Organised by The Institute of Ideas as a satellite event to its recent Battle of Ideas festival, All Change in arts funding: crisis or opportunity? was an informal roundtable debate which asked the question: Will cuts lead to further devastation or could they liberate artists and organisations to re-think what the purpose of art is?
Chaired by Spiked columnist Dave Bowden, the panel comprised myself along with author and playwright Stella Duffy; Martin Cullingford, editor of Gramaphone; City of London Festival Director Paul Gudgin; playwright and theatre director Jonathan Holmes; and independent curator and writer Dr Cecilia Wee.
It seemed fitting that the venue for the debate was the 1969-70 ILEA-conceived Cockpit Theatre, situated in a less well-heeled area of Westminster. Contextualized within a five-day programme called Arts of Wellbeing, produced by Westminster Arts and commissioned by Westminster City Council, the irony of this debate taking place in a borough which decided to completely cut its entire arts budget by 2014/15 wasn’t lost on the participants.
Access to the arts
At the heart of the debate was the issue of access to the arts, and how the cuts would impact on attendance and participation. The debate was a nuanced one, with no-one arguing for a complete end to public funding of the arts. As Stella Duffy pointed out, even when the times were good and new venues and spaces were being built, artists were always and have always been poor.
My own contribution included pointing out how National Lottery funding has dramatically changed the cultural landscape of the arts in the last 18 years. In the time of ‘Cool Britannia’ and economic boom, super-buildings were created to the point of vanity and folly, continuing until 2011-12.
Local authorities, Arts Council England, European Commission funds and regeneration strategies were guilty of investing huge public and Lottery funds into spaces such as the £29million firstsite gallery in Colchester. Opened in 2011, firstsite’s building devoted more room to the restaurant, education and family-friendly spaces than it did galleries for the presentation of artworks. Cecilia Wee aptly called this approach the “yummy mummification” of the arts.
With less money and austerity measures biting into the very fabric of society, Arts Council England capital Lottery grants have become more modest compared to the past, with a focus on renovation rather than new builds. Central to most public arts funding agenda is the notion of ‘access’ and public benefit.
Duffy argued passionately how important it was to widen and maximize greater access to the arts and cited social class as being the greatest barrier to engagement. Her vision is to create ‘Fun Palaces’, a tribute to the unrealised idea of left-wing theatre director Joan Littlewood and architect Cedric Price, who in 1961 aspired to create a temporary and moveable space to bring the arts and sciences together under one roof. Duffy is taking the spirit of the concept to create an eclectic partnership across art-forms based on three guidelines: free admission, the involvement of children and young people, and local input.
Public good: bad move?
Wendy Earle, an educator and co-convenor of the Institute of Ideas’ Arts and Society Forum, took issue with Duffy’s assertion of the primacy of access. Duffy’s Fun Palaces would put art at the service of the public, so artists will not be telling the public what it ought to see, engage with or watch, but rather the public will decide what they want on stages, in museums and arts programmes.
I share Earle’s concerns. The mantra of ‘arts for everyone’ shaping and determining what kind of art is created and made would reduce the artist to the role of public servant. The arts, though, must remain a challenging, provocative, anarchic and unfettered territory – they cannot be subservient to public good.
Other innovative forms of funding were also discussed during the debate, such as crowdfunding. (One audience member stated that they didn’t know what crowdfunding meant, an indication that perhaps it’s an approach that hasn’t yet fully captured the public imagination.) I highlighted subscription approaches such as The Art Fund, which generates over £4million from 95,000 subscribers to keep important works of art in the UK, while also mentioning how a-n’s 18,000-strong subscribers help to support artists through bursaries.
Could these models be an important step to creating a subscription-based artists’, composers’ or writers’ fund? While we argue for a re-evaluation of public funding, it is equally important to explore new ways of participation – but through debate and discussion rather than access.
All Change in arts funding: crisis or opportunity? took place on Thursday 14 November at The Cockpit, London.
www.battleofideas.org.uk
