Jo Higgins

October 30, 2016

News, Musings

Alison Croggon on the arts funding crisis and the importance of criticism

Jo Higgins

October 30, 2016

News, Musings

In April this year I started working part-time at the Australian Design Centre, in the wonderfully nebulous, newly formed position of Creative Strategy Manager. ADC has been around for more than fifty years now – it began it’s life as the NSW Craft Council back in the 1960s and over the decades has made some extraordinary contributions to the craft and design landscape of Australia. The opportunity to contribute to the organisation’s development at a moment of re-visioning and to bring my ideas and experiences and passions for making and education and partnerships was too good to be true. And then three weeks later we were one of the 100-plus arts organisations to lose our four-year core funding from the Australia Council for the Arts.

It was like being sucker-punched.

Yes, I despaired for the organisation – but mostly, that instinctive, from-the-gut howl of despair that engulfed me was the feeling, yet again, that the arts don’t matter. And that by extension, the things I stand for, the way I see the world and the way I understand the arts to be a vehicle for critical discussion, enlightenment, learning and community also didn’t matter. As Alison Croggon writes so deftly and angrily and articulately for The Monthly, “Part of the exhaustion of being an arts worker in Australia is that our very existence is continually in public question.” She articulates the fibres of every thought and emotion from the last six months of soul crushing keeping on carrying on with extraordinary eloquence. I can’t recommend her article enough and implore you to read it in full here.

Because she says it so much better than I ever could, I have re-posted sections of it below. Because now more than ever we need to be championing every dissenting, elegant, intelligent, critical voice we can. Thank you Alison.

“Culture Crisis: The arts funding cuts are just a symptom of a broader malaise in Australia.” Alison Croggon, The Monthly, October 2016.

“The despair that characterises so much present discussion about our cultural future is about much more than money. What has been clear for years is that in general public discourse – as opposed to the preferences of actual Australians – culture is a trivial consideration. Part of the exhaustion of being an arts worker in Australia is that our very existence is continually in public question. Again and again, we have to assert presence and value. It is impossible to simply assume that culture is a common good: it must be constantly argued.

Outside the specialist world of arts discussion, Australia has two modes of talking about culture and art: the mockery from right-wing columnists who regularly attack artists (as well as other knowledge workers, such as scientists and university researchers), and the bathetic motherhood statements about art’s intrinsic worth that roll readily from the mouths of politicians. Art is considered a leisure activity, a luxury for an elite, an entertainment in the most reductive senses of the word, a value-free product.

Advocates even point out the economic benefits of a healthy culture, to combat the erroneous but widespread perception that it contributes nothing to the economic bottom line. (For the record, culture is a bigger industry than agriculture, and employs many more people than the mining sector.) But the danger is that these secondary issues become the primary justifications, erasing the reasons why culture actually matters.

Again and again, public discourse about art has taken the road of least resistance, preferring to shore up the status quo rather than to question, to expand, to educate, to inquire, to imagine better.

Criticism is a crucial part of making a culture. Critical discussion in all its manifestations – from the casual tweet to the considered academic essay – is the hinge that links an artwork to a public. Critique is what connects one work to another, and to the contexts – the histories and social meanings – that inform it. Argument is how we hammer out the value of a thing, creating over time a complex weave of consensus and disagreement. A healthy critical culture welcomes the new and strange, inviting those who might feel hesitant to step confidently into the rewards of not knowing.

Do we have this kind of public discussion in Australia? We do, but it scarcely exists inside our major media institutions. It’s fostered in small companies, on blogs, in forums and discussions that exist on the margins of mainstream discourse. Over the decades, our mainstream critical culture has failed to convince us – the public, our governments, even artists themselves – of the value of culture in our daily lives. It has failed to articulate why Australian art might matter as a public good, to individuals and to a broader society. And now, as Australian culture faces its biggest crisis, that failure is tragically manifest.

Under the newly constricted funding, small organisations and individuals – the sources of our most robust critique – are those who are most at risk. With a few noble exceptions, it’s always been those with the least institutional heft who have been the most outspoken. Indeed, small organisations and artists, rather than our well-resourced institutions, have driven almost all of the political heavy lifting in the turmoil of the past year. Just as the larger companies rely on the poorly funded independent sector to take the creative risks that generate new ideas and new talents, so the smaller organisations and individuals are those expected to stick out their necks to defend the whole.

It was grassroots-driven activism that had sparked a Senate inquiry, which attracted 2719 submissions from every section of the arts community, held hearings in every state and territory, and put the arts firmly, and for the first time, on the agenda in the 2016 election.

Likewise, our major media outlets have for decades relegated the arts to a fenced-off playpen, a subset of the entertainment section. The Walkleys, the premier awards for Australian journalism, have never acknowledged cultural journalism or criticism as they do, for example, the equally specialist journalism of sports coverage. In the newsroom, the arts have always been poor cousins, begging for space. The ideas that drive our best artists, the passion that informs their work and their desire to speak about this world, almost never make it into print or pixels except as bowdlerisation. There isn’t the space.

…..And yet we need a strong critical culture now more than ever.

The critic is the person who makes a major part of the public argument for culture. It is a critic’s job to discover and to advocate for new and exciting work, to estimate its success or failure, to elaborate its genesis, to call to account, to argue for worth and unworth. Ideally, the critic exists as part of a web of diverse voices, where differences of response can be adumbrated and explored. This dynamic interweave of argument is how a culture is made: as Mexican critic and poet Octavio Paz said, criticism is what makes connections and histories, a culture. Without criticism, what you have is just a whole lot of art.”

What It Means to be Me, Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo, 26 July 2015

Jo Higgins

August 2, 2015

Events, Musings

Kaldor Public Art Project’s pilot regional engagement program wrapped up last weekend. I’m elated, exhausted, proud and a bit overwhelmed by its success and all the very positive feedback we’ve received from the participants and various stakeholders.

Below are some images from the final exhibition, held last weekend at the Dubbo Regional Gallery, Western Plains Cultural Centre. The exhibition was opened by the Hon. Troy Grant, NSW Minister for the Arts and John Kaldor, director of Kaldor Public Art Projects.

Photos: Alex Wisser / Kaldor Public Art Projects

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ME.

There’s an immediacy and honesty to performance art that lends itself, perhaps more than any other form of art, to an exploration of what it means to exist in any one particular moment in time.

Over the last 10 weeks, seven rather extraordinary local teenagers have pioneered their own understanding of performance art as part of Kaldor Public Art Project’s Pilot Regional Engagement Program. This pilot, which has formed a central part of the wider education and public program for the recent Project 30 – Marina Abramovic: In Residence at Sydney’s Pier 2/3, culminates today in this very special one-day exhibition, What It Means to be Me.

Throughout the program, the participants have explored and tested ideas of presence, movement, the role of the body in art and how we interrogate and construct ideas about ourselves and about the world around us.

The seven works presented here express their very personal experiences and enquiries about love, misunderstanding, imagination, disconnection, social expectation, empathy and something of the magic of Marina.

In presenting these beautifully deft explorations of what it means to be them at this moment in time, they hope also to ask, what it does it mean to be you?

Artists:

Justen Beehag

Caitlyn Coman-Sargent

Grace Farmilo

Shanae Gosper

Kate Hagan

Clare Noonan

Sam Read

The Kaldor Public Art Project Pilot Regional Engagement Program has been supported by Arts NSW and the Federal Ministry for the Arts in partnership with Western Plains Cultural Centre and Orana Arts.

Lessons learnt: Kaldor regional progress report

Jo Higgins

June 25, 2015

Musings, Writings

It’s been six weeks since our Pilot Regional Engagement Project started and with two weekends of workshops behind us, it’s an interesting time to reflect on what we’ve learnt so far.

The invisible hours are the most important

Working with teenagers and in a community you’re not usually part of, there’s always a risk that no one will show up.

All nine of our participants did show up (and on time…) and despite not all knowing each other, they were quick acknowledged the uniqueness of the opportunity, which made for an immediately supportive group environment.

This couldn’t have happened without the many invisible hours we spent in regular communication with them, their parents, their teachers and the team at the Cultural Centre in the lead up to the first weekend. Maintaining that communication has so far ensured the retention and investment of everyone involved.

Image: Paige Williams / Orana Art. Courtesy Kaldor Public Art Projects.

Don’t assume anything

We had asked the participants to submit an introductory form outlining what they hoped to get from the experience so we knew before we arrived that most had little or no knowledge of performance art, contemporary art or Marina Abramovic.

So, the first day was dedicated to exploring what performance art is; what forms it can take and how it’s anything but theatre. We showed a selection of works from artists including Abramovic, Yoko Ono and Tehching Hseih and with each work asked the same three questions:

What do we think are the artist’s intentions?
What role does the audience play?
How successful is it?

Day two focused on autobiography, perception and identity construction. Activities included creating abstract self-portraits that were then analysed by the group and an exercise in response to Glenn Ligon’s series Runaways exploring how others see us and make judgements accordingly.

We had hoped that as a group they might be interested in creating works that explored the experience of being a teenager in regional Australia but discussing this particular experience only led to moaning about Dubbo. Eventually a more nuanced perception was negotiated but it reminded us not to assume anything. Especially when it comes to teenagers.

Amazing things can be achieved with trust

One of the risks in working with performance art is that its process of creation involves a lot of introspection, critical thinking and honesty. Which in turn, can generate the need for significant pastoral care.

Prior to the workshops we had been made aware of some existing mental health, sexuality and self-esteem issues, and while this didn’t alter the workshop activities we ran, it remains an on-going point of consideration in managing discussions and presenting ideas.

Several participants have since chosen to explore some of these issues directly through their work, which is a testimony to the level of trust we have built. It’s going to make for important, memorable performances – for the participants and the viewers.

Image: Paige Williams / Orana Arts. Courtesy: Kaldor Public Art Projects.

Work with brilliant people

Theatre Director Imara Savage spends a lot of time with the group taking them through basic ensemble training: how to be present, how to be aware of your body and its movement, how to listen to the energy of the group, how to avoid fidgeting and giggling and breaking focus.

Artist Lottie Consalvo, one of the 12 residency artists living on-site at Pier 2/3, joined us for the second weekend, and devised workshops that focused on the process of creation.

Amongst other activities, the group had to stare at themselves in a mirror for 20 minutes: they had to respond emotionally not descriptively, to a series of objects handed to them while blindfolded, and they had to sit and squeeze an orange for one minute while the rest of the group looked on.

Both Imara and Lottie listened to the group, respected them as individuals and earned their trust. This allowed us to push them out of their comfort zone, ask critical questions and importantly, give critical feedback.

At this stage in the project, many participants already have a sense of the work they want to create. That most of the group got to this point relatively easily reflects the importance of working with people whose personal skills as well as professional expertise best fit the audience.

‘Be’ there, even when you’re not

One of the issues with a regional pilot program is that there often weeks between workshops when nothing happens. To partially fill the void, we created a Tumblr page to document the project and to distribute material between visits.

Initially we hoped that the participants would also submit their own research, work, and ideas but so far that hasn’t been the case. See Point 2.

Regardless, it remains a useful way to share resources and images with the group, and to be present and available to the participants remotely.

You can see the blog here: www.kaldorpublicartprojects.tumblr.com

Connect – don’t exist in isolation

In every conversation about this pilot we’ve made a point to situate it within the wider context of Kaldor’s education and public programs but also specifically this current project with Marina Abramovic.

And so on Friday 3 July at 2,30pm, as part of the Upstairs Public Program at Pier 2/3, the participants will join Kent Buchanan, Curator from Western Plains Cultural Centre, in a discussion on contemporary performance art within a regional context.

This Sydney visit is a key moment in the project and an important public facing moment before we return to Dubbo for our next two weekends and the final presentation on 26 July.

Photo: Paige Williams / Orana Arts. Courtesy: Kaldor Public Art Projects.

This article was written for Museums and Galleries New South Wales in my capacity as Regional Engagement Coordinator for Kaldor Public Art Projects and originally published on 23 June 2015. http://mgnsw.org.au/sector/news/lessons-learnt-kaldor-progress-report/

Alison Croggon on the arts funding crisis and the importance of criticism

OTHER POSTS

What It Means to be Me, Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo, 26 July 2015

OTHER POSTS

Lessons learnt: Kaldor regional progress report

The invisible hours are the most important

Don’t assume anything

Amazing things can be achieved with trust

Work with brilliant people

‘Be’ there, even when you’re not

Connect – don’t exist in isolation

OTHER POSTS