Australia

New ideas so often come from the darnedest places, as Marcus Westbury notes in the latest Griffith Review.

Cultures emerge from the spontaneous, temporary nature of human motivations, passions, interactions and enthusiasms. They often form in rebellion and opposition rather than by deliberation and design. They are unique and idiosyncratic. They result from adaptation and evolution, and they have a tendency to be strongest in the places where no one is looking or particularly wants them to be.

I completely agree. It’s the niche, the thrill of creativity reacting against whoever that needs support. But how – given the focus shifts so easily – and how – given the creation so often forms in reaction (to something)?

Global cities increasingly aspire to cultural prestige for its intangible aura and because they believe it will drive economic growth.

Cities invest in this stuff for a bunch of reasons – cultural capital, potential economic return, etc. The big things need that support and they’re easier to support, being institutional like the government.

When Adrienne Goehler, Berlin’s former senator for arts and science, was out late last year she said a relatively small investment in local scenes (for example, local bars/galleries that aren’t priced out of the market and can then experiment with music, art or other performance) is more effective in attracting young, creative scientists, technologists and artists than huge investments in supermarkets, research facilities and so on.

Should the funding model be a little less bureaucratic and a bit more entrepreneurial: e.g. Kiva, Zopa?

As if that wasn’t a headline waiting to happen.

Western Sydney community arts manager Lena Nahlous hinted all was not as it seemed with the 2020 Summit creative strand when she appeared on Canvas last Sunday morning. Nick Pickard’s article in today’s Crikey makes it explicit, saying the Initial Summit Report censored ideas discussed and included ideas never broached.

Oz theatre reviewer (and writer) Alison Croggon said:

Some points seemed disappear completely in the process: among them, a strong call for rethinking public broadcasting and the issue of responsibility towards climate change. Others surprisingly appeared: when Mr Rudd mentioned summer schools, the entire Creative stream went blank (“summer schools? who said summer schools?”) More generally, some concerns never quite made it to the whiteboards: a major oversight in the general debate was the digital gaming design industry, supposedly an area slated for discussion.

That shift came up in Pickard’s piece too:

What has amazed the delegates is that the initial report somehow changed ideas like develop “closer links between industry professionals and schools” into “Creativity Summer Schools”.

“No-one ever mentioned summer schools,” Crikey has been told by another delegate. “And the first time I heard about the Indigenous proposals was when the report was released on the Sunday.”

This is not to mention the contentious idea (also published in the initial report) which proposed that creative endeavours be funded “through a 1% creative dividend from all Government Departments for expenditure”.

“Everyone in that room knew that Queensland had tried that idea and that it had failed. I don’t know how that got put forward either,” the delegate explained.

Pickard’s source noted it wasn’t all negative:

“The summit has created a motivated group of diverse people who realised that we all have a lot in common,” another attendee has told Crikey. “Everyone realised that other people outside the stream were saying they needed the arts.”

Another attendee, the prolific (check his CV) Marcus Westbury, posted a blog entry saying much the same thing a week earlier.

Meeting people. The summit was a rare opportunity that brought together a wide range of people from across the creative, arts, cultural sector. Contrary to popular belief we don’t all hang out together all the time – particularly outside of narrow artform communities. It was both inspiring and practically quite useful to meet those people, realise that several issues cut right across the boundaries or artform or medium and begin to pull together a bit of a community going forward.

Understanding the power of symbolism has been crucial to Rudd’s government. But with this and the frankly bizarre delineation between gay unions and straight marriage – I’m married and certainly not “before God” – the government is showing the first signs of stumbling.