Christopher Varley (photo by Ken Straiton)
In her recent open letter to the arts community, the Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts, Michelle Chawla is preaching to the choir, and the choir has heard her sermon many times before.
The “arts sector” has been in “crisis” since I entered the field in the mid-1970s.
As this is a call for sustained public funding, she should have given the beneficiaries a better story to take to politicians and the public. What’s her proof that the sector adds $60 billion to the economy and provides more than 850,000 jobs? In what way is the sector continuing to “transform,” and how will public funding help it to become “more sustainable?” By sustainable, does she mean less reliant on public funding?
Most of my aging cohort is appalled by the naivety and condescension that drives so much of today’s publicly funded programming.
How do the arts provide Canadians with a “sense of belonging” and help to “bring us together to talk about difficult topics that might otherwise divide us”?
Most of my aging cohort is appalled by the naivety and condescension that drives so much of today’s publicly funded programming. Is this how the “difficult topics” that reputedly divide us are supposed to bring us together? Fat chance.
The Canada Council itself does a lot of this sort of shadow boxing, setting criteria based on top down assumptions about people's vantages and sense of self. Of course it’s supportive, but it’s also meddlesome.
Furthermore, should the “arts sector” be framed as such? Don’t attempts to hive it off as something separate and distinct from other sectors reinforce stereotypes of special privilege and status, rendering it more vulnerable to attack by fiscally conservative and populist politicians? Isn’t she sticking a target on its back?
If I’d been in Chawla’s shoes, I would have placed more emphasis on civic pride, quality of life, and tourism, and celebrated diversity of opinion and practice rather than focusing on “difficult topics that might otherwise divide us”. ■
PS: Worried you missed something? See previous Galleries West stories here or sign up for our free biweekly newsletter.
