Reviewed at The Studio, Sydney Opera House on Tuesday August 2 (photo by Prudence Upton)
It was encouraging to see so many people who care enough about the arts to get soaked in Sydney’s horrid weather on the way to Culture Club’s State Of The Arts talk at the Opera House. Clearly, there’s a desire to come together and find solutions for the issues facing the future of the arts in Australia – particularly financial ones, in the wake of the Abbott and Turnbull governments’ funding cuts.
Walkley Award-winning journalist Monique Schafter was the host for the evening. On the panel sat Nick Atkins from the PACT Centre for Emerging Artists; Lily Shearer, founding member of Moogahlin Performing Arts; Tamara Winikoff, executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts; and Michael Lynch, formerly of the Australia Council, Sydney Opera House and Sydney Theatre Company.
Schafter’s questioning aimed to establish three things: is there an arts crisis in Australia? What is the future for artists and arts organisations? And what does it all mean for Australia’s place in the broader international arts community?
There were ‘winners‘ and ‘losers’ on the panel, but unease with current funding models was the norm. Both PACT and NAVA have lost their funding, while Moogahlin received funding from the Australia Council and the Catalyst program as well. Although Shearer was proud that her company secured funding, she wonders: “At what, and at whose, cost?”
The panelists were from different backgrounds, but their joint take on what’s happening in 2016 is that the government simply does not respect artists. Shearer commented, “They have a total lack of respect for their constituents,” and Winikoff wondered whether governments just want us to become consuming cyborgs instead of creative, engaged citizens.
Lynch referred to the past year as being a “pretty bloody” one. Winikoff called for collaboration between major and small-to-medium organisations, while Atkins highlighted that smaller organisations need to proceed with caution under such agreements as majors often get more out of these sorts of partnerships.
There were some positive points to come out of the discussion, though: namely that arts organisations are becoming more mobilised and better at working across disciplines, and more capable in the political arena.
While things are tough for a lot of small-to-medium organisations, artists and the organisations that support and promote them are nothing if not resilient, creative and innovative. I say: watch this space.
