A battle is being fought on the front line of the arts scene in the United Kingdom, and it’s one that many artists seem to be losing.
Unlike other conflicts raging across the globe at present, however, this is not a battle based on religious issues or political beliefs.
Rather, this is a war for cold hard cash in the form of the funding relied on by artists not just to create, but more often than not to live above the poverty level.
And while competition for arts funding increases significantly each year, the available resources themselves seem to be getting smaller and smaller.
And it’s not only artists who are labouring under a siege mentality. Arts bodies across the country are coming under attack not just by the artists they are in the business of supporting, but also by the very governments they look to for financial support.
English Culture Minister David Lammy was recently quoted in a Guardian Unlimited article by writer Alison O’Keefe in relation to the Arts Council of England, that: “It’s got to slim down and reinvest savings in the artists, actors and musicians it’s supposed to represent…the record sums of public investment we have made in the arts have not led to a higher profile for the arts in the public’s mind.”
Yes it’s all about the economic sustainability of the arts. These words don’t augur well for future funding increases, and the battles are fierce.
Recently the Arts Council of Wales, working in past months under a political storm, dubbed ‘Artgate’, had an important victory, when a bid by Culture Minister Alan Pugh to wrench control of funding for Wales’ six major arts organisations from the ACW, failed under pressure from the opposition.
And let’s spare a thought for the beleaguered Scottish Arts Council and film board Scottish Screen. (Indeed they are always making headline news.)
Earlier this year, these organisations, as noted by The Scotsman arts correspondent Tim Cornwell, saw Culture Minister Patricia Ferguson announce their impending dissolution. The plan is to replaced them with a new body coined ‘Creative Scotland’, whose job it will be “to develop an escalator for talent in the arts”.
The situation regarding the arts in Ireland however, couldn’t be more different.
So what are the Irish doing right where their UK counterparts seem to be failing drastically?
Well to begin with, some would argue the arts is in their blood. Indeed the Irish have long recognized the importance of the arts in providing one of the integral building blocks of their culture. And Ireland has produced some of the world’s most significant artists. Artists who by the way are both creatively and economically successful.
Novelists James Joyce and George Bernard Shaw; musicians U2 and Enya; award winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis and dancer Michael Flatley are only a few of the globally significant artists who have thrived in the supportive atmosphere that ttypifies the Irish arts canon.
To quote the well respected Global Volunteers website: “Irish culture is joyful – expressed through numerous cultural festivals, including an international film festival, a jazz festival.. a folk music festival in Cork…and theatre festivals in Dublin.”
The support that the arts community in Ireland has received from its fellow countrymen and government funding bodies has been manifestly generous.
As stated in the Arts Council of Ireland report: Partnership for the Arts : Arts Council Goals 2006 – 2010: “Irish society is rapidly evolving with a thriving economy, new lifestyles and work patterns, and a growing and increasingly diverse population.” To this end, a thriving arts community has been recognized as being a vital component of this ever increasing growth.
And it is probably the Republic of Ireland’s devotion to its arts that is the telling difference. Government spending on the arts throughout other regions of the United Kingdom and in the Republic of Ireland, yield a clear statement of the extent to which the government continues to undervalue the significance of the arts and culture to the people of Northern Ireland and their contribution to the prosperity of the region.
Northern Ireland in comparison has the lowest levels of per capita Government spending on the arts, and the disparity of funding continues to grow, with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland expected to receive only £6.13 per capita, contrasting sharply with England at £8.19, Wales £8.80, Scotland £11.93 and the Republic of Ireland whose budget for the arts has escalated to an impressive £12.61 per head of population.
In 2005 alone, according to statistics posted by the Arts Council, “over ten million pounds were allocated to 131 arts organisations across Northern Ireland through its new revenue funding programs.”
And perhaps the most significant factor in the creation of this artistic haven has been the widely admired and unique tax exemption scheme. It was brought in to provide tax breaks on income earned by Irish artist as derived exclusively from ‘creative and original’ works, to quote the Oasis government website that outlines how artists can apply for these exemptions.
This initiative created in 1969 by a far-sighted government to promote the creative arts and keep Irish artists in Ireland for the betterment of Irish culture, and one which has had enormous bearing on the Irish arts scene as it exists today.
In an article by journalist Kevin Smith published late last year in The Epoch Times when moves were afoot to abolish the scheme by opponents who believed that it only really benefited high earning artists such as the aforementioned U2 and company, the director of the Irish Arts Council suggested that “struggling artists are the biggest beneficiaries” of the scheme, and that it was “the envy of the international art scene…enhancing the country’s reputation as a cultural hub.”
Yes, as stated in the Irish Arts council goal statement: “The arts have a central and distinctive contribution to make to our evolving society (and) if the full contribution is to be realized the arts need to be a reliable (source of) support in this atmosphere of change.” And this country has turned the rhetoric into hard cold fact.
Perhaps Irish playwright Martin Lynch said it best in an article published on the BBC website entitled Anger over planned arts cuts: “It is through the vehicle of arts and culture that we will tell the world who we are going to be.”
A message which both those in power as well as the Irish population have heard loud and clear and support with obvious wholeheartedness.
