The most effective leadership in the arts is often invisible. Audiences see the festival, the exhibition or event, but not always the leaders behind them – the ones charged with navigating the increasingly complex demands of policy, people and finance. Sometimes you only see cultural leadership when something goes wrong, and then those skills become even more vital.
As Australia’s cultural landscape continues to evolve at an increasing pace, the central role played by arts leaders has never been more important. NIDA’s Master of Fine Arts in Cultural Leadership gives experienced practitioners the critical skills they need to manage governance, advocacy and creative ambitions, equipping them to shape a more inclusive, robust and resilient future.
MFA in Cultural Leadership – quick links
Making a real difference
Being an arts leader often requires as much imagination as administration and this sits at the heart of NIDA’s MFA, a 30-month postgraduate program designed for arts industry leaders and change-makers.
Jessica Alice is Artistic Director and CEO of Byron Writers Festival, which runs 14 to 16 August, and Chair of the National Young Writers Festival. She was formerly CEO of Writers SA and Chair of the Arts Industry Council of SA. All of these positions have been defined by sector advocacy, effective stakeholder management and the championing of literary practice. She graduated from the NIDA MFA in 2024.
‘I was 30 and the director of a literary organisation and chairing an arts advocacy body,’ says Alice. ‘I was looking for a course that could provide an academic grounding to that work, which involved advocating for writers, representing the arts sector to government and influencing policy, and leading an organisation through a period of transformation in its programs.’
ArtsHub: Jessica Alice, Byron Writers Festival: ‘It feels like a real celebration’
Alice says she was interested in finding new initiatives that would help the organisation become more genuinely representative of its community and make a material difference to the lives and careers of writers.
‘Undertaking the MFA at NIDA provided both a theoretical underpinning to my understanding of leadership, governance and policy, as well as situating me with a cohort of peers in similar roles all over the country.’
Learning from other cultural leaders
The MFA in Cultural Leadership, delivered through a blended format of online learning and intensive on-campus residencies, covers a broad range of subjects including cultural policy, advocacy, sustainability, leadership and practice-based research.
There are also the exciting creative possibilities that can emerge from being surrounded by other arts leaders and practitioners.
‘Having that network of people from different artforms, who were thinking ambitiously about changing the arts and cultural sector, and about ways to decolonise institutions and to make arts spaces accessible from first principles, was so valuable,’ Alice says.
The post-graduate student body at NIDA reflects the scope of Australia’s cultural ecology, from festival directors and events professionals to producers, curators and arts executives. While each brings their own perspectives, they are often confronting similar leadership and management challenges. The intensive on-campus sessions give participants a few rare opportunities to step away from the day-to-day demands of their jobs and think strategically about their roles and the future.
‘The NIDA campus is pretty delightful,’ says Alice. ‘There’s the energy and intensity of the young actors, and the magical spaces of the props and costume students.’
As part of the course, students can undertake an independent research project. Alice took the opportunity to work on the Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship, a program run out of Tasmania that places artists in scientific research stations in Antarctica. ‘The fellowship produces some breathtaking work,’ she says.
Championing culture and community
Alice came to arts leadership via a degree in creative writing from RMIT, with an honours thesis on poetry, and a TAFE diploma in writing and editing. She originally enrolled in a fashion design degree before realising that her heart belonged to writing. She was one of 20 arts leaders chosen from across Australia and Asia to take part in Creative Australia’s Future Leaders Program in 2018. Today, she leads Australia’s largest regional writers’ festival, an organisation that positions literature as both an artistic practice and a form of civic engagement.
Looking back, Alice says that the MFA in Cultural Leadership at NIDA strengthened her skills and deepened her perspective. ‘It’s a pretty unique program,’ she reflects. ‘It’s specifically designed for those in leadership positions and builds on and complements your own practice.’
In an arts sector grappling with important questions of equity, representation, funding, sustainability and public value, that emphasis feels increasingly relevant. Cultural leadership is not simply about managing an organisation or event. It’s about imagining what it could become and how it could better serve its community.
