{"id":32641,"date":"2016-05-14T16:01:25","date_gmt":"2016-05-14T06:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=32641"},"modified":"2022-05-02T11:10:27","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T01:10:27","slug":"cut-the-crap-about-arts-funding-just-grant-us-access-burgewords-comments-on-artsblackfriday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/cut-the-crap-about-arts-funding-just-grant-us-access-burgewords-comments-on-artsblackfriday\/","title":{"rendered":"Cut the crap about arts funding, just grant us access: @burgewords comments on #ArtsBlackFriday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Untitled\"<\/p>\n

Australian artists will never\u00a0be silenced by cuts to funding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MUCH is being made of this week\u2019s wholesale cuts to arts funding in Australia<\/a>. We knew it was coming, it\u2019s shocking to witness, but does it mean anything to the average Australian artist?<\/p>\n

Well, if you\u2019re an independent Australian artist, probably not.<\/p>\n

There is a simple reason for this, and it\u2019s going to be hard for many commentators and readers to accept: for decades now, arts in Australia have been funded in a trickle-down manner that Margaret Thatcher would be proud of.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m an artist who practices several art forms. I am a fiction and non-fiction author, playwright and painter, and I\u2019ve also worked as an actor, illustrator, designer and filmmaker.<\/p>\n

Funding? Yeah, tried to get that many times, but I failed far, far more often than I succeeded. I genuinely wonder what it\u2019s like to have public funds to practice my art. I imagine it\u2019s a bit challenging, especially being accountable to the funding body (and the public), but I\u2019ve never been in that right time at that right place to get my ticket to the top floor of Australia\u2019s arts sector.<\/p>\n

Although I\u00a0haven’t\u00a0let that stop me. Ever since graduating two decades ago, with two art diplomas, I\u2019ve worked a string of day jobs to support myself while I practice my art. I thrive while telling stories, it\u2019s in my DNA and I\u2019ll never give it up; yet if I\u2019d had to rely on the meagre income generated from my art, I would have given up long ago.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say I subscribe to the notion that my output should have no currency just because it comes naturally. Far from it! Artists should be paid well for our skill and our time. The trouble is, creating a market for art in this country right now is almost impossible whether\u00a0you’re funded or not.<\/p>\n

The problem for independent artists is not funding, it’s access.<\/p>\n

\"image-20151207-22703-1rg73ma\"My ears prick up when I hear Malcolm Turnbull\u00a0talk about Australians needing to be agile enough to ride his\u00a0ideas boom<\/a>, because to date he’s never thought enough about the arts to include it\u00a0in his revolution.<\/p>\n

But artists are in it up to our eyeballs, already risking everything\u00a0with the best of them. I innovate, particularly as an author. In the past two years I\u2019ve been agile enough to teach myself how to publish quality books – my own<\/a> – using the online tools that are at the fingertips of any burgeoning writer.<\/p>\n

In many art forms, from literature\u00a0to live performance, it\u2019s now possible to create content and generate\u00a0sales channels via the internet and social media.\u00a0There’s a sense that artists harnessing these continually expanding innovations have\u00a0no known boundaries, but unfortunately this is not the case. Audiences simply don’t know we’re there, and for artists, no audience equals no consumers (and therefore no income)\u00a0for our art.<\/p>\n

Anyone who\u2019s self-published books will tell you how hard it is to interest the mainstream media in their titles. It simply doesn\u2019t matter how excellent and innovative the product is, if it hasn\u2019t been fostered by a major publishing house it\u2019s unlikely to make it into the critical context of mainstream book reviews, literary festivals and awards.<\/p>\n

This is no surprise. The major publishers created this critical mass decades ago to sell their titles within, and they don\u2019t want competition from the thousands of writers who annually get rejected by mainstream publishing and turn to the DIY book revolution.<\/p>\n

Yet we are the first ones\u00a0expected to be outraged and up in arms when\u00a0Australian literary icons\u00a0call for a halt to some dodgy-sounding import rules<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been selling my books into a market with no such protections for my work, as have countless\u00a0other independent Australian writer-publishers. If authors supported by the Australian publishing industry are taking a hit, join the queue behind the rest of us! You\u2019ll get a higher return per sale of every book if you self-publish, so what\u2019s stopping you from going it alone?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an easy one to answer: artsworkers – those employed to facilitate art. In the case of book publishing,\u00a0these are the editors, designers, proofreaders, publicists and other professionals who put writers\u2019 books together for the marketplace.<\/p>\n

Some artsworkers are also artists (I’ve been known to cross over more than once), and they’ve\u00a0been highly visible of late, expressing disappointment at funding cuts<\/a>\u00a0that will impact their bottom line and their forward estimates.<\/p>\n

In a sense, artsworkers have more to lose than artists, although many have framed these lean times as the contributing factor in employing less artists. I suspect many companies will cut art rather than cut artswork, at least initially, but many will simply run out of funds for both, and that is where the greatest shame lies in this debate. As a result, artists will have to learn to stop relying on artsworkers to develop our careers.<\/p>\n

I abhor wholesale cuts to the arts, but we\u2019ve been on the frontline of the blade\u00a0for centuries, seen as a frivolous, non-essential extra. The argument against that definition is too obvious to construe here, but I encourage artists to do what we have always done: keep making art.<\/p>\n

Artsworkers have a different challenge, and it\u2019s past time for getting real about arts access and distribution in Australia. If our political leaders want innovation\u00a0in the publishing sector,\u00a0then a literary competition in this country\u00a0need only\u00a0launch an independent book-publishers\u2019 award. The rest will follow.<\/p>\n

But right now, literary awards have a snobbish, unnecessary block to independent authors making a decent splash in Australian publishing by locking us out of competition, publicity, exposure and opportunity.<\/p>\n

\"Australian

Australian actor and playwright Kate Mulvany.<\/p><\/div>\n

Actor and playwright Kate Mulvany used multi-story metaphors this week when she urged major theatre companies<\/a> to notice what is being amputated on\u00a0the lower floors of an already struggling performing arts sector in Australia, and\u00a0to do something about it by keeping the top floor\u00a0open.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to keep those voices on the ground floor and middle floors ringing out with Australian stories or our much-loved house will collapse beneath us,\u201d she said. \u201cIf they\u2019ve been evicted from the middle and ground floors, then invite them upstairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consumers of art could do a lot better too. If you are really outraged by arts funding cuts in this country, you should already be buying\u00a0independent Australian art.<\/p>\n

Have you ever purchased an independently-published book, created by an author who has self-funded their entire enterprise? Do you buy from high-street shops or from independent Australian artisans who are innovating as best they can in a marketplace dominated by cheap imports?<\/p>\n

Do you support independent Australian films at the box office? Are you aware of burgeoning independent theatre festivals in Australian cities?<\/p>\n

Are you signing-up to The Arts Party<\/a>\u00a0to make your concerns heard in our parliament?<\/p>\n

\"1460862671\"I\u2019m all for innovation spreading new-wave tendrils into the arts sector – who would be foolish enough to attempt stemming the flow anyway?<\/p>\n

But if politicians want to support the arts, while butchering funding for artists, \u2018there\u2019s never been a better time\u2019 for\u00a0them to\u00a0make small budget-neutral changes with big impact by\u00a0starting with opportunities at their fingertips.<\/p>\n

I look forward to \u2018having a go\u2019 by entering an\u00a0Innovation in Independent Publishing Award at the 2017 Prime Minister\u2019s Literary Awards, personally guided into existence by whichever\u00a0leader wins the next federal election. The state Premier’s literary awards will follow suit, of course, by creating categories that no major publishing house will be eligible to enter books into, and\u00a0I can\u2019t wait to buy every title\u00a0on that shortlist.<\/p>\n

Art happens regardless of politics, and Australian artists will never\u00a0be silenced by cuts to funding. Many of us are\u00a0already proving our durability in the independent sector… if you can’t hear us, you\u2019re just not looking in the right places.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Michael Burge, all rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian artists will never\u00a0be silenced by cuts to funding. MUCH is being made of this week\u2019s wholesale cuts to arts funding in Australia. We knew it was coming, it\u2019s shocking to witness, but does it mean anything to the average Australian artist? Well, if you\u2019re an independent Australian artist, probably not. There is a simple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":32657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,1542,3547,585,854,1510,1779],"tags":[1822,3002,3001,3003,3006,3005,3004,2910,3009,3007,3008,2034],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Untitled.jpg?fit=800%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-8ut","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57045,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32641\/revisions\/57045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}