Economies Grow When Cultural Value Circulates.
Artists, spaces and places are not a cost to the economy. They are the cultural value that makes places distinctive, attracts spending and creates local opportunity.
The question is not whether culture creates value. The question is who gets to keep it.
Artists, spaces, venues and independent operators are often treated as a cost to the economy, even while entire places depend on them to attract attention, visitors, spending and investment. The culture is useful. The people creating it are expected to remain underpaid, grateful and difficult to find.
That is not a cultural problem. It is an economic design problem.
UNCTAD’s Creative Economy Outlook reported US$1.4 trillion in creative services exports and US$713 billion in creative goods exports in 2022. The World Bank estimates that travel and tourism contributed US$10.9 trillion to the global economy in 2024 and supported around 357 million jobs. UNESCO estimates that cultural and creative industries account for approximately 3.1% of global GDP and 6.2% of employment. These figures use different definitions and should not be added together, but they all point in the same direction: cultural value is already operating at economic scale.
Paying artists is economic policy
Ireland’s Basic Income for the Arts pilot is a useful example. The Irish government’s cost-benefit analysis found more than €100 million in social and economic benefits and a return of €1.39 for every €1 invested. That is not proof that one pilot caused the entire Irish economy to grow. It is evidence that putting money directly into the hands of artists can produce measurable public returns.
Money paid to artists does not disappear into a cultural black hole. It moves through rent, suppliers, travel, equipment, venues, local businesses, audiences, collaborators and future work. The point is not to make a sentimental case for culture. The point is to understand where money goes when cultural workers have the capacity to keep working.
This is what Countercult is built to do
Countercult turns cultural value into economic value.
We’ve built the Network that connects the authentic cultural IP of a place, its artists, spaces and operators, to audiences, commissions and investment.
The Network makes that value discoverable and commissionable. Studios turns it into paid commissions, programmes, experiences and partnerships for brands, destinations and institutions.
That is the whole thing. The Network is the infrastructure. Studios is the paid delivery arm. The work is making culture easier to find, easier to work with and better able to generate value for the people and places creating it.
The value has to circulate
When more money reaches the people creating the culture, more people can keep creating it. When spaces have stronger programmes and better relationships, they can attract more audiences and opportunities. When places make their existing culture easier to find and experience, they become more distinctive to visitors, residents, businesses and partners.
More people visit, participate and spend. More jobs and businesses are created around the places that culture makes distinctive. The Network grows because the culture becomes more visible. Studios grows because there is more meaningful work to commission. The system gets stronger when value moves through it instead of leaking out of it.
A small example is still an economic example
The Klunkerkranich collaboration in Berlin shows the mechanism at human scale. The venue had a commercial and cultural need. Countercult brought the local relationships, artists and musicians needed to make the programme happen. The artists were paid, invoices were sent, and the average rate was around €50 per hour per artist.
The events have also consistently led to more gigs and jobs for Countercult and for the people who attend. A venue operator meets a musician. An artist is recommended for another commission. An attendee becomes a client. A public event becomes a route into future work.
Economies grow when more value circulates through the people and places creating the culture.
Artists get paid. Spaces get stronger. Places gain value. Organisations get a better route into the culture that makes a place matter.
This is not charity. It is economic development through culture.
Have a place, tourism, or cultural-development brief?
Countercult Studios works as a contractor or specialist delivery partner on research, mapping, cultural strategy, campaigns, experiences, commissions, archives, and production.
An original Countercult field note on the economic circulation of cultural value, the Countercult Network and Studios model, and the Klunkerkranich collaboration in Berlin. Macro figures referenced from the World Bank’s Tourism overview, UNESCO’s Re|Shaping Policies for Creativity report, UNCTAD’s Creative Economy Outlook 2024, and Ireland’s Basic Income for the Arts pilot cost-benefit analysis: https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/topic/tourism, https://www.unesco.org/reports/reshaping-creativity/2022/en, https://unctad.org/publication/creative-economy-outlook-2024, and https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-and-sport/press-releases/basic-income-for-the-arts-pilot-produced-over-100-million-in-social-and-economic-benefits
This piece was informed by Shona Neary’s writing, conversations, and thinking around independent culture, artists, and place.
editorial process: Our Journals are pulled from our writings over the years to get information out as quickly and as widely as possible, and to get to what matters: finding each other and claiming our seat in the circular economy. Some ideas overlap between Shona Neary's work on cultural infrastructure and their artist practice as Sketchy Shona. AI is a tool for infrastructure, not for creating Journal writing or artists' work. We welcome original reporting and pitches from journalists and independent publishers.