Conclusion: on the cultural significance of arts festivals

The chapters collected in this volume illustrate the cultural significance of arts festivals. The arts festival, including for visual arts the biennale, is an interesting example of the contemporary transformation of public culture and is of great interest to cultural sociology. The terms themselves, 'festival' and 'biennale', are interesting in that they have come to denote particular kinds of cultural experience and performance. Festivals, biennales and their derivatives can be seen as the characteristically contemporary and, I argue, cosmopolitan form of public culture today. Indeed, it is possible to speak of a certain festivalization of culture more generally in that the festival genre, as found in a mixed arts festival, is having an impact on the more traditional kinds of social institutions, such as museums, political parties and universities.