The South Australian arts sector is in crisis as a pincer movement of state and federal funding cuts destroys the last hope for some of the State’s small to medium arts organisations.
Like other states, South Australia’s arts organisations are suffering from the $1.6 million loss of grants funding to the Australia Council.
But on top of the federal cuts, SA’s organisations are now facing a state cut which the Executive Director of the State Theatre Company, Robert Brookman, says will translate into a loss of $8.5 million by 2018.
‘It makes the $1.6 million less in federal support look like small beer,’ Brookman told a rally protesting the cuts in Adelaide today.
The SA experience stands in marked contrast to Victoria, which today announced a $115 million new investment in the arts.
Read: $115 million new funds for the arts
While he was reluctant to use the word, he said the State’s arts sector is now in crisis.
‘Crisis is a small word of mammoth implications. It’s one to use advisedly. It’s the word that can invoke starvation, epidemics, earthquakes, the threat of war and terrorism. It’s also the word of the little boy who cried wolf,’ he told the gathered crowd on the steps of the South Australian Parliament.
‘How do we find room in a public discourse, which is dominated by crises of epic humanitarian proportions, to talk about a crisis in the arts? The fact is, it’s difficult. And the arts community is reluctant to do so. Our very existence is devoted to examining what it is to be human, so we’re conscious that escalating a threat such as we face into the public domain may be perceived as a minor first-world problem suffered by a bunch of over-educated, under-employed wankers.
‘But for some of us, the show is not going to go on beyond the end of this year.’
Brookman said the loss of 40% of grant funding from the Australia Council was likely to translate into five of the 15 SA ​arts organisations triennially funded by the Australia Council ​closing. He named the organisations that are vulnerable as Patch Theatre, Slingsby, Brink Productions, Windmill Theatre, Australian Dance Theatre, The Australian String Quartet, Restless Dance, Vitalstatistix, Tandanya, The Jam Factory, Artlink, The Australian Experimental Arts Foundation, The Australian Network for Art and Technology, The Contemporary Arts Centre SA and Country Arts SA.
He said any chance of the vulnerable organisations surviving had been destroyed by the State Government efficiency cuts, which he described as ‘the cruelest cut of all, a telegraphed punch in the guts’.
‘Not only will this ensure the death of a number of the organisations referred to earlier, it will steadily erode the already threadbare support for individual artists, the Adelaide Festival, our treasured North Terrace cultural institutions and the Festival Centre. When you cut 7% of the arts budget, no area will be immune.’
Brookman said while the argument that the arts must take their fair share of the government’s savings targets sounded reasonable it ignored the need of the State to grow its vitality and strengthen its community.
‘This is about the picture of our community that we hold in our heads. It’s about what we think, dream and discuss. It’s about the stories that we tell each other – each advancing our great narrative and our capacity for new thought.
‘We talk about vibrancy. We have a vibrant city strategy. What do we really mean by this? Is the picture in our heads of a vibrant city just about designer gin, amazing beards, idiosyncratically decorated laneway bars, world-class coffee made from organic beans grown by Buddhist monks and slow-cooked pulled pork on a bed of quinoa with a jus of pomegranate and musk-rat glands? I don’t think so.
‘I think the picture in our heads is the one of the people in the designer gin joints, the boutique bars, and the restaurants with menus that we can’t understand actually talking to each other. About stuff. Maybe it’s the football. Maybe it’s family. Maybe it’s work. Maybe it’s politics. Maybe it’s art. But we’re doing so in creative spaces. That’s why it feels vibrant!
‘With all due respect to the fabulous variety of things we have to drink these days, it’s the vibe that we are there for. And the vibe is based in design, it’s based in originality, it’s based in creativity.’
Brookman said a vibrant city and resulting benefits such as tourism had to grow from investment in the arts. ‘When I and my colleagues started Womadelaide 24 years ago, we did not do so thinking about tourism, nor the economy, nor the city’s vibrancy, nor reputation. It was not strategic. It was born of a burning desire to share music and dance from all over the world with our community. It was born of a burning belief that if we experienced each other’s cultures, we might grow as human beings. It was born of a love of this city and the beautiful spaces that it provides in which to make and share art.
‘Our way forward should be to inspire such random acts of passionate artistic recklessness. Some will crash and burn, some will succeed prodigiously, some will do quiet but important work.
‘The people who will dream up these dreams must be supported. They must be encouraged to develop their craft and their work here. They will not stay if the cultural life of this city and this state is denuded.’
He said the arts needed to be supported to build the creative economy.
‘This is not the time to continue the planned cuts to arts funding. Rather, let us imagine what the arts and creative industries can do for this city and this state if they were better and more properly supported. The rewards to our community would be bountiful.’
