WHATS ART GOT TO DO WITH IT?

When the Government recently released its plan for “arts and culture” it did not draw great attention. The document - “Amplify” - was not designed to make the kind of publicity splash that a Taylor Swift appearance at Eden Park might attract. I suspect I am in quite a small group of readers.

I read the plan because I had been struck by a report issued in the UK at about the same time entitled “The Public Value of Arts and Culture” written by a very prominent progressive economist Mariana Mazzucato. This report argues for integration of arts and culture policy as a central part of wider economic and industrial policies.

When we do move past the current tide of destructive and ill-considered government dismantling activities, as we assuredly will, it is of vital importance that our new industrial, sector and national development policies have breadth and depth beyond simplistic and limited cost/benefit studies. That will include social issues but also cultural development.

The arts and culture sector accounts for about 4% of our GDP and after some ritual nodding towards grater engagement the Minister in his introduction gets quickly to the real point “how can we fundamentally make more money to create sustainable jobs in New Zealand but also grow exports”.

Everything is in service to the Atua of GDP. As it was when the Prime MInister recently happily agreed that he is “prepared to see schools deferring arts and music curriculum to raise achievement in maths and reading”. If you narrow everything to a “relentless focus on economic growth” you may still not get growth (as we have seen) but you will certainly get other areas of failure.

As Mazzucato points out “economic growth has not only a rate, but also a direction”. A very important insight which she deepens to “arts and culture, both as a sector and as critical in storytelling and identity formation across society, help us to reimagine what direction we want to move towards, and the values that the economy should serve. To misuse a Dylan lyric only slightly “it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord but Its gonna have to serve somebody”.

If we approach arts and culture in a way which pays too much attention to their economic multipliers (impact analysis anyone?) this obscures strategic and societal value or as she puts it “reflects a market framing which ….has depoliticised and commodified culture. “This narrow frame has not only failed to secure sufficient investment or legitimacy for cultural policy bit also sidelines the contributions of arts and culture as essential infrastructure - a space to create meaning, participation and long term vision”. Not like new military hardware, roads of political importance, or carbon subsidies you might well think.

To recover from and succeed beyond what we currently experience we will need to take a much more positive view of people and the economy which should be serving us. Mazzucato points to including arts and culture significantly in economic strategy and design; measuring and valuing with dynamic appraisal tools how they contribute and , critically, to invest in cultural development ecosystems. Such an approach would as she quotes the economist Keynes (first chair of the British Arts Council ) “give courage, confidence… opportunity … (and) enjoyment”.

Pretty decent aims those. For the economy as well as the arts.