Good morning all!
So this morning I find myself musing on some bigger questions as I think about and begin the implementation of our next steps. The question that I wake up with on many days is this. What are the arts for in an age of austerity?. Who gives a damn at the end of the day?
With squeezed budgets and pressure on resources, why should anyone be bothered with the arts ?
Could it possibly be because they are a fundamental and intrinsic part of what it is to be human? And because everyone is still at it? Cultural appetite is stronger than ever, despite the gloomy predictions of a couple of years ago: record cinema box office figures, a buoyant West End, sell-out exhibitions in London, a strong Royal Shakespeare Company, and much more.
Culture attempts to explain our experience and where we're up to, from Lucy Prebble's play Enron to Up in the Air with George Clooney. It's the most imaginative, creative way of talking about what's happened, and about what's likely to happen; it goes deeper than any government white paper.
The arts, like sport, are a necessary, universal diversion and a solace, whether that's burying yourself in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall or going to see a musical or as in our case a panto!Culture gives us community like sport does. It's the big shared experience, through concerts, theatre and the huge British appetite for festivals. Alongside the huge expansion in the availability of culture online this hunger is for the real – actual, live contact with artists and other audiences.
I have to admit to not being very happy with the word "austerity". I think its one the government has made up, and because it is ubiquitous we all buy into it in one way or another and make it a self-fulfiling prophecy. Don't get me wrong I know as well as we all do what the last four years has been like. But you know it doesn't take long for communities to internalise these messages and to act accordingly, manifesting the very thing that none of us wants. It has the power to kill creativity if we are not careful and then we all end up believing it as the real truth.
Artists are part of a great tradition of outrage and protest. Even Shakespeare and Chaucer, while not oppositional artists, gave us a sense of the moral base of life: reading them was an enlargement of experience. Art will continue to exist without government or local authority support – but it is tremendously important they give that support even so, as a means of placing value on culture.
Artists do and have always faced much worse than austerity: elsewhere in the world artists risk their lives simply by telling the truth. They have survived censorship, war, the Great Depression and continue to survive agains the impossibility of dictatorships and personal intimidation and will always do so.
Then there are always the devil's-advocate questions. Why pay for the arts when we can't pay for hip replacements? How democratic is culture anyway? Is the dole not the greatest sponsor of the arts we've ever had? Do artists really speak truth to power (what about Wagner)? And if the arts would exist anyway, why give them government funding?
Maybe its the case that too much Arts Council funding goes to the big London institutions such as the Royal Opera House, and not enough to the regions, where organisations lke Arc and the Broadway Theatrre are much more vulnerable. I am delighted that in our case in Barking and Dagenham The Arts Council seem to be addressing this through the granting of over £800,000 for a Creative People and Places programme to encourage and inspire greater involvement in the arts here.
And how inclusive are the arts really? Well there's Poems on the Underground, which which might be described as "the most democratic artistic intervention of the last 20 years. And Danny Boyle made a good fist of it this summer with the Olympics Opening Ceremony! Ironically though, the smaller organistations like ours that work best with their local community are also the possibly the most vulnerable. None of it quite makes sense.
Artists are part of a great tradition of outrage and protest. Even Shakespeare and Chaucer, while not oppositional artists, gave us a sense of the moral base of life: reading them was an enlargement of experience. Art will continue to exist without government or local authority support – but it is tremendously important they give that support even so, as a means of placing value on culture.
Artists do and have always faced much worse than austerity: elsewhere in the world artists risk their lives simply by telling the truth. They have survived censorship, war, the Great Depression and continue to survive agains the impossibility of dictatorships and personal intimidation and will always do so.
Then there are always the devil's-advocate questions. Why pay for the arts when we can't pay for hip replacements? How democratic is culture anyway? Is the dole not the greatest sponsor of the arts we've ever had? Do artists really speak truth to power (what about Wagner)? And if the arts would exist anyway, why give them government funding?
Maybe its the case that too much Arts Council funding goes to the big London institutions such as the Royal Opera House, and not enough to the regions, where organisations lke Arc and the Broadway Theatrre are much more vulnerable. I am delighted that in our case in Barking and Dagenham The Arts Council seem to be addressing this through the granting of over £800,000 for a Creative People and Places programme to encourage and inspire greater involvement in the arts here.
And how inclusive are the arts really? Well there's Poems on the Underground, which which might be described as "the most democratic artistic intervention of the last 20 years. And Danny Boyle made a good fist of it this summer with the Olympics Opening Ceremony! Ironically though, the smaller organistations like ours that work best with their local community are also the possibly the most vulnerable. None of it quite makes sense.
We all recognise the problems the arts now face, so what are the priorities? If we want to make a difference, where should our energies be focused? On outreach work with schools? through local centres of artistic excellence, through encouraging greater grass-roots donations?. I have to say that like many I am deeply concerned and angered by the ever deepening cuts and i do believe we have to find a way of translating this basic human need to this philistine government which by all evidence appears to serioulsy undervalue the arts and their core place in our society. I believe that in tough times, improving and guaranteeing access to the arts is more important than ever.
That's my short political rant for the day. 6 Shows left! Can't quite believe it.
No comments:
Post a Comment