(soft music) - Hello, welcome to the Arts First podcast, dedicated to promoting freedom of expression in the arts and arts for art's sake. I'm Wendy L, convener of the Academy of Ideas Arts and Society Forum. And my co-host today is writer, designer and podcast editor, Niall Crowley. This is our second episode and we're just feeling our way. So please do bear with us and send us feedback. Our aim is to keep the episodes fairly short and pithy to peak your interest in the issues at stake in contemporary arts and culture. - In this episode, we focus on what the landslide labor victory might mean for arts and culture in this country. Artists Rachel Jordan talks to some artist friends about their expectations and their anxieties under a new government. - Then our critic, Jeja Chalsworth, leads a conversation with special guests about the labor party policies outlined in their document, Creating Growth, which asserts that people make art policies don't. But is this just a pop out from giving arts needed support? - Just before we start, we want to applaud the National Gallery of Scotland for resisting pressure by activists to break their funding partnership with investment manager, Bailey Gifford. In the last podcast, we talked about the risk that random activism poses to cultural institutions. When these institutions cave into pressure, it puts the will of a small minority above the democratic principle of freedom of expression. It silence artists who disagree and make the arts less accessible to the public. So we commend the Scottish National Gallery's decision, putting the long-term needs of the art first. By the way, if you want to follow up on any of these items, you can check the links in the podcast notes. - And if you haven't subscribed already, please do, and please tell your friends. You can find us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Podbean, SoundCloud, and we'll soon have our own YouTube channel. So on to the main topic of today's podcast, what labours recent landslide victory in the general election might mean that the arts and culture sectors in the UK. First, culture's the based artist, Rachel Jordan, talks to three other artists who share their thoughts and reflections on this. - Thanks, Niall. Yes, I talked to three artist friends, Jane Kelly, Nigel Adams, and Anna Berry about this. I asked them about the state of the arts right now, what impact a Labour government might have on the arts. - How would you describe the current state of the arts in the UK? - I think it's in free fall, and this has been going on for a long, long time, certainly through the last government. It's now being noted in private eye quite a lot. They're talking about the, well, people have noticed because the music, the Arts Council is defunding national orchestras, defunding, they defunded the Welsh National Opera, which was very successful. And the Opera House in London, which had international recognition as now being crippled, basically, and are being forced to leave London. There's no interest now in becoming a nation without the arts. We've got in the visual arts the rise of the curator as activist and artist as activist, rather than as just a person performing from their own talent. - I've seen funding cuts happen. I've seen the closure of the place I ended up working at for seven years. I used to work at UCA, University of Creative Arts, Rochester. - I think it's been pretty dismal for the last few years. There's a kind of closing down and a kind of slightly grim, insidious ideological lockstep, lots of one-dimensional art focused around identity and oppression, often by basically the same fairly middle-class people with nice lives who aren't in any credible way oppressed. So it's kind of basically the same people that have always been at the centre of the art world, engaged in a kind of surreal larp. But when you're in what is tending towards an almost totalitarian environment, where in terms of the uniformity, if this is the only art that's shown and this is the only art you get funding for, then it acts as a pretty powerful nudge, essentially to funnel people into seeing themselves and their practise through this lens and producing more of the same. - So you see it as a self-perpetuating ideology? - I do, and I think a lot of people participating in it are very unconscious about how they're doing that. I think it is like nudge. I think it's a real behavioural nudge thing. - What do you think the impact of a Labour government will be on the art scene? - Politically, being on the left, they are going to side with the activists who mix up art with activism. I think they're quite happy with that agenda. It's gonna be difficult for them to tackle the Arts Council and say to them, look, we don't like where you put in your money. I would create too much, they would be entering the government into the culture wars. And I don't think they'd want to do that. - I guess the crucial question as well, there'd be any change in policy at places like the Arts Council or in the wider arts culture. And I do feel a bit do-me about that. I fancy Labour getting their hands dirty and revising. For example, the Arts Council's Let's Create policy before it's scheduled to rise in 2030. And although I think, proversely, the landslide will mean less necessity to capitulate to extremist factions in the party. I still think there's a substantial portion of Labour who buy into what is essentially