Navigating the ‘Restless Decade’: Why the Future Needs People-Centred Cultural Strategy
This week I attended a Culture Central CRU session featuring IPSOS UK’s briefing on 2025 Global Trends (thanks to Mike Clemence) — I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
This blog is my take and interpretation of what was presented. You can watch a recording of the session by clicking here.
IPSOS calls this decade we’re in the restless decade — and after this session, it’s easy to see why. The trends they identified are unsettling, illuminating, and oddly validating of what I’ve been exploring in my work over the past few years. For anyone working in the cultural or creative sectors, it’s worth asking: are we really ready for the world we’re moving into?
Image: Unsplash
Here’s a snapshot of the five trends IPSOS UK highlighted:
Our splintering society
Dominant nostalgia
Evolving trust
Tech: wonder & worry
A crisis of elites
At first glance, it’s a sobering picture. But dig deeper and you start to see something else — an urgent call for change, and for a more responsive, human-centred way of doing things.
Take People With You
A recurring theme that kept coming up — and one that’s deeply embedded in my own practice — is the importance of taking people with you. Whether I’m working on strategic research, public engagement, or mentoring creatives navigating the freelance landscape, this mantra underpins it all. It’s not enough to “consult” or “target” audiences anymore. People expect to be involved, heard, and reflected.
In fact, IPSOS showed that trust in institutions is falling — but trust in people is rising. And that shift carries huge implications for the cultural sector.
In plain terms? People want to speak to a real person. They trust individuals who are clear, values-led, and embedded in their communities. And this is exactly where people like me (and many of my brilliant freelance peers) come in. We work with empathy, curiosity, and clarity - and we help organisations bridge the widening gap between institutional intention and public experience.
Nostalgia Is Not the Enemy of Innovation
Another striking trend was the power of nostalgia. Right now, nostalgia is the dominant cultural expression in the UK. But from what I see, arts institutions are hesitant to fully embrace this - unless they’re working within heritage.
There’s a persistent anxiety that programming rooted in nostalgia might threaten an organisation’s “innovative” credentials. But the data tells a different story. People are seeking comfort, connection, and collective experience - often across generations. They’re actively choosing activities they can enjoy as families. This isn’t about looking backwards; it’s about creating meaning through shared memory.
This calls for bold programming choices that honour the past and make space for the future - particularly in festivals, participatory work, and audience development strategies. Some organisations are doing this beautifully. But many still miss the mark, and risk becoming increasingly irrelevant to the people they claim to serve.
Image: Unsplash
This Is What It Looks Like in Practice
This isn’t just a theory - I’ve seen these dynamics play out in real time through my recent research and programme delivery work. In Nottingham, I co-led a city-wide consultation to reimagine the future of Light Night, drawing insights from over 40 stakeholders and producing a set of curatorial guidelines rooted in equity, participation and civic identity. They said they wanted Light Night future programming to respond to themes of local identity and ‘culture’ that resonates more closely with Nottingham’s history and its people stories.
In Solihull, I designed and delivered a creative business support programme for a bunch of artists that didn’t just talk about resilience and inclusion - it built it. Participants made transformative shifts in confidence, funding success, and long-term planning - in their words, the experience was “life-changing.” This was close contact, often one to one, hand holding support. These aren’t edge cases.
They’re proof that when you centre people, change happens.
We Need Culture-Makers, Not Just Cultural Institutions
What became clear during this session is that institutions alone cannot respond to this moment. The scale of change we’re living through - economic, emotional, technological, social - demands more agile, human-shaped responses. That means trusting independent professionals, commissioning differently, and listening more closely to the rhythm of people’s lives.
The decade ahead will be turbulent. But with the right approaches, it can also be transformative. We’ll need more empathy, more honesty, and more collaboration between institutions and independent thinkers. If you’re looking to work differently, build trust, or engage meaningfully - I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks goes to Culture Central for programming this vital and timely briefing as part of their monthly CRU sessions. There is a recording available - I highly recommend you look out for it!
More about me: Amy Dalton-Hardy is a strategist, consultant and coach working at the intersection of creativity, care and cultural change. She works with clients across the UK to shape people-centred approaches to programming, leadership and public engagement. Take a look around this website for much more.