Over the Rainbow

So, here in CAP we are intensely interested in the social dimension to not only arts but the creative relationships that can underpin community development. And within that, we have assumed that we all understand what we mean by community as well.  In these times of deepening crises and social uncertainty, there are some things that it seems we still respond to as a community, as a people and a place, with a set of self-determined values against a backdrop of shifting variables like health, economy, environment etc.

Our substantive meaning of community as a group or network of persons who are connected to each other by a relatively stable set of social relations that extends beyond immediate family or genetic ties, and who mutually define that relationship as important to their social identity and practice. But of course, these social relations do not necessarily have to be framed in the physical world – increasingly we are members of on-line or virtual communities where we are united relationally by a set of ideas, or notions and affiliations that spring from them. 

The ‘ties that bind’ concept of made-community demands that as the connections that we make to each other are strengthened, then the relative health and resilience of any given community is increased. 

Win, win.

This weekend, we have seen a huge groundswell of support for inclusion in a sense of shared community flowing from Ireland’s remarkable referendum result for Equal Marriage. We also see the contrast elsewhere all the more starkly.

Protecting the vulnerable; including those at the margins to become part of a more resilient and self-aware whole; legislating for social harmony not divisive chaos; allowing voices to be heard, balanced and acknowledged; respecting identity; supporting choice.  It could be the ambition of a far-sighted campaign, or the ideals of community development but it is also a theoretical space that community arts practitioners inhabit.  For others again, it might represent what we have come to know as the equilibrium struck in the ‘social contract’ of post-enlightenment political practice. Whatever it may be, socially cooperative societies recognise that the destructive forces that besiege our lives, should be countered by the determination to minimise their impact. That instead we must try to enhance our collective ambition. We empower people to champion and influence decision-making in this pursuit. The test for their success is not how much better off ‘the better-off’ are, but how much safer and protected the most vulnerable and marginalised are. For many today, the only spaces that truly allow for such an ethos to be understood are the arts, where a concept so utterly wedded to the notions of civility and humanity as to embody the most noble aspiration for a community as possible can exist. And exist supported by notions of elegance, beauty, design, inspiration, imagination, artistry, colour…

Whilst the recognised rights to equal participation in democratic society are enshrined in a range of documents, from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to, our own Good Friday Agreement, we constantly observe the undermining of such communitarian values by others.  

For us in community arts, it is so affirming to see those at the margins included. It is what socially-inclusive creativity is all about. But, others create even greater challenges for our collective sense of society when passively they allow the most vulnerable to become even more marginalised and worse, when actively they advance the means to penalise the poor further for the precarious nature of their marginalised, less-favoured lives. This defies logic and indeed, our innate sense of social and human responsibility.

The tremendous power that the arts hold in general and community arts uphold in particular, is that democratic recognising of people and their individual place in a collective project– of little-heard voices being celebrated, of hidden talent and worth being unearthed and new opportunities and ideas created. Our society is made all the better for it. Great art makes you well. Great works of art and pieces of music and vistas of outstanding beauty heal. This is now scientifically proven http://positivenews.org.uk/2015/culture/art/17334/art-nature-spirituality-prevent-disease-study-finds/

Here and now, we need as many new opportunities as possible if we are going to move forward as a vibrant, sustaining place for real people, with real concerns, real families and true connections and human value. The health of ourselves and our fragile emerging sense of community must be nurtured at the same time as opportunity for development exploited.

It shouldn’t be the reverse.

After The Gold Rush...

So, as we dust ourselves down after the election and take stock of where we are, the reality for most involved in culture and arts work is that it will be more competitive to find funds and for many that will mean really struggling to provide public service through arts activity.

But, for our communities, especially for those that CAP serve, the impact of the second term of Tory austerity may well see the advances that have been made, undone, with our local devolved political institutions powerless to resist, as valiantly as some may advocate.

We also see the Tory austerity determination to isolate Britain from the rest of Europe. That might be fine if you live in London, or trade transnationally with finance centres globally. But to those that have a land border with the European Economic Area and who have enjoyed billions of public investment that has made a real and lasting difference to life, it is totally different. And that’s us, here.