the collapse of the left into neoliberalism with donning the mantle of extreme identitarianism and who tight this is progressive. And certainly in the wider arts culture, this is time to make it to a religion. And it's really talked about and pretty much every arts institution. - I would hope be hopeful they might fund forms of education. Personally, I'm having my doubts. I think they are obsessed with industry and work. They are like a lot of these things like, if you like politics has been hollowed out. It's simulated politics. The reality of the Labour Party and the reality of the Conservative Party is neoliberalism. And whatever you smooth on the surface, it's just something to make voters feel comfortable. - The fact that usually artists are seen as being left wing. So where do you think this situation leaves artists who aren't pro-labour? - Left and right wing are kind of a bit irrelevant. I think in most of my lifetime, that's the paradigm that's been relevant. And now it's an incredibly exciting time to be alive because we're seeing a huge paradigm shift in politics. And I really think that the kind of axes of relevance are do you take a materialist analysis or do you take a narrative critical theory analysis? And also, are you authoritarian or will you stand up to authoritarianism? And of course, those things are very linked because as soon as you're starting to get people to say various kind of critical social justice mantras, you're going to require a lot of authoritarianism to force them to do it. So at the moment, values that 20 years ago might have been considered left wing are now being taken up by the right and the left is sort of slipped into a place I don't recognise. And there's a lot of people like me whose values haven't changed who were kind of pretty far left even 10 years ago and now get called Nazi bigots even for having exactly the same value system. So, you know, I can't even begin to engage with the idea of particleical stuff. And I think we're in this place where most people, and this has been a bit of a kind of a dystopian epiphany for me because I guess I thought most people's politics were like mine and that there was an underlying set of ethics. And if your party was like all hurtling towards a cliff or whatever, you'd be like, hi guys, you know, got to stop, we're going in the wrong direction. And actually, it's not, it's just black cats white hats. The people have wedded their identity and their sense of being a good person to being of the left. And then it almost doesn't matter how, you know, being evil the left gets, they will literally follow them off that cliff. And that is terrifying, you know, that lack of, well, the zombification of it is essentially terrifying. - So, in terms of Labor's attitude towards arts, I don't know, it's a difficult one for me because I know lots of sort of left wing people and lots of socialist people. I think a lot of people imagine that I'm left wing. I'm fundamentally an anarchist. So, my attitude is, is I don't trust authoritarians. Generally, I will participate in elections and things like that because it's my choice to do so, but I don't feel any great optimism with the way the system's set up. So, I don't find strong ideology and art to be a very comfortable mix because there is this sort of authoritarian aspect behind it, it's controlling aspect. I always feel that art is one of the true forms of rebellion since it kind of broke away from the church and the wealthy since artists started doing art for what they wanted to do. It's become one of them, or it became one of the most subversive things you can do. And it's a way of going across the whole left, right, opinion thing because it's a third entity, which is why, for me, my primary motivation in making art in these days is to find that third space where I don't have to be polarized from someone so I can either make them laugh or I can make them ask questions or I can confuse them. And that creates an interesting space where anything can be questioned. - Thanks Rachel. I found those observations really thought-provoking. Now I'll hand over to JJ Charlesworth to take a look at the Labour Party's policy promises and what we can expect in the coming years. Joining us today are special guests, Kunli Ola-Lodi, the Director of Voice for Change England with a long-standing interest in arts development and Alka Siegel-Kathbert, an educator, author and campaigner, currently Director of Don't Divide Us, the UK's common sense voice on race. - So, with the new Labour government newly elected, what lies in store for the arts, cultural and creative industries, it's probably fair to say that the cultural sector has always been more positive about Labour governments and Conservative ones. So, after 14 years of Tory administration, those in arts and culture are keen for a change. Change seems to be on everybody's lips. The reality has, of course, not been great for many who have depended on public and state funding for the arts. Funding to the Arts Council has declined in real terms throughout our sporting years. And more recently, cuts to local authority funding have started to have a significant impact on whether some arts organisations can stay open. This, of course, coupled with the ongoing effects of inflation and the broader cost of living prices, this puts their Australian on what arts organisations are available to produce. But the issue that exercises the arts