Introduction
The
arts and culture are a vital part of any country’s identity so it is not
surprising that the government and the private sector of many countries allot a
significant part of their yearly national budgets to supporting the activities
of artists and the institutions that preserve the cultural identity of the
country. One of the main goals of
Australia’s Office of the Department of the Arts, as they unveiled as they
unveiled their National Cultural Policy is to “Support excellence and the
special role of artists and their creative collaborators as the source of
original work and ideas, including telling Australian stories” (Department of the Prime Minister
Office of the Arts 2011). Moreover,
according to the data released on that Policy, the Australian Government makes
a significant investment in Australian artists and arts organisations through a
wide range of programs and activities. One can say that culture has at least as
much claim as any other aspect of the Australian economy. In 2011–12, more than $164 million was given
to the arts sector, including the country’s orchestras, the opera, other music
artists and organisations, visual artists and organisations, theatre companies
and artists, dance artists and companies, writers, publishers and literary
organisations, multi-artform artists and organisations, and activities
involcing sector building and audience development initiatives and programs. This funding has enabled the creation of 7656
new works and support for 1922 grants or projects, attracting 13 million people
to attend art-related events, exhibitions and performances. A significant number also accessed work
online, in print and through broadcast. Grants
were provided to 908 individual artists, and funding to Major Performing Arts
companies alone supported the employment of more than 2700 people. Cultural funding in Australia totals $6.6
billion a year across federal, state and local governments. This figure covers
everything from the ABC and ‘heritage’ funding for museums, libraries, zoos, the environment,
etc.; to the relatively small sums given to the arts. In 2011, cultural industries directly
employed 531,000 people, and indirectly generated a further 3.7 million jobs.
Copyright industries were worth $93.2 billion to the Australian economy in
2007, with exports worth more than $500 million. All these data shows the vibrancy of the
interaction between the artists and the audience in Australia and with the
government strongly backing the arts, this bodes well for the continued
development and evolution of arts and culture in the country.
Why
We Should Support the Arts Even When They Are Unprofitable
However,
not everything is rosy when it comes to funding the arts and culture. Sure, many forms of art are supported
lavishly and without question, but what if that type of artistic activity is
not profitable, and not very attractive to the masses. Should the government continue funding these
unprofitable artistic endeavors and just cover the losses generated by them? Are these artistic activities worthy to be
preserved, studied and presented to the people, even if they don’t generate as
much buzz as more profitable artistic endeavors?
Much like industry, art is
basically a system too, essentially a network of interdependent relationships composed
firstly of the artists with themselves and the world in which they live, and
then with the artwork they create. Then
there are those who experience the art and who then create relationships
between the art, the world and themselves.
There is a giving and receiving happening in this dynamic structure of
exchange in which order and disorder are in constant tension and flux.
If one relates arts and culture to
research and development in relation to industry, one can be able to appreciate
what it does to the common people. The restless experimentation of the artists
generates vitality to the wider culture, and the arts, even if they are not
always profitable in themselves, can lead to highly profitable innovations.
Samples
of Artistic and Cultural Endeavors That May Not Be Profitable
Museums
The
most obvious example of a nonprofitable artistic institution is the museum. The
most interesting observation the writer encountered when making this paper
regarding the profitability of museums is this:
“My observation, after thirty years of working in the field, is that museums have an amazing ability to survive in the most adverse environments. They are the cockroaches of the nonprofit world--sometimes it really does seem like you can’t kill them with an atomic blast. Most of the time some improbable deus ex machina saves the day: for example an unexpected cash gift or a free building. Mind you, this often only saves the distressed museum from closure—it does not cure the underlying dysfunction. The museum may simply struggle along for another ten years before the next potentially fatal crisis.” (Merritt, Elizabeth. 2013).
For museums, it has come down to survivability, but the writer feels that museums have to succeed as well, and to be able to attract more people into their space. To be able to attract more people, the museum can do the following. First, it can offer core services that people depend on and need to survive. These may include jobs for employees and programs that address a societal gap which other organizations or businesses are not able to provide. An example can be when a museum provides job training for at-risk youth and the community relies on the museum to be able to consistently do this. By doing this, it raises the social capital of the museum in the eyes of the community it is in. Second, the museum can provide services that make them look awesome. The museum then has to identify what drives people through their door, identify the exhibits that got them excited, and allows the people who visit them to connect passionately with the content. It’s not so bad to be labelled as hip and interesting.
