Categories: heritage-and-art, social-policy, ranting
Date: 25 June 2009 20:17:47
Carolyn Arends has this article about why the arts matter, even in a recession, in the current edition of Christianity Today. It is an article which makes several important points about why the arts are important. She argues, from a biblical viewpoint, that we are created to participate in the arts....made in the image of a creator God. From here though she moves on to more sophisticated arguments about the inspirational aspect of art and how it reminds us of the transformation which is possible...and the way new realities can be formed. She also highlights the way in which art is a part of the fight against injustice....giving us a faith in unseen realities.
The truths she speaks in this article are important. As we inevitably face public spending cuts....and the recession increasingly sends people looking for scape goats....arts projects run by "do gooders" and associated, often incorrectly, with liberal political correctness will be in the firing line. This is going to be true in the Prison Service aswell as elsewhere. Yet over the last few years, I have heard some truly amazing stories from those working within community arts of the transformative power of these projects. As Arends says the arts really do have the power to transform realities. They have often have educational and / or community building aspects to them which cannot and must not be under estimated.
Within the article Arends is referring to "high culture" primarily, with the exception of folk...which is itself now generally middle class. However, if we look back to previous recessions we can see that one aspect is exciting DIY art movements often arise out of periods such as the current one. The power she refers to in relation to art being a tool in the fight against injustice is real. It also, and this is an aspect she doesn't pick up on, can act as an agent of escape.
This means that we need to support artists during the recession but also we need to nurture the use of art as a means of expression. This is again why I believe continued funding in community arts projects is important. We should not just be encouraging people to become consumers of art....more importantly we should be encouraging them to become participants in the production. Art and creativity is, as Arends points out, a broad category which incorporates music, visual arts, storytelling, poetry, etc, etc. It can also operate on so many different levels ranging from the heart stopping professional performances to the enthusiastic amateur's effort which might not be about to attract much praise but which has given huge enjoyment and fulfilment to the producer. It is something which transcends boundaries of class, gender, sexuality, disability, age or ethnicity. We might all have different tastes in art, but in some form or another we all appreciate it. So it is, as you can probably tell, that I wholeheartedly agree with the article.