sector are bigger than just money, I'd argue, because since the pandemic, the arts have been increasingly sucked into what are often termed culture wars. Cultural controversies, which many in the arts have accused the Tories of stoking. From the furious rouse over gender ideology, arguments over museums and how they represent Britain's history, arguments over colourblind casting and TV shows, the cancellation of artists for merely expressing their opinions, and the more recent protests and activism against corporate sponsorship of cultural events, the arts and cultural life have never seemed more politicised. It's safe to say that arts and cultural policy barely figured in the general election campaign. So now with the Tories out, what do we know about Labour's intentions? With the new culture secretary Lisa Nandy now in post, you might take our cue from Labour's recent policy document, creating growth, Labour's plan for the arts, culture and creative industries. What's in it for the arts economy? But more importantly, does it have anything to say significant about how Labour sees the value of the arts in British society? And does it even try to acknowledge in any way the politicisation of culture, the disagreements and debates currently raging? It's maybe a sign of things to come that Lisa Nandy chose her first speech as cultural secretary to declare that the era of the culture wars is over and seemed happy to double down on the idea that it was the culture wars, creating division rather than the culture wars being the product of people disagreeing with each other about what's going on in culture. For too long, she said, for too many people, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves as a nation has not reflected them, their communities or their lives. This is how polarisation, division and isolation thrives. In recent years, we found multiple ways to divide ourselves from one another. So we can see maybe the hints of a shift in tone and approach from this new Labour government, possibly not all positive, but I'm going to turn to our gathered panel and see what they found in this document and also in some of the more recent signs, announcements, indications of where we might be going. Couldn't they? I'm going to start with you. Did you find creating growth, riveting and inspiring document for change in the arts? Well, it's an interesting document. Certainly has got all the right buzzwords. I've read it and I was still, for me, trying to get into the meat and substance of the arts community. It came across to me like a very well-drilled managerial document, the sums of money that the arts sector generates in relation to the economy seems to be the byline of the document, that this is an important sector. It makes us loads of money and we should acknowledge that and find out ways where we can stimulate even more economic growth and well through the policies that are outlined here. Although, of course, being from both an artistic and an economist background myself, like most people, the first thing I tried to look for was where the cash is and how things are going to be paid for. And, of course, it seems to be very light in that regard. I'm not surprised and I make that as an observation, not a criticism. I think for a new government coming in, first of all, you've got to establish what's on the books in terms of money, but I think that a document like this could have been a bit more inspiring and could have been a bit more focused on the kind of connections that without doubt, I think in your introduction, you pointed out that the view of people is high expectations of this government. I'm thinking back to the Blair years and Cool Britannia, the Gallagher Brothers at Downing Street. Are we going to see a repeat of that? Although, of course, the Gallagher Brothers bitterly regret ever stepping foot in Downing Street now. But I think that the optimism that's been generated through the election and certainly, I think, in the arts sector, quite rightly, people should be coming forward with some demands. The flip side of this, of course, is the relationship with the private sector and I think there's still a debate that still has to be had out, to what extent should this thing actually support the arts? And where, for me, the document actually doesn't really address that at all. I think that's quite important. - I'll care. - I suppose coming at it from a more, I suppose, philosophical infliction. What struck me was that in many ways, this seemed to be very much taking up the baton set by Tony Blair's government, particularly, I think, in 1997, when the Department for, was it national heritage was changed to the Department of Culture, Media and Sports, which has a much more technocratic managerial, bureaucratic field to it. And I see nothing different in the current Labour government's document. What was spectacularly missing from it, for me, was any richer sense of either art as part of the public culture or art as something in keeping with an expanded notion of, if you like, individual expansion of the mind and imagination. There's a lot of talk of individual benefit. I mean, thank them, debonair, bless her, before she lost her seat, writes in the, you know, the first line about the intrinsic value of the arts, which I think is about the only time that's mentioned. But her idea of the intrinsic value of the art is, you know, when you remember the first song you played