Then there are the constitutional arrangements. Seceding from the European Union will mean we will no longer be protected by working time directives, or have our rural agricultural services supported by the Common Agricultural Policy or Human Rights legislation. On this point, as the campaign for the administration of justice has pointed out in their open letter to the Tories, any retreat from the full expression of the current Human Rights Act may leave the Good Friday Agreement in an ultra vires position – ie illegal.

For those of us who dedicate our working life in the support of the ambition and development of others, it is deeply worrying to contemplate the destructive effect that such huge changes to life and living standards and conditions will have.  For the well-spring of creativity, the arts, to be made so vulnerable by successive years of cuts, as demanded by these waves of austerity from Westminster, speaks volumes about what costs are attached to things and what their actual value is; as Oscar Wilde put it, ‘knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing’. This was his, or rather his character Lord Darlington’s answer to the question ‘what is a cynic?’ It is utterly cynical, within this facet of its meaning, to reduce the social, educational, economic, developmental, and the health-related impact of the arts down to just how much do they cost. Rather, those that see beyond the cynicism, would ask how much impact do the arts have and how could we improve their benefits?

That would be a breath of fresh air, a nugget. Imagine politicians promoting how something is valued and recognising an intrinsic worth and all the indirectly beneficial impacts. We have heard a few over the years try to articulate this. But in times of austerity, especially when utterly ideologically driven, one doesn’t look for value or benefit. Except of course, when it comes to those favoured as creating wealth – not health, or public benefit, or social cohesion, or joy, or wonder, or beauty, or breath-taking performances, or moments of sheer rapture, or peace.

No, just wealth.

It is a short-sighted cynic who believes in the alchemy of wealth creation and attributes it to only the so-called 'creators', not the actual producers or the users or customers. And of course, we all recall the saying “Your health is your wealth”, not Oscar Wilde, but Virgil I believe. 

For those more far-sighted, there is a realisation that there are fundamental requirements for people and society. The ability to express and receive ideas and enhance one’s life chances through creativity, has been central to the evolution of our species over the millennia. Indeed, as a species, we declared in 1948 in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, a whole range of “red lines”, inalienable rights that we agreed were the bedrock of civilisation.

For many lucky folk, who are energetic and healthy, they indeed are wealthy, relative to this view. But starved of actual opportunity, as so many who share these attributes are, by austerity and its consequent poverty, what happens?. And if avenues to alternative ways to well-being, and feeling valued are also choked off, where next?

So, as we hear of further reduced support for the most vulnerable in our society and a determination by government to widen the already gaping chasm between rich and poor, well and unwell, educated and failed, optimistic and despairing, we must redouble our determination to celebrate the best of ourselves and the good things in life. We must challenge those with a narrow view of life, to broaden their horizons and embrace the freedom that creativity can offer and the incredibly transforming and sustaining power that the arts hold, for all of us. And we should demand an equal right to participate in this society, and make our mark.

Stick on your favourite record and ask yourself what that songwriter would have made of austerity. And ask yourself what that album is worth to you. Or that painting. Or that film.

The ArtsMatterNI.

Neither Fagans nor fantasists

I've been called many things in my life and accused of others - only last week after appearing on BBC's The View (where Mark didn't let me ask my important question - How would the candidates safeguard the social and economic benefits of the arts for the constituents of East Belfast and N Ireland?) - I got trolled on twitter and mocked as a certain military fried chicken persona. Today, via the infamous Nolan Show on Auntie Beeb, a right-wing free-marketeer (who incidentally has never heard of the social contract it seems) described me and indeed my professional peers as looters and pick-pockets!! Just because we accept public funding for the fantastic benefit the arts bring- that is already allocated in government budgets!

In the same rather rambling and shrill exchange, we heard advocates for the arts struggle to suggest why the arts are important and the same accuser point the finger at arts professionals, saying if the arts are an economic driver, why don't the arts just fund themselves. Although, he used the word powerhouse. But in any case, isn't it great that no arts professional was allowed to defend their profession, or assert the incredible benefit that the arts bring or indeed, the economic benefit that can be leveraged from a place that supports a thriving arts community. It was left to others, mostly media folk, to represent the arts.


