Let's Not Put The Culture Wagon Before The Horse On The Priorities List
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday July 26, 2007
I attended the Creative Futures public debate at the Town Hall on Tuesday night on how to improve Sydney's "culture" but ended up walking out after less than an hour. I'm sure the last speaker and ensuing discussion were interesting but I just couldn't handle any more idealism from narrow-minded artists.
If the council thinks it can simply impose sustainable, genuine artistic developments on Sydney then good luck to it. How very Sydney to think that we can simply buy a better culture. In terms of high culture and the fine arts, Sydney isn't bad - galleries, museums, theatres, a pretty opera house - but is that what really gives a city a "culture" that enhances its appeal and liveability? Fergus Linehan wants to make artists' incomes tax-free. That's fine if you're a struggling artist but how would this improve our city? Wouldn't we just have larger quantities of bad art? Besides, who decides what an artist is and whether the state should use real economic resources to subsidise their pursuits? Elizabeth Ann Macgregor believes that a museum makes a city and that a good museum can lead us to an economic and tourist nirvana (as she would, being a museum director). But Sydney already has bucketloads of tourists and most don't come just to see the museums. Highly skilled migrants come here mainly for good jobs rather than to live near museums. By basing cultural planning strategies around such formalised institutions we ignore the fact that a building full of exhibits, no matter how contemporary, is more staid museum than dynamic culture. The problem with Sydney is it's too expensive. Artistic activities that aren't sufficiently profitable can't afford to stay here. To fix that - if, indeed, it is something requiring government intervention - we must recognise that we can't impose culture from above in the form of grand museums or poorly thought-out subsidies. It must come from broader, more self-sustaining roots. I don't profess to have a solution to improving our culture but a few things are being washed over in these grand debates. Many people don't go out at night because public transport is unreliable at best and non-existent at worst, and taxis are severely overpriced. Liquor licences are expensive and overly restrictive, making it hard for smaller businesses to enter the market. Perhaps we should look at these things first, as well as finding more (affordable) space for artists and performers. We must also recognise that people, not money, redevelopments or art displays, are the fundamental generators of culture. If we want Sydney to have more "culture" we must open up more avenues for ordinary people in ordinary places to generate and experience different forms of expression. Yet we must not go overboard. Culture is important but we should fix our shocking public transport system, help the large numbers of homeless people and improve our urban planning structures before we start fretting too much about our lack of culture.Brad Ruting Woolloomooloo
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald