sarah Garton Stanley discussed the tall shadow of the Massey Report, the shifting landscape and how Canadian cultural policy is responding to the shift. They recount the history of the Massey Report and the need for policy to reflect the current socio-cultural, political, and economic milieu.

On April 14th 2023, Taiwo Afolabi and Deniz Unsal facilitated a panel discussion titled “Exploring an Equitable Cultural Policy” at the Belfry Theatre in Victoria, BC. Along with self-employed artists from Indigenous, Black and racialised communities, we discussed how they experience cultural policies at local and urban levels in their art practice and community engagement.