Culture isn't just the arts

Jo Caust comments:

In the preamble there is an attempt to converge several sectors under the one banner. This includes the arts (from a western perspective), indigenous arts, cultural industries, the heritage sector and the creative industry sector to reflect 'culture'. While the fact these differences is acknowledged to some degree, their merging together can be highly problematic as it implies that the different sectors are able to be treated similarly by government policy. This is not the case.

Example 11:

The Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University comments on the terminology of the paper as follows:

The concept of "cultural heritage" should be expanded to embrace all those dimensions which include the interpretation and dissemination of cultural creativity (historical research, museology, and the digital humanities, plus the study of the built and natural environment)...

thus also including history and museums in the cultural mix and further broadening the proposed scope beyond 'painting and craft' to include ecology and design.

(The latter point is also raised by the submissions of the Australian Institute of Architects and the Australian Design Alliance.)

And, it continues:

The conceptual division between "Core Arts" and "Creative Industries" (those activities that result from commercialisation) leaves the actual and potential synergies between the two (artistic uses of new media, intermedia, youth arts, experimental arts etc.) unrecognised as an important source of future innovation.

(This is helpful in that it attempts a definition of the elusive concept of 'creative industries', another terminological difficulty that the Discussion Paper sidesteps. Also the relationship between design and the arts.)

Example 12:

The National Cultural Heritage Committee notes that: