What next for the Arts in the UK?
The Boris Johnson government has made it clear that it is unwilling to support the Arts in time of crisis, so what does that mean for the future of the Arts as we know it?
Everything about the Covid-19 situation and the Arts makes for grim viewing. You don’t have to try very hard to find a statistic about the importance of the Arts, or about how much money the government is pumping into saving everything worth saving in the UK, yet when you can find scathing reports like this as close to home as on the actual UK Parliament page then you know there must be something wrong. This report alone has some astounding statistics and facts about the arts, for example that more people attend the theatre per year than a league football match. It is profoundly obvious where the government places its priorities. This is further compounded by such public shows of faux-virtue-signalling, like the Marcus Rashford school meals campaign, where the government essentially tried to pay him off with an MBE, only to then refuse the support that they had U-turned on a few months earlier. Robert Hewison gives a great analysis of the fake broadsweeping attempt of the Culture Secretary to tell us its all okay here.
What seems insane about all of this is how blindingly obvious the support that is required has been for some time. Noone ordered an international crisis, but it has to be the job of the state to help. Reports from the summer about grave warnings from the sector were left for so long that many who would have benefited from imminent support were long gone by the time the caravan of aid limped onto stage left, only to find that it was three scenes too late and all of the audience had left. The idea that this only affects the proverbial Fatama’s that do ballet as a pastime completely overlooks the cultural nourishment that the world gets from all artistic expression, let alone the industries and jobs that it brings. You might not like the bleeding-heart artists, but the jobs that cinemas, nightclubs, the media, theatres and even shops bring all stem from art. No film equals no cinema; no fashion means nothing to buy. Trying to get all artists to apply for teaching jobs is a very small fix that would fix the problem for about 30 seconds, and longterm what would they actually be teaching?
So aside from the politically charged stuff, what can artists and even the general public do to help? Trying to be a standalone artist is hard enough normally, as every artist would attest, without the minor hassle of a global pandemic. In a micro way you can do everything you would have done normally: support grassroots arts locally in your local pub, university or streetside. This unfortunately though only has the possibility to help the artists that don’t need infrastructures like theatres and halls for orchestral practise. As artists, we need to be innovative and beyond all else optimistic. Use the internet, write, plan, research, make! Simply put, if there is no solution forthcoming from the government the only way that Art will endure is for everyone with any interest in it and love for it continues to create. The state is not willing to help here.
When I write about music I try to keep music separate to politics where possible, because it is easy to convolute the main issue a lot of the time, and the broader social impact and context are more important, but with the UK situation, it is almost as if there is a war being waged on the Arts by the government. You cannot separate that, and you cannot ignore it. This is a situation where you cannot get away from the politically charge stuff.
Sam Marshall is a freelance musician, writer and reviewer based in SW UK.