Flight Path - John Swogger, 2010 (print/digital)
I’ve just posted to the NCA’s Culture Forum blog in response to the publication of the notes from their first meeting. I am under no illusions about the impact that the ideas behind the coalition’s “Big Society” will ultimately have on the arts. The ultimate aim of the current government is to virtually eliminate public funding for the arts. Why? Because in their opinion spending on the arts is simply not “worth it”. Too much tax revenue is being used to fund art that is either offensive, expensive or just plain incomprehensible. Far better, they say, for culture and the arts to be supported (and paid for) by those who claim they value it (I sorry, I won’t honour it with a link, but sites like The New Culture Forum [not even vaguely related to the Culture Forum I’m blogging with, needless to say] provide a good snapshot of the perspective and tactics of the right-wing cultural lobby). The problem is, of course, that those who support and use community-based arts projects that do great social and cultural good are least likely to be able to fund it. This is why public funding of arts exists – to enable the arts to be enjoyed by all; private funding creates private art – art shaped in response to those who can afford it.
I have decided to take part in the Culture Forum discussions because I realise it’s a realistic response to the current funding situation. But I do so through gritted teeth, knowing that by talking about finding alternative sources of funding, I have become complicit to private funding for private art. But I don’t believe that it’s possible for private enterprise to support and fund the public cultural life of a whole nation; surely this is best done as a collective and publically-funded endeavor.
If the concepts behind the Big Society were truly representative of a state/private enterprise partnership trying to find a new funding paradigm for expensive national assets, I would have little argument with it. But I see it as a declaration of war by social conservatives against sectors of culture and society they dislike. We know where this path leads – look at the United States. Public funding for the arts is vastly out-stripped by private funding, and the country’s cultural landscape is dominated by a fearful, conservative, populist outlook. The US will never have an Angel of the North; the shame is, Britain might never have another.
Social good born of a broad, publically-funded programme of support for the arts is part of the cultural health of a nation. My posts to the Culture Forum blog will continue to argue for the necessity of a national, publically-funded arts infrastructure as a foundation for our cultural well-being.
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