It feels at the moment that no other profession in N Ireland is treated with such contempt as arts managers, apart perhaps the politicians. Putting the boot into the arts is the BBC's newest media wheeze - slow day - get a few pundits to give the arts a good kicking. Depict them as modern-day Fagans, pilfering money from the pockets of every passer-by and exploiting their position for their own profligate gain. Its so easy to pick on the smallest budget and say that because these arts-ones get money, it's taken away from Health or Education. Utter piffle!! By my reckoning, the total government exchequer arts funding would keep the DHSS and all our NHS hospitals going for less that 1 second. In fact less than one hundredth of a second. In the time you've taken to read this, our health spend has amounted to £9,000. In that minute, spend on the arts was £32 - not thousand - just 32. Equally, in terms of keeping schools open, if you re-allocated the expenditure on the arts to the Education budget, we could increase opportunity by about half a second. So, all the bluster about thieving from health and education is yesterday's audioboo podcast doofer me jig...best forgotten.

So we turn to the real ambition for the arts: to help transform the lives of this place and it's people into a vibrant, artistic,  got-to-visit, can't miss it, destination for us, our children and our visitors.  We can do this and in fact we have gone along way to doing so. 14 major festivals in one city, countless other smaller events and festival happenings, citywide arts programmes in Belfast alone never mind the region wide arts programmes, festivals, events, etc in as many places as there are art forms ! And an ever present appetite for more. 

This is what we want from our arts. We want variety, positivity, a celebration of talents and opportunities. We want continued affordable access and participation. We want quality. We want imagination and creative challenge. We want thoughtful exploration of who we are and how we relate. We want tomorrow to always be better than today even if today was an awesome day. And we want new horizons that promise the potential for shaping our futures and leaving our mark. The arts gives us all the opportunity to do this. What we didn't hear this morning were advocates actually telling people that we have a fantastic, varied, expert, dynamic arts scene here that has been painstakingly built up over generations. We should all celebrate that and not allow the short-sighted or ill-informed give the arts a kicking or damn it with faint praise. We need to sing a different tune, that the arts matter and represents a society that is winning and leave the negativity, back-biting and penny-pinching to yesterday.  

Artists are tomorrow people, believing that through the sheer force of will and know-how, bravery and good fortune, we can create new possibility. Surely every place needs that type of creative belief. This place definitely does, as much now as ever.

Support your local artist, poet, arts manager, arts organisation, arts festival...whatever!  The arts matter 

winners and losers

There has been celebration for Community Arts Partnership this week.  On Sunday and Monday we saw the impact our work in communities of interest and place both young and old, right across Northern Ireland.  In offering of the Seamus Heaney Awards for New Writing and Achievement, Community Arts Partnership was given a tremendous opportunity to recognize not only the inspiration our late and much lamented Nobel laureate offers us but also the tremendous interest in making poetry that exists here. On Sunday and Monday we heard the impact of the work as we listened to the performances of poets from right across Northern Ireland. CAP gives an opportunity, for many, perhaps for the very first time, to see their work published and celebrated. Stephanie Conn’s poem Lavender Fields, was selected for the inaugural Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing.  Then on Monday in a packed Ulster Hall 30 schools from every corner of Northern Ireland from primary, post primary, secondary and grammar, not only applauded the performances of their peers but came together with the sole purpose of celebrating poetry, celebrating creativity, celebrating the making of something new.  Almost 1,000 young people joined together to support each other in recognizing the achievement creating something from thin air, something that resonates with their identity, their speech, their ambitions, perhaps even their fears. The award was given to Grange Primary School from Kilkeel in County Down.  They wrote with incredible insight, creating haikus and verse, offering an insight into the sheer exuberance of creativity that our young people have and their ability to make simple yet powerfully evocative statements about what they value in their lives, in their homes and in their imaginations.

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

What's in a name?

In 1999, a series of new government departments was created under the auspices of the Good Friday Agreement (The Belfast Agreement). On 2nd December 1999, a new minister was appointed to a department called DCAL, Dept of Culture Arts and Leisure, Michael McGimpsey, and thus began a new arrangement to support the arts in Northern Ireland. Of course, we had various suspensions along the way and direct rule ministers and short-term policies and longer term strategies but always there was a department that stood, full-square, in support of the arts.

It was no coincidence that on 22nd of that December, New Belfast Community Arts Initiative (CAP's parent organisation) was constituted by a group of visionary community arts folk who knew implicitly, that encouraging more communities to engage in creative dialogue could only strengthen the potential for a truly shared future in Belfast. 

After this Easter however, the process to see the Department of Cultural Arts and Leisure subsumed into the Department for Communities will begin.

But should that matter?

Should we not take the First Minister's word into account when he says that no functions were being done away with, and "no policies terminated" as a result of the changes. Might the arts, as the smallest budget area by far, instead of being reduced to a mere detail in a longer list of budgetary and policy areas, be rightfully recognised as giving reflection and expression to the contested cultural momentum that is Northern Ireland??

Or does it feel like a diminution of the role of the arts not to have a dedicated minister?

Is it a lessening of the role of the arts in society not to have a department dedicated to their encouragement?

Should we be concerned that only Northern Ireland has government departments where arts or creativity are not mentioned in the title? The Republic, England, Scotland...well, come to your own decision.

As a recent appointee to the Ministerial Arts Advisory Forum, I will continue to petition that the arts need to be recognised and supported. Even if there was always going to be financial challenge, the retention of the word 'art' in the title of the department has at least some connotation of its importance. Don't get me wrong, I am happy that 'Community' as a word has been embraced and perhaps it would be far too progressive a move for all involved to have announced a Department for Community Arts and Social Development? The semantics of naming and the reality of championing the arts are very different things. But at the moment, while budgets dwindle and words disappear from titles, are we all correct to assume that the arts have never been under such threat?

Yet Mr Robinson seems to have considered, momentarily, naming it, the Department for Community Arts but then unfortunately, he reconsiders: let's refer to what he said on Tuesday morning in response to a question in the Assembly:

However, if one were to look at the Department for Communities and add "arts" to the title, is the Member saying that that is more important than housing; urban regeneration; the Social Security Agency; child maintenance services; the voluntary and community sector; museums; libraries; creativity and architecture; language; cultural diversity; sport; the Public Record Office; employment services; local government; the social investment fund; and racial equality? I could go on and on. If the argument is that arts is more important than all those issues, the Member can ask the question, but I do not believe that it is more important than many of those issues. That is why a generic title serves the Department much better.
  
I think perhaps that this statement sums up what the First Minister and by implication, others, think about the arts: that they [the arts] are not so important; certainly no more important than a whole raft of the specific functions of a government or a civil service. Perhaps this is the very point. The Arts (and perhaos sport for that matter) are not functions of government - they are not part of a social contract for services anticipated to be delivered by the state. Rather, the arts are the oldest forms of human expression, so integral to being alive as to be a completely vital aspect of living. To be so reduced as to become a mere transaction, is to fail to have any understanding of the value of the arts and the role that the arts play in society. 

While locally, our policy makers may view the arts as lacking significance, in our neighbouring states, cultural champions are challenging policy-makers and those who would reduce funding, to think more connectedly about the arts, examining the value that the arts can bring, harnessing the power that the arts hold, and realising the impact that creativity offers an economy.

In GB, the Warwick Commission's final report, Enriching Britain:Culture, Creativity and Growth, was launched last month.  As Vikki Heywood CBE, Chairman of the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value put it:
The key message …is that the government and the cultural and creative industries need to take a united and coherent approach that guarantees equal access for everyone to a rich cultural education and the opportunity to live a creative life. There are barriers and inequalities in Britain today that prevent this from being a universal human right. This is bad for business and bad for society

The Arts Matter in Northern Ireland, just as they matter across the developed and developing world. They are our  human right, under Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights As a guide to the 'health' of any place, the arts act as a pulse.

Our pulse is weakening...