Creative Careers Are Changing. So Are the Job Titles.

Walk into a museum, a festival office, or the backrooms of a cultural organisation today and you’ll sense it straight away that the air is thick with reinvention. Of course, it’s the exhibitions on the walls and the programmes on the calendar that are now fresh and reimagined, but what has also evolved is the language people use to describe their work. The old certainties; Manager, Director, Assistant, have loosened their hold. In their place are titles that stretch and glint: Curatorial Strategist, Experience Designer, Cultural Producer. Titles like these are becoming commonplace, reflecting the industry’s push for storytelling, audience engagement, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Words that carry a charge, inviting curiosity even as they cloud the edges of their meaning.  For many in India’s arts and cultural sector, this evolution goes a little beyond jargon for jargon’s sake. It reflects a deeper truth: creative work today is complex, collaborative, and constantly adapting.

Kamini Sawhney, founding director of the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru, has seen firsthand how conventional museum roles no longer suffice. “It’s time for institutions to be collaborative in a fundamental way—sharing not just artworks but ideas, collections, skills, resources, and personnel,” she says. For Sawhney, titles are shifting because institutions themselves are shifting; from being keepers of collections to being facilitators of exchange.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Joyoti Roy, head of outreach at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai. Roy’s own career arc — from handling archival photography collections to spearheading national leadership training programs — is evidence of how roles expand in response to need. “We need professionals who can juggle different capacities and bring new imaginations to old understandings,” she reflects.

Take, for instance, the role of a Curatorial Strategist. Where curators once focused on conserving and exhibiting objects, today’s strategists are equally concerned with crafting narratives that resonate. Roy recalls, “I was the prime coordinator for the Leadership Training Program… to train about 60 mid-career museum professionals in running museums.” The job demanded far more than object care, it required leadership, education, and vision-building.

Similarly, the emergence of titles like Experience Designer signals a growing emphasis on how audiences feel and interact within cultural spaces. Sumona Chakravarty, Deputy Director at DAG Museum, encapsulates this blend of artistry and pragmatism: “My role involves everything from strategic planning and budgeting to brainstorming new programs and reviewing creatives.” Whether in a gallery or an online space, experience design today is as much about logistics and management as it is about creative spark.

Even traditionally behind-the-scenes work has transformed. Roy’s early career as a Digital Archivist involved more than safeguarding materials. “My main job was to handle the archive but also contribute to exhibitions, which deepened my understanding of collections and historiography,” she says. In the digital era, preservation, storytelling, and public engagement intertwine.

What binds these evolving roles is a shared balancing act. Creative professionals in the cultural sector are constantly negotiating between innovation and structure, between vision and viability. Sawhney puts it plainly: “Museums need to stop focusing solely on blockbuster exhibitions and instead find engaging stories that resonate with audiences.” That shift requires professionals who not only dream up ideas but can also build strategies, manage teams, and navigate budgets to make those ideas real.

Chakravarty affirms this duality: “We do strategic planning, work with budgets, and maintain timelines while ensuring that the artistic vision is upheld.” Far from being abstract, these modern job titles hint at the growing toolkit creative workers must wield. At first glance, terms like Cultural Producer or Curatorial Strategist may feel opaque. But understanding them is key today for job seekers charting a career path, for funders evaluating project proposals, and for audiences engaging with cultural experiences shaped by these roles. They are signals of a sector that values interdisciplinary thinking, nimble collaboration, and above all, relevance.

After all, as Roy reminds us, the goal remains simple: to bring “new imaginations to old understandings.” Whatever the title, it is about making art, history, and culture matter; here and now.


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