at your wedding, or the first film you took your kids to, that's a very, you know, that's very much dismantling the boundary between anything, any notion of higher or high culture and everyday culture. So for me, it's quite Palestine and continuing a trend that's well entrenched across both parties, I think, but was I think initially set up primarily under new Labour. - I definitely agree with you that there's a sort of incredibly sort of land and an exciting notion of what arts and culture is, and I totally agree. With those points, it just doesn't seem to really do very much else or very much more than what was already kind of set out by the previous Labour government. And that's a long time ago when we think about it. And so that kind of template for the attitude of government to culture, which is that peculiar mix of on one hand, celebrating it as a kind of financial and economic driver and benefit. And on the other hand, a very kind of diminished and individual level notion of what arts do for people, as well as talking about it as a kind of social cohesion, something which will enable or encourage a better sense of what we are as a nation or this, you know, there's a little bit of that in this, but primarily it seems extremely bean counting. It seems like a real manifesto for being really cautious and tinkering with very low expectations of what's possible in the sector and the governments or the state's responsibility or duty or role in having a say in that matter. I think Rachel, I wondered if you found that what was more interesting was what was in as opposed to what was not in it. - Yeah, I think that's a good point, JJ. In my mind, I've been calling it the policy document of a mission because as Cunley also said, you know, you're sort of looking for the big commitments to funding and there isn't really anything to be found. Also, they're talking about creating opportunities. I mean, anyone could say they're creating opportunities, but you know, what does that actually mean? I think the other thing is on the ground, I'm an artist and I'm in an art studio building and I have talked to a few other people. I wouldn't say there is that much optimism. People are already saying, well, let's... Well, basically we do have to wait and see, but essentially I don't think, you know, the fact that again, the omission, the fact that in the electoral campaigns, there wasn't really any talk of what's gonna be changing for the arts with the new Labour government. So people aren't really clear as to what to expect. - Wendy? - Yeah, I mean, I feel that the document is kind of dull. I always look at these glossy documents and I expect them to be glossy on top and quite dull and mundane inside and it's sort of fulfill those expectations. And I agree that I don't think the art vector, even though they're on side with Labour, I don't think they're expecting very much. I think they expect, you know, they all know the coffers are empty, no money's coming their way. So I think that in a way, the bigger debate is really what is going to happen on the culture wars fronts because there's the big denial there from Lisa Nandi and that denial suggests that they are not gonna deal with anything at all, that has a culture wars character to it. And that's very worrying from the point of view of freedom of expression. One of the questions I don't, whether it's appropriate to ask here, but maybe in the longer term, which consider is like, there is a dynamism within the arts despite everything. I mean, I think theatre at the moment seems to be really fantastic, a lot of it. Maybe not the mainstream West End or national theatre so much, but there's a lot of small theatres doing some really interesting things. So it kind of gives me hope that artists can plow their own fur despite the government, but obviously they'd like to get a bit more support if they possibly can. And the problem with that is the support is likely to become more conditional rather than less so. - I mean, let's be this drill in a little bit because there are a few demands made of the sector in there, certainly in terms of, I mean, it's quite peculiar of some of the things that are flagged up as like amazing, you know, earth shattering policy sort of objects. But it's a bit indicative of this kind of like low temperature kind of tone of the approach. I mean, for example, you know, labour that they'll require, publicly funded national museums and galleries to increase their regional and national engagement and loans to public spaces. So we want to take art to schools, hospitals, town halls, community centres and shopping centres, as well as local museums and libraries. And this is off the paragraph, which bemoans the fact that many kids, many school kids and many others, cannot afford to travel even to their nearest national museum or gallery. So there's an incredible, and then another kind of major, supposedly major announcement is to ensure that national museums and galleries allow everyone to download high resolution images of works of art that are in the public domain. I mean, these are pretty minor initiatives that kind of speak to a lack of ambition surely. I mean, I think that that's what's kind of worrying to see straight off the bat because these are things that most institutions could, could and already are doing. And are mostly start, you know, things like that are stymied not by a lack of will, but either the lack of money to send kids on trips or, you know, technical and legal issues about say, copyright and how that's managed. So there is a bit of a, I mean, I have to say, you know, I don't want to underplay how dull this is, but I also wonder whether some more kind of radical and exciting and possibly sort of problematic things slip through the net whilst we're slightly asleep. Alka. - I don't think there's anything really positive about this at all. In many ways, it just seems like what New Labour did, but with even less vigor. I mean, there will be no Gallagher brothers emerging from this. You can be pretty sure. For example, I mean, they're offering a space to create, which is the first national cultural, infrastructural map, but a map of what exactly? I mean, New Labour had a programme that up to me at the time, I supported and would continue to support, which was the Renaissance in the regions, which was very much based on that idea of the major metropolitan museums, you know, taking, sharing their works, possibly some that were in storage around the regions, which could be the basis of a really nice programme if it was rolled out systematically with thought and with care. But I don't know what's happened to that. And so what they're talking about now just seems like a watered down version of that. And you're not even sure that that will happen, but we will have a map of what is more likely what is not happening and where it is and is not happening. A little more will be done about it, I think. - Again, just like reaffirming the slightly sort of unbelievably sort of low energy aspect to this, is that, you know, the cultural infrastructure map stuff is about surveying where culture happens and hoping that it won't close down. This is, I mean, this is quite scary stuff in a way. You know, we also nurture fledging art spaces and defend existing grassroots music venues, art galleries, pubs and sports pitches by exploring whether protections for cultural infrastructure within the planning system would be appropriate. You know, these are quite, it's a slightly worrying point to suggest that the state is going to have to manage even like independent by informal grassroots on the street culture. - I agree with that. I mean, and to the links back to what Wendy was saying about there being some good things happening on the ground in theater. I mean, I would agree, but that in a way that that's kind of, that will happen. The point is, is what's happening on the bigger public stage. And I think Lisa Nandi's words are really telling about the culture was, because when she says for too long, too many people, for too many people, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves as a nation has not reflected them or their communities or their lives. And unintentionally, she's exposed what this whole culture was thing is about and why they're not going to do anything about it, right? It's a national narrative that is being judged as being exclusive. And so what would be promoted, those arts which have an ideological message that is anti-nation, that it will be promoting identitarian affiliations. So I don't think that bodes well at all. I mean, not just politically, but I don't think for the arts either because it's cutting, it's even further removal of artists from the very rich results of their tradition, which they could use, which could to provide to create more fruitful, beautiful beings. I think in terms of the culture wars, we have a strange situation in which black is presented as white, white is presented as black. So when we talk about who initiates the culture wars, it seems as though those that have initiated it, are the ones that are also declaring that it's at an end. And I agree with Alka, that there's a sense of absolutism in terms of the direction things are going, that it's no longer going to be a debate. It's going to be about, well, this is what we think. And of course, without getting too personal with Lisa Landy, when she stood for the leadership of the Labour Party in the electoral contest against Jeremy Corbyn, she stood on a trans rights slate in a very peculiar manner, just coming out of nowhere. My kind of interactions with her in the charity sector have been very much looking at the transfer of power between the south and the north. And I think given the number of research reports that have also indicated the disparities of expenditure between the south and the north on the arts, I would be looking to see probably quite a transfer of resources, northwards, which would also call and validate certain political terrain as well. This is still though not concluded. And I still feel that any attempt to impose certain ideas around the cultural wars will itself invite more discussion and debate in terms of the direction of things, particularly I think in the education sector. - Yeah, I mean, I very much agree with that. I think it's important picking up a couple of those points that the idea that maybe there's going to be a tendency to try and kind of tuck decision making and policy kind of priorities away in unelected or lesser accountable bodies, I think is definitely in there. I mean, I think one of the most alarming kind of coded lines in the document is their review of their supposed review of the Arts Council. One of the focuses of which is how the arm's length principle is working and how decisions about arts funding can be protected from short-term political expediency. Now that's a really kind of loaded term because it's again saying, well, actually, the Arts Council should be left alone. It should do what it wants to do. And it pretends, again, I agree with you currently, there's a sort of inversion of what's going on, which is to say that there's no politics in the Arts Council and it's only meddling which preview from the Tories perhaps, that was the imposition of short-term political expediency. Now, if you couple that with also the kind of stuff about talking to the mayors and of course there's going to be a big push to transfer a lot of accountability towards regional government, local government. And on top of that, I think the point about funding is quite serious because actually the only thing that Labour seem to have on funding is to actually produce yet more essentially public-private partnership, right? That's a scary bit, you know, the way that they want to work with the sector in quotes and all the public funders, investors and donors to create a private finance model, right? In which capital would come from a variety of sources, catalyzed by a modest amount of government investment and including contributions from philanthropists, corporate foundations, social investors and trust. So we're going to get less, it's probably less and less money, but there's going to be a lot of kind of unaccountable meddling that puts it strongly. But what I think we're getting at is the idea that policy about some of these kind of quite serious controversies and arguments is going to be shipped out to people who you won't have much of a conversation with and you won't be able to kind of, you know, intervene or take the task basically. I think that's sort of an interesting kind of subtext in all this. Jumping in on the Arts Council, I think it is already very ideologically driven. So it's already gone so far down that culture wars line that one wonders, given the way that Lisa Nandi and the Labour Party want to ignore culture wars, it's very unlikely that they will really take the Arts Council up on that, I think, in their review. - I would just also consider Wendy's point in relation to how historically the Arts Council came to be in the first place was a very explicitly political act. The idea, you know, in post-war of engagement with working-class witnesses in high arts was something that was common currency, general feeling, that things had to be made more accessible and better or working-class communities. We seem to have ended up at this point with a much more narrower interpretation of what access to the Arts actually means. I think that if anything, I do think that we are ripe for a much more extensive debate around the question of value and the quality and elevation of engagement of people in the Arts. So for me, that's really important. - Yeah, that's a really good comparison, couldn't we? Because what that tells us is that there's politics and there's politics, so the political kind of impetus behind the original establishment of the Arts Council was obviously, it would have been inflected and infused by the wider politics of that day, which would have been a social democracy in its sort of earlier stages, which had a higher democratic content than we have today. And you can see that, you know, what access to the Arts is going means already, but I think this will be doubled down on, is what it says in the document. I mean, it is honest. I mean, it says, the remaining social barriers to participation in the arts, culture and creative industries. So all three are categorized as one thing. So that everyone can enjoy them as an artist, author, performer, reader or an audience member, which is, you might as well just say, you know, just live your life and you're enjoying art. Sort of, it's an entirely anti-realist conception of art, really, it denies it has any reality at all, rather than everyday lived experience, really. So, I'm sorry, I'm sounding very pessimistic, but I genuinely don't see, certainly no hope from this document or the Labour Party for the arts. - One of the things the Labour, the document really sort of highlights is the idea that the arts should be moved from being a luxury to necessity. And I think this is a highly problematic statement because the arts are a luxury, you know, it's really people who have surplus wealth can enjoy the arts. The thing is that we should all have access to the arts as a surplus luxury is something that we do in our free time, free from necessity. And the idea of the arts becoming a necessity really reduces arts to just the most basic aspects of existence and that is absolutely antithesis of what the arts are. So I would just maybe like to end on that point because I do think this is a very problematic policy document. - So it looks like the general mood is not optimistic. As it seems we were suggesting that we're gonna get a government that is going to try and pretend that the last 14 years never happened. And in fact, those areas of the arts and culture that depend on the state and also much of the rest of culture shouldn't be up for debate in terms of the way in which the arts are evolving. So we'll just have to see and keep a close eye here at the arts first podcast gang how this is going to shape up in the next few months. Thanks everybody. - Yes, thank you everybody. There's going to be a lot to talk about over the coming year. So that's great. Thank you. (gentle music) (gentle music)
