The Scottish Government’s Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop, who last week made an official visit to the Scottish pavilion at the Venice Biennale, has said that the UK Government is wrong to measure the value of culture simply in economic terms.
Delivering the annual David Talbot Rice Memorial Lecture at the University of Edinburgh last night, Hyslop used the speech to attack the vision set out in a widely criticised speech last month by UK Culture Secretary Maria Miller.
“The contrast between our attitude to artists and culture and that demonstrated by the UK Government is fundamental and profound,” said Hyslop. “It reflects a choice of two futures. For me, culture’s economic value is not its primary purpose but a secondary benefit.
“Our culture and heritage sectors make an invaluable contribution to our economic life, but in Scotland we will not measure the worth of our culture and heritage solely in pounds and pence. I don’t agree with the UK Government’s approach. I don’t need or want the culture or heritage sector to make a new economic or social case to justify public support for their work.”
The speech draws a line in the sand between the UK and Scottish Government’s approach to arts funding. As such, it was an unambiguously political speech, clearly meant to contribute towards the SNP government’s ‘Yes’ campaign in the lead up to the 2014 referendum on independence.
“This government does not look at our cultural life and our heritage as if they are merely products that can be bought and sold,” continued Hyslop. “If there was ever a way to suck the vitality out of a sector of society that should energise, invigorate, inspire and move – it is to make a perfunctory nod to generic social benefits and then, in the next breath, reduce it to nothing more than a commodity.
“I cannot and Scotland will not subject the cultural sector to this kind of reductive thinking. It is our role to create the conditions for cultural and creative excellence to flourish. This is a prerequisite for all the other benefits that culture can deliver for our quality of life, our well-being and then for our economy.”
Hyslop, who has been actively involved in the recent debates around the direction of Creative Scotland – which is set to announce its new CEO later today – praised the quality of the arts sector and dedication of artists in Scotland.
“I know what these sectors can deliver because I see it in action,” she said. “I visit hardworking artists and practitioners who are exploring new ways of working; and who are creating dynamic and exciting new ways of enjoying and sharing their work and the work of our ancestors – they think in new ways precisely because they are artists.”
You can read the speech in full here.