Indigenous
Australian Art
Many
Australians would like to think that a shift in how white Australians perceive,
understand and respect indigenous art and culture has already happened but the
reality is that most Australians allow past ideologies and outmoded beliefs to
rule their judgments and opinions. For
example, one of the strongest of these beliefs has always been that the indigenous
people must be kept in their place – on the fringes of the white society. White society does not like it when
Aborigines demand their right to be visible in their own land and to determine
how they will be represented. There have
been many attempts by the 'white' art world to homogenise
Aboriginal art.
After all, images like a fish, is still a fish, which is wrong since all
indigenous artists are connected to specific lands which contain sacred sites
and are more identified as distinctive 'art. The styles and specific cultural meanings
are given to the symbols and icons that each community portrays within their
art. Even though two communities may
share a symbol, the exact meaning for the symbol is clearly defined and
particular to each community's land, stories, traditions and creation myths.
Unfortunately,
the white art world of Australia has arbitrarily defined and divided
indigenous art by divorcing it from its essence, the
artists who actually create the work. They have defined indigenous art as either
traditional, meaning, created by indigenous artists who come from regional and
remote areas of Australia and who are viewed as authentic and real. Essentially, it means, that they look stereotypically
‘blak’. (The term 'blak' was developed
by
artist Destiny Deacon as a part of a symbolic but potent
strategy of reclaiming colonialist language to create means of self-definition
and expression.)
Aboriginal
art has been seen as being of value culturally and economically to the
Australian white art world, but contemporary work has been totally devalued even
though it is also created by indigenous artists who tend to come from the urban
centres of Australia. Their work is more
often than not perceived as inauthentic/not 'blak' enough and culturally vague,
unspecific and far too political. They are also often seen as unable to attract
big buyers that can allow their work to fetch higher value prices. That way of thinking defeats the real purpose
of creating Aboriginal art, which is to represent the true soul and spirit of the
aboriginal people of Australia. By
becoming some sort of commodity that can be traded and whose prices can be
artificially fluctuated to support the whims of an elitist art world, it
cheapens the contributions of Aboriginal artists to the whole art world in
general and just puts it as a commercial activity and not really an authentic
artistic endeavour.
Conclusion
Many local and international
studies have outlined the benefits of funding culture and art, demonstrated its
positive effects in educational results to raising real estate prices, improving
mental health to urban and enabling regional renewal, promoting economic
productivity and decreasing crime rates.
It is also a good thing that Australians have an overwhelmingly positive
attitude towards the arts. In a survey that looked at participation in visual
arts and crafts, music, dance, theatre and literature, all key art forms
supported by the Australia Council, the results showed that 38 per cent of
Australians describe themselves as art lovers, for whom the arts are an
integral part of their lives and only 17 per cent reported estrangement,
believing that the arts attract pretentious elites, and a tiny 7 per cent feel
no connection at all. Overall, 93 per cent of Australians reported engaging
with the arts in the previous year. In fact, in 2009, more than 11 million people
attended art galleries, more than the ten million that went to watch football. With this data, it makes for compelling
argument to support public funding for the arts since that is the only way in
which the pleasures, rewards and liberations of art become available not only
to the wealthy, but also to the normal working people since high ticket prices
can make it elitist. Furthermore, state
funding is crucial to arts education since it decentralises the arts, allowing
regional Australians not only to encounter their own culture but to create
their own work and reach their own potentials. It was this state funding that
has permitted regional companies like the Geelong-based Back to Back Theatre
company, one of Australia’s biggest international success stories, to create
work with its ensemble of disabled actors and allow audiences in Europe and America
to receive them and enjoy their work. It
is also the funding that has given international success to the Bangarra Dance
Theatre, which works closely with remote Indigenous communities to create their
performances, or the long-term community-based work of Big hART. It funds
touring and stimulates arts practice in culturally deprived regional areas, as
well as outreach and educational programs in schools and the wider community. Without public funding, many people would
never encounter art at all.
Finally, art should be supported
even if they are not profitable because every human being has what one can call
the cultural right, which is the right of any person to access their potential
as intellectual and creative citizens of their region and the wider world. Through funding, one can realize this argument
on human possibility, as a society and as individuals. It emphasizes that people have a right to
culture as a crucial dimension of their lives. It’s this notion of culture as a
human right that most underlies contemporary public and philanthropic support
for the arts. With this backdrop, it is
heartening to note that Creative Australia has been aiming to build on that
foundation. It has proposed a plan for
the next decade, to ensure that Australian artists continue to operate at the
highest levels, that companies and institutions are sustainable, that cultural
products are innovative and engaging, that Australian identity and stories are
not swamped in a globe awash with cultural products, that the full diversity of
our society is represented and that citizens have opportunities to be both
creators and audiences. These artistic and cultural activities will further reinforce
the Australia brand as a creative nation.
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