The fourth and final challenge to arts and cultural policy identified in this monograph is whether arts and culture requires a specialist policy approach or whether it should underpin government policy as a whole. In recent years, there has been a trend towards whole-of-government (or ‘joined up’) approaches to cultural policy as part of the broader definition of culture and its scope in everyday life. Yet the question needs to be asked as to whether this has undermined the integrity of cultural policy as a distinctive domain of public policy.
The answer appears to be yes and no. In some ways, the whole-of-government approach has been counter-productive and reactionary. In the area of traditional and elite arts there has been a return to forms of traditional patronage models or what might be called neo-patronage (old wine in new bottles). But in other arenas, there has been a proliferation of forms of art and culture outside the sanctioned domain of government agencies and largesse. Examples include physical theatre, digital media, multi-media, cross-platform visual and performing arts, indigenous art and performing arts, ‘ethnic’ and community artforms, ‘street’ and youth arts, and so on. These forms of culture resist patronage and often occupy spaces outside sanctioned cultural domains. They tend to be cost-effective, sustainable and even profitable as well as merging (or making irrelevant) the distinction between creator, audience and consumer.
These new forms of arts and culture perhaps pose the greatest challenge to existing policy rationales and options. The combination of changing public perceptions, trends in cultural participation and recent patterns of investment, support and partnership in art and culture have created a demand for models of cultural support that are based on community and creator-generated strategies of cultural enervation and exploration. Critics of such new policy approaches, however, warn of the limits to a policy framework driven by cultural democracy and popularity (e.g. Lammy 2006). Nonetheless, fractures within the conventional cultural policy community, together with challenges from new players, make re-thinking the tenets of arts and cultural policy a priority.
Much contemporary cultural vitality and energy is occurring outside the traditional arts and culture political framework and increasingly challenges the philosophy underpinning it. Examples include circus (physical theatre), new media arts, youth arts, performance culture consumed outside official parameters (CDs, DVDs), sub-cultures, community groups, amateur artists and performers, and electronically networked/produced/consumed arts and culture. These diverse examples of arts and culture are informing the development of active citizenship and cultural competence on various levels — local, regional, national, sub-cultural and global.
In the face of this challenge from below, some arts organisations have acknowledged the need to step outside their comfort zones and redefine the ambit of ‘the arts’ in contemporary society and social change. As Jennifer Bott said, in her last speech as the CEO of the Australia Council:
If the arts are to impact on all Australians, it needs to enter communities of interest — and draw government, media and corporate support. For that to happen, we need to put culture not at the end of the value chain, tacked on ‘if and when’ funds are available, but right at the start — and the heart — of community building and engagement, where it belongs. (Bott 2006)
But such rhetorical commitments run counter to real trends evident within the Australia Council. While its budget has doubled in a decade (from $72 million in 1996 to $152 million in 2006) largely in order to fund the major performing arts companies, its outreach capability has been compromised and engaged boards of community arts and new media have been cannibalised. As mentioned earlier, the appointment of former AbaF head Kathy Keele as CEO of the Australia Council signals a commitment to pursuing business models of support. It seems, once again, that little ‘a’ arts (popular cultural forms) is a useful rhetorical tool to trot out on occasions but culture still resides in the big ‘A’ end of privileged artforms (performing arts, visual arts, literature).
There is, however, abundant evidence that ‘culture’ is not the privileged domain of elite academies. Elite interests do not exercise a natural monopoly over arts and culture. In fact, arts and cultural practice (and consumption) thrive outside Culture’s hallowed spaces: elite galleries and performing spaces. Broad-based culture is increasingly and insistently impinging on orthodox and elite sectors. Even so, traditional elite arts and culture remain privileged recipients of government support justified as the articulation of symbols of civility, cultural competence and international visibility. Yet, while audiences and consumers for elite artforms are declining, audiences for prosaic arts and culture are blossoming.
Perhaps, because of the pervasive reach of culture and media, participants in and consumers of everyday culture are confident about defending their choices and celebrating prosaic culture as the real backbone of community identity and sustainability. Yet, there is still a divide in policy terms between community cultural development and elite cultural subsidy.
When Raymond Williams (1976) defined ‘culture’ in his seminal book, Keywords, he noted that its earliest use was in the horticultural context of animal and plant husbandry or ‘cultivation’ (caring or tending). While later uses went on to emphasise self-improvement and intellectual, artistic or spiritual development, our present cultural trends suggest that contemporary culture has embraced earlier notions of cultivation amid a wide spectrum of competing definitions (Bennett, Grossberg and Morris 2005).
But there is still a divide between those arts linked to self-improving civilisation and those linked to survival civilisation. Most commentators continue to make a distinction between the latter (e.g. folk art, mass art and various natural traditions) and the former transnational institutions of art that connects the artistic practices of urban centres around the world (Carroll 2007:142). Governments, too, reproduce the divide in their contradictory mix of policies.
It seems that, if governments want to avoid endlessly retreating to patronage forms of support, then it is imperative that they re-think the basis of arts and cultural policy and develop coherent strategies for further development. This is the challenge if we are to revitalise government responsibility for, and commitments to coherent arts and cultural policies, thereby allowing culture’s ‘garden’ to flourish.