The art of independence

These bureaucrats are the ones who assume they know “everything” because their salary level code tells them they do. They have chosen a design they think “looks like a theatre”, even though many of them have never actually been to a theatre. Or if they have it will have been one designed by other bureaucratic committees (because that is how the majority of Australian theatres have been designed). The committees will often compare arts centres to sports centres, since they do actually know about sport. This is why all the performing arts centres in Australia look the same and are roughly 100 years out of date: totally inappropriate for Australian culture. They are, of course, appropriate for western classical culture - concrete, proscenium arch stages, immovable seats, red carpets and lots of shiny bits et al - because ... well ... that’s what art centres are ... isn’t it?

So even though 70 per cent of Australians think that the arts should be “more in tune with Australia’s’ multi cultural society” at last count, we just continue to ignore them and keep putting the most boring and out of date culture we can find in front of them. No wonder they think the arts are “elitist”!

The whole phenomena of performing arts centre development, construction and management in Australia is a story of hands on, direct government control of culture. Of course this control is necessary if Australia is to be retained as an “outpost of European Culture in the Asian Pacific” (to quote Howard). Citizens (colonists) must not be allowed to move towards independent thought, there must be a system that trains and conditions the population in acceptable cultural frameworks and which allows them to be dragged back in should their imaginations drift into non-colonial waters.

Controlling the collective imagination through the application of cultural power is a time honoured process - for more on this see Hitler and Stalin and for the really serious contemporary analysis see Foucault or Chomsky.

NB: this is not to say that some staff in Australian arts centres and galleries are bad people, in fact the reverse is true. The majority work hard for and on behalf of artists and communities they serve, and they often achieve fantastic programs, projects and events despite the system they work in. It’s the system I’m after, not the individuals caught up in it. These individuals could really excel given half the chance.

What can be done? I would advocate the small but highly effective Australian independent arts centre sector as a model.

The independent centres have grown out of communities not been imposed on them. Always governed by independent Boards of Management elected at AGMs by members, they have, almost by default, much more diverse, contemporary programs because they are linked directly to their local community. They are always friendly places to visit even though they are falling down, and most of all they are able to pick and choose their programs and their staff (and their architect if they get to afford one) on the basis of knowledge of the arts and response to audience demand rather than response to some twisted colonial bureaucratic compliance.

So I would hand over all the civic arts centres to community elected Boards of Management, while insisting that operational funding from government remain the same - with a regular injection of capital funds to compensate for all those civic centre capital works dollars drawn down from other than arts budget streams that assist in cyclical maintenance; all the money the independent sector hasn’t got - which, by the way, is why the civic arts centres always look clean and new and the independent ones are dirty and falling down. Or even if (God and Her Royal Highness forbid) the independent Australian centres were funded at the same level as the government centres they would also be able to advertise and market themselves far wider than they can at present. Which is why of course “mainstream” Australia, especially the media, has never heard of them - and why contemporary Australian culture is always so controversial when the mainstream stumbles across it. It just doesn’t look like “arts” because “arts” is what we have in our performing arts centres isn’t it? All that opera and ballet and that merry happy go lucky third rate Broadway with the occasional Pink Floyd or AC/DC tribute band thrown in to show we aren’t afraid of popular culture. (Hey! Did you know that Queensland Orchestra did a gig with that really groundbreaking Australian rock band Kiss a while back? Wow! Talk about orchestras getting new audiences and public money going on Australian culture - fantastic!)

The use that public arts centre money is put to could be decided by the public, not government. This is not rocket science. Most arts funding in Australia is government funding government. The independent Australian arts centres have been around a long time (well over 30 years in some cases), and rather like the Australian community radio sector they are directly and heavily supported by real people with real wants and needs: large audiences who feel culturally connected to the art that is presented to them.

Metro Arts, Footscray Community Arts Centre, Abbotsford Convent for example, have very little concrete, no red carpet, are not at all “elitist” but open and accessible. (NB Abbotsford Convent doesn’t get any government funds of any kind, FCAC and Metro get limited program and project monies at levels nowhere near similar sized civic arts centres.) They have consistent high attendances, diverse performances (yes, even including western classical form and a bit of tap dancing and oil paint now and again) and also lots of actual Australian arts Really? Australian arts? Yes ... really.