What we saw at the Duncairn Cultural Centre on Sunday and in
the Ulster Hall on Monday was how powerfully the arts connect with people. These
two events signify how deeply the arts matter to the public in Northern Ireland.
It is so difficult to look at the cuts that have had to be
meted out across the sector. There have
been winners, there have been losers; among them my friend and colleague Martin
Lynch, a member of Community Arts Partnership board, and celebrated trail-blazer
for the development of community arts locally. He has seen his own organisation
cut by 100 percent. There are other
organizations that have not been offered any further revenue funding too. There are some that have seen some rises and indeed, some receiving funding for the very first time.
Many recognise that the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s role
in this has been a difficult one, hamstrung by swingeing cuts that has seen the
revenue budget for the arts shrink to levels not seen for decades. There
will be funding alternatives available to some I'm sure. But for others, it will mean very hard
decisions.
But as I have said repeatedly in this blog, we need to have
the cause for the arts understood by our politicians. They must start to recognise
that the arts affect so many aspects of our lives, of the lives of normal
people.
For those 1,000 children in the Ulster Hall who performed and
cheered and had their poetry published on Monday in the “Way With Words”
anthology, the transforming effect of the arts was clear to see. For the
winners of the Seamus Heaney Awards, to feel such recognition will undoubtedly
be a springboard to greater things. For so many of us, the smallest act of
alchemy, making something new that didn’t exist before, is a moment that lives
long in our consciousness. It changes our understanding and gives us the
confidence to make our mark.
Those opportunities become more scarce with every percentage
cut from the arts budget and that reduces the potential of this place for each
and every one of us.
When the historian searches for clues about a place, a
society, a time, they look for cultural artefacts. The poems, books, plays and
paintings that reflect so much of who we are and how we live. To reduce this
resource now, is to reduce the futures understanding of us all as well. We all
lose, in this generation and for generations to come.
Ask the folks that canvass your doorstep in the coming weeks
what the arts mean to them. And tell them what they mean to you
The arts matter.
#artsmatterni
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