I can see the cultural sector dividing into two camps over recent economic events: those who are throwing up their hands and saying, “see how impossible it is!” and those who are seeing the coming years as a period of great opportunity for culture.
For many reasons, arts and culture have begun to move to center stage with policy makers at local, regional, national and international levels. Yet, despite the increasing importance of culture and its expanding roles, the sector remains woefully under funded. Researchers in the cultural policy field have not yet developed a vocabulary that policymakers can understand. The field is stalled by the lack of an infrastructure for policy-relevant data collection, and a frame or lens through which to interpret this data into evidence. Part of the problem is the transversal nature of culture, and the tendency to spend time arguing over which “values” of culture are worth trying to count.
Recent news from around the globe and here at home show us that support for the arts is always precarious. Places that have been leading the way in creative industries development strategies can take sudden, huge steps backward. In December of 2007, right before Christmas, the Arts Council of England sent letters to 194 arts organizations, informing them that their funding would be slashed. A familiar chorus of stars joined forces with arts councils to protest the cuts. Richard Polford of the Theatrical Management Association said, “Some organizations have been told they’re cut because they’re not adventurous; others because they have a risky artistic agenda. There’s no coherence. It’s astounding.” (The Independent, Langton, David 1/28/2008)
Canada has been a leader in creative industries theory and practice, yet the conservative government of Stephen Harper implemented a series of targeted slashes in cultural funding totaling $46 million dollars by August of this year. The conservatives cited the inclusion of “a general radical,” “a Left-wing and anti globalization think tank.” and an experimental electro rock band with a provocative name as reasons for withdrawing funding. Once again, the cultural community has to drop everything and mount a public campaign for the very survival of the arts. On Sept 23rd, Harper characterized the arts community as “government-subsidized whiners.”
And in Italy, this summer, Prime Minister Berlusoni’s 4-month-old conservative government slashed Italy’s federal cultural budget by 1.3 billion over the next three years. Even when government funding isn’t involved – culture provides a scapegoat – viz Washington’s attacks on Hollywood.
In the new global knowledge economy, where intellect and creativity are the raw materials and innovation the commodity, arts and culture have a central role in business, education, community and government. Yet cultural policy in the United States has not moved beyond a 1970’s model of allocating and distributing grants to not-for-profit organizations, based, for the most part, on an outdated formula for estimating the economic impact of the arts. Without a clear understanding of how arts and culture actually operate in the urban economy, policy makers will never allocate resources correctly.
It’s not the intrinsic value of arts versus the instrumental uses of the arts – it’s both. That false dichotomy exists mainly to keep arts service organizations in business. But forward thinking orgs realize that it’s about understanding all of the transversal ways that culture operates in the urban economy and approaching arts support as a proposition with multiple goals: urban competitiveness in the globalized innovation economy; the training and encouragement of the next generation of artists and the lifting up of communities with civic pride and participation and empathy and understanding as only the arts can foster.
It’s not just an issue of funding for the arts but understanding culture as an urban asset and allocating resources correctly in order to maximize that asset. It’s understanding that the “tin cup” approach to supporting the arts is only one aspect, and by far, the least reliable. I believe we must look at new ways to generate income, create partnerships, and make ourselves relevant to our communities.
Our inability to articulate our own case not only results in underallocation, but also in a lack of understanding of the relevance of the arts to everyday community life. That leaves us vulnerable to political and economic winds of change. Like a tree – if we grow roots deep into the community – we can branch out and still remain stable in the wind.
The cultural value chain runs on a matrix from production to consumption and from low end to high end with intersecting vectors of non-profit and commercial contracts.
It’s about erasing the false boundary between the commercial and non-profit cultural industries and looking at the actual contracts of cultural production from the community level to the global.
The sustainability issues that we face as artists are the same issues being faced by 99% of the population, with the two most challenging being real estate and insurance. So part of getting traction on these issues is to bring ourselves out of isolation as artists and create dynamic alliances with other populations in our neighborhoods. Find common cause with your neighbors
The success of any system depends on diversity, whether you’re talking about a financial portfolio, a neighborhood, the environment or the cultural industries.
Community sustainability is about fostering and protecting diversity of economic activity and socio-economic levels of residents. In this sense, culture shares an obvious link with the environmental movement – the responsibility to hand down a legacy to the next generation and the focus on protecting and fostering the diversity of creation
I believe we must also reposition artists from harbingers of gentrification to agents of community empowerment. We have long been co-opted by the forces of economic development – whose sole metric of success is rising land values. It’s time for cultural workers to start understanding the equity we create, capture it and use it as leverage to demand community sustainability in balance with economic development.
I see a natural coalition of cultural workers, the environmental movement, education and trade unions – the link with trade unions being affordable housing. We need to become civically engaged. The arts need to be buffered from the open market. That will not happen without public policy interventions, and for that we need the electeds to be on board and up to speed.
The United States has fallen far behind much of the developed world in attempting to understand the impact of creative economies on our regional competitiveness in the new global competition. Neoliberalization and the fall of communism are quickly bringing the world into alignment in terms of the challenges we face in sustaining cultural development in the face of aggressive and unregulated market forces. There is a universal need for a cultural model that supports community building and sustainability in balance with economic development
If indeed, culture is a cornerstone of strength for society, its ability to function as a sector must not be subject to political opportunism. Better policy formulation around issues of cultural production and its benefits to the general population is critical.
We will strengthen our hand considerably if we can create, interpret and disseminate new empirical data and research that quantifies and qualifies the many transversal ways that arts and culture operate in urban and global economies. In this way we can support civic activism and policy interventions that enhance cultural, environmental and community sustainability and urban competitiveness in the new global innovation economy.
The key to the sustainability of any system is diversity. This is equally valid with Cultural organizations. In terms of human capital, it brings more ideas and fosters innovation. In terms of financial capital, it spreads the risk. In terms of social capital, it fosters understanding, social cohesion and civic pride and participation. And of course, it has the potential to broaden your audience.
Cultural organizations have survived by adapting and diversifying their operations and programming. They have learned to expand and diversify their sources of income; by providing new services that add value and create earned revenue streams; by licensing the intellectual property they create; by reaching deep into their surrounding communities, addressing community concerns, providing network links to the new digital workplace and engaging as many of those neighbors as they can in the organization’s artistic activities. Broader support and participation mean a greater chance of survival. Arts organizations have also learned to look for synergies and partnerships with other arts groups and with organizations in other sectors like education, social services and the environmental movement. Finally, arts organizations are pioneers in exploring and integrating new technologies and new media, especially the internet and digitization. Diversification, outreach, and integration are the three broad strategies for success
So – those are my challenges to you:
Diversify.
Be aware of your community – make connections with other populations within your community and find your common ground. Understand your community’s needs and make your organization not only relevant, but indispensable.
Think in terms of workforce retraining and job creation.
Look for partnerships with other sectors – consider the environmental movement, educators and labor unions. Reach out and find those consortiums of people who are forging these amazing new models.
See this challenging time as a moment of great opportunity for culture to prove what we all know in our hearts – that through cultural expression and competency, our communities become stronger and our nation can begin to regain a respected position on the world stage and in this uncharted new global economy.