I thought you might want to see my post to the Arts Debate to be found under: What principles should guide public funding of the arts today?
Oh how lucky we are – OR - Count your blessings
Arts for all – what’s in the title – a sense of inclusion – a celebration of our difference AND our commonality as human beings.
How do they engage us in to this arts debate – a picture of a family lovingly engaged in a debate about the arts around dinner with Newcastle Brown and a bottle of HP Sauce on the table?
Someone’s missing the point!
Yes you guessed – I’m one of the so called culturally diverse – a misfit – a target – a performance indicator – excluded?
No not me – I should be grateful - I’m disabled – I use a wheelchair – I’m a nuisance to you all – I’ve got fat due to the steroids I take – oops, sorry no - in your eyes I’m fat because I’m lazy. One day I’ll dribble and shake but that’s another story and pushes me nearer to the edge of exclusion.
But anyway, yes I should be grateful – you – society – Arts Council England have worked ever so hard to give me ACCESS as an audience member– to YOUR arts. Don’t worry we won’t forget who the arts belong to.
Oh dear something’s slipping my mind – wasn’t it the introduction of the lottery that gave us some physical access to YOUR offerings – after all we still pay a £1 for a ticket (it would have been easier if we could have won for 50p. Then they would not have needed to worry about access). Oh, and we all still pay our taxes at the same rate as everyone else, but we have access - hallelujah – access – but NO inclusion.
I can hear you all now, running for cover, not wanting to listen to what you see as another “Crip with a Chip” the awkward one, the one who can’t be grateful. The one who takes it personally. Ok run for cover – or take me head on in debate. If it’s the later read on, if it’s the former “Do I look Bovered?”
So – if you are still reading, let’s get on with it: - We talk about inclusion, we talk about the arts celebrating difference, we talk about lateral thinking, about leading change. We talk, but never do. Like every other bureaucracy, despite some very hard working and well-intentioned individuals, Arts Council England is about protecting the Status Quo in the arts. Oh, they recognise when to bend to stay alive, but just enough to do that and stay alive on their terms.
One of the reasons I am involved in the arts is how it can paradoxically embrace difference and commonality, but somehow the arts funding system seems to ignore this and tag inclusion and equality outside the creative process in neat packaged boxes.
We could be leading the way on inclusion and celebrating the creative processes that allow us all to talk about commonality and difference, inclusion and exclusion. But to do this we need to get serious about it, invest money, human resources and time into developing different approaches, methods, processes and ideologies to all forms of the arts; dance, music, literature, visual arts, professional development etc etc. Instead we bolt on small ideas, in separate departments, which will never change the bigger picture; which, incidentally, belongs to less and less of “the public”.
I am part of the public. I do pay my taxes. I am a professional. I am an artist, but I am excluded on so many levels. Our arts system needs to take this seriously and see this as an equality and inclusion issue at the heart of everything it does. Equality and inclusion is something that is actually an important part of the creative process, for all of us. Otherwise we will continue on the narrow path of “access”, new audiences initiatives etc. without ever including me, or thousands of others.
Meanwhile, you can engage in discussions about what art is or isn’t, or art for arts sake, or public funding, or whatever. It won’t matter to many of us, because we’re not included anyway.
